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eBay explicitly bans AI "buy for me" agents in user agreement update

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Re: eBay explicitly bans AI "buy for me" agents in user agreement update

#81

Post by giobox »

BeetleB wrote: post #32
whyenot wrote: post #12

So scraping bots and “buy for me” bots are bad, but the incredibly annoying sniping bots are OK? That sure feels like a double standard.

I never understood why eBay set things up to enable sniping. Many years ago, there was an auction site called uBid. They had the sane rule: Bidding is open as long as there have been bids in the past 5 minutes. So the end date could be January 24th, 3pm, but if someone bids at 2:58pm, the deadline is extended to 3:05pm. And it keeps going. You know, like how auctions in the real world work.

This is how the popular car auction site bringatrailer.com bidding process works for cars sold on their site too, a quirk of which is that it makes watching the end of the auctions live online kinda fun, especially given the discussions that break out in comment section on each car up for sale while folks nervously watch the current candidate for the final bid cool down.

Much like your example, in the two minutes before the end of the auction, every new bid placed extends the auction clock by another two minutes, the winner hasn't won the auction until two minutes have passed with no further counter bids.

> https://bringatrailer.com/how-bat-works/

Re: eBay explicitly bans AI "buy for me" agents in user agreement update

#82

Post by drum55 »

Nextgrid wrote: post #50
drum55 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

eBay is hyper aggressive about fingerprinting, they will catch things like it trivially. Browsers leak all sorts of information like what sockets are open on localhost, making yourself look like an actual person is very challenging to someone motivated to detect you.

LLMs don't need browser automation though. Multimodal models with vision input can operate a real computer with "real" user inputs over USB, where the computer itself returns a real, plausible browser fingerprint because it is a real browser being operated by something that behaves humanly.

Sure, the cost of that goes way up though, especially if it has to emulate real world inputs like a mouse, type in a way that’s plausible, and browse a website in a way that’s not always the direct happy path.

Re: eBay explicitly bans AI "buy for me" agents in user agreement update

#83

Post by nja »

dankwizard wrote: post #58

Tried selling on eBay as a regular Joe lately? Item sold for roughly $190 and I lost $45 in fees - I didn't even have a premium ad or pay for any of the boosting. No wonder Facebook marketplace has destroyed them

As someone who hasn't sold on eBay in a looooong time but was thinking about it for some stuff I haven't been able to sell on Marketplace, their pages and pages of fee structuring were intimidating. What was the breakdown of that $45, if you don't mind sharing?

Re: eBay explicitly bans AI "buy for me" agents in user agreement update

#84

Post by ryandrake »

jsmith99 wrote: post #74
nutjob2 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you enter your maximum bid in ebay you're revealing it. With sniping no one can discover your maximum bid. The 'nibblers' will invariably show up and bid small amounts until they exceed your maximum bid, while not revealing theirs.

It's a second price auction. Who cares what their limit is. If it's more than the value of the item to you then they will win. Otherwise you will win.

Exactly. I could put $100,000 as my max bid, but if second place only bids $10, then all they know is I bid $11 (or whatever the increment is). eBay doesn't tell anyone my max is $100K.

Re: eBay explicitly bans AI "buy for me" agents in user agreement update

#85

Post by JohnFen »

Fwirt wrote: post #76
jsheard wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the point of sniping bots when eBay has automatic bidding? Counter-sniping is essentially built-in, if your price ceiling is higher then a snipers then you're guaranteed to win even if they bid at the last millisecond.

This was my belief for many years, but then I tried sniping (with the same prices I was putting as my maximum bid before!) and my success rate skyrocketed and the prices I was paying dropped. It seems that despite repeated reminders and explanations, there are three groups of people using eBay "incorrectly" that make the sniping strategy viable: 1) People who do not understand proxy bidding and think that they "need"…

> For some reason, auctions with more bidders seem to attract more bidders, whereas auctions with zero bids seem to go unnoticed.

Huh. I'm a "buy it now" guy and filter out the auctions, but maybe I should start looking for zero bid auctions too.

Re: eBay explicitly bans AI "buy for me" agents in user agreement update

#86

Post by dankwizard »

nja wrote: post #83
dankwizard wrote: post #58

Tried selling on eBay as a regular Joe lately? Item sold for roughly $190 and I lost $45 in fees - I didn't even have a premium ad or pay for any of the boosting. No wonder Facebook marketplace has destroyed them

As someone who hasn't sold on eBay in a looooong time but was thinking about it for some stuff I haven't been able to sell on Marketplace, their pages and pages of fee structuring were intimidating. What was the breakdown of that $45, if you don't mind sharing?

Sure,

I listed the item as $185.00 + $10.00 shipping.

Order total = $195.00

- Transaction fees = $32.44

- Postage label = $14.65

Postage I can understand.

Re: eBay explicitly bans AI "buy for me" agents in user agreement update

#87

Post by pwg »

dankwizard wrote: post #86
nja wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who hasn't sold on eBay in a looooong time but was thinking about it for some stuff I haven't been able to sell on Marketplace, their pages and pages of fee structuring were intimidating. What was the breakdown of that $45, if you don't mind sharing?

Sure, I listed the item as $185.00 + $10.00 shipping. Order total = $195.00 - Transaction fees = $32.44 - Postage label = $14.65 Postage I can understand.

And, at least in the US, eBay charges their "final value fee" percentage on the order total (the sale price plus the shipping price paid by the buyer). So if the item has a 3% final value fee (the percentages differ across different categories of listings) then Ebay got $0.44 of additional fee from your $14.65 of shipping you paid to the shipping service. And there is no option to obtain a rebate on actual shipping paid, even if one purchases the shipping label from eBay themselves.

I suspect they (eBay) do this to avoid folks listing items for $1.00 with $194.00 shipping to avoid paying eBay any fees.

Re: eBay explicitly bans AI "buy for me" agents in user agreement update

#88

Post by krackers »

ryandrake wrote: post #84
jsmith99 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a second price auction. Who cares what their limit is. If it's more than the value of the item to you then they will win. Otherwise you will win.

Exactly. I could put $100,000 as my max bid, but if second place only bids $10, then all they know is I bid $11 (or whatever the increment is). eBay doesn't tell anyone my max is $100K.

I think the reasoning is that people are irrational, and people don't actually have "hard limits' so others will bid in increments to exceed it. So in aggregate you will end up hitting your max more often because of others' irrationality than if it was a sealed auction and you don't give them that chance.

Re: eBay explicitly bans AI "buy for me" agents in user agreement update

#89

Post by mmsc »

pishpash wrote: post #33
BeetleB wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood why eBay set things up to enable sniping. Many years ago, there was an auction site called uBid. They had the sane rule: Bidding is open as long as there have been bids in the past 5 minutes. So the end date could be January 24th, 3pm, but if someone bids at 2:58pm, the deadline is extended to 3:05pm. And it keeps going. You know, like how auctions in the real world work.

There is no need for that. They only need to implement a closing auction like stock markets. But eBay hasn't done anything since the 1990's except raise fees.

Nothing? Don't forget when their security team sent pigs heads to people and terrorized them:)

Re: eBay explicitly bans AI "buy for me" agents in user agreement update

#90

Post by lazylizard »

Fwirt wrote: post #76
jsheard wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the point of sniping bots when eBay has automatic bidding? Counter-sniping is essentially built-in, if your price ceiling is higher then a snipers then you're guaranteed to win even if they bid at the last millisecond.

This was my belief for many years, but then I tried sniping (with the same prices I was putting as my maximum bid before!) and my success rate skyrocketed and the prices I was paying dropped. It seems that despite repeated reminders and explanations, there are three groups of people using eBay "incorrectly" that make the sniping strategy viable: 1) People who do not understand proxy bidding and think that they "need"…

another group..

i am looking for a bargain not a bidding war. i dont know what is my price ceiling but i know i will only increment twice. if someone outbids me instantly twice in a row i dont want the thing anymore.

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