On the subject of auctions, it shouldn't be allowed to have "bidding starts at $1" only to have the seller to come back with "sorry didn't meet reserve". If there is a reserve that's where the bidding should start.
I agree with you EGS If DP offers us the opportunity of a free marketplace, what for promote other forums/services?
Reserve is a price that only the seller knows. Just like on ebay, bidding may start at 99cents, but if at the end of auction the reserve is not met, the auction is closed. To start at reserve is a bit weird? Hey, my reserve is $300, so let's start the bidding there. Yeah right! Same with BIN (buy it now). Should be stated clearly in all sales, unless it is to be sold to the high bidder at a set time.
How about if you make it so auctions have to be labeled as a "Fake auction" (ie offsite auction), or "Real Auction" (ie dp auction), and then just have the fake auction posts display after all the real auctions are displayed.
Receiving private bids in PM is fine IMO. You sometimes have to respect buyers privacy, maybe for some reason he doesn't wants everyone to know that he purchased a site. We have sold site worth 5k without even a single post of buyer in the thread. If you want to confirm a private bid, you can post a message in thread, and if the private bidder feels comfortable he might confirm the bid to you via PM as well.
Thank you for agreeing with me, guys, and providing useful suggestions and feedback towards my suggestion. Hope the greenies was enough thanks for you! Now I am just waiting for Bubba Shawn's reply to this matter.
I agree that it would be best to have the auction here only, but I doubt it will be a rule for it, its against the spirit of the web.
Someone get Bubba Shawn's attention towards this thread because this thread has been totally ignored, and all the replies so far have agreed with my suggestion.
All these problems would be sorted if DP had its own separate auction system. Which would request BIN, Increments, Reserves etc.. to be pre set.
The prob would be solved if d.p would clearly mention in the t&c that you are not allowed to sell or auction at diff places.
Like everything this has its ups and downs but im gonna side with the ups... even site point has banned listing listings from other forums... the problem is when people go like "oh someone in another forum outbid you by PM" , how can u trust them? heh... easy to inflate the price and lie... also can set an invisible reserve... always.