Rant: Bad Deals

[Hairy]

@Nick

The whole Bikehub pay thing.

Instead of offering it as an added option for a small amount, is there any credence (No clearwater or revivals please) in maybe just charging and even smaller amount for every add. The thought process being the wholesale usage of the service would cover the costs to similar or better than the current option only methodology?

 

[Meezo]

Trying to figure out who the hell is Hairy on a Davidson, then i realised o midlife crisis!

[Jewbacca]

7 minutes ago, Hairy on a Davidson said:

I have bought and sold a good bit of bike goods (Roadie and MTB) on here ... the only issue I have had is with "regular" users who I have cultivated a relationship who deliberately price their things to me at stupid pricing that I can not refuse and this in turn get's me into a little bit of trouble with the Mrs ............... so chops like @Chewbaccaand @Iwan Kempshould please stop making trouble for me please.

HAHAHAHA

I can't help it if my good deals draw you in like a moth to a flame!

Nico, one cannot implement cast iron rules in an open market. I get that you are annoyed, but the current market is price inflated and parts/bikes are like gold due to the global shortage, production being slowed, shipping being a mess etc..

It will balance out, but now is NOT a time to gripe about things unfortunately. I've said it before, try buying a wetsuit. Anywhere in the world. Medium and Large are sold before they arrive, average suits cost nearly double what they did 18 months ago and there is no old stock being sold off.

So it's not just bikes and bikehub, it's part of the pandemic.

I would suggest that unless you accept the current circumstances and market fluidity you are just walking yourself 10 steps closer to cancer.

Take a break from hunting the classifieds or order a bike from a shop. Hunting for what you believe to be 'fair' is obviously not doing you any good.

[BaGearA]

10 minutes ago, Hairy on a Davidson said:

@Nick

The whole Bikehub pay thing.

Instead of offering it as an added option for a small amount, is there any credence (No clearwater or revivals please) in maybe just charging and even smaller amount for every add. The thought process being the wholesale usage of the service would cover the costs to similar or better than the current option only methodology?

 

No chance they would even get 10% of the clicks they do now , and that hurts them doible as less people will see this as a worthwhile stream tl advertise on and the real cash cow Banner/google/generic ads will aslo get less interested 

[DJR]

1 hour ago, MudLark said:

Dunno. Bought and sold a few things through the Hub. Never had a problem yet.

Me too

[Nico van Loggerenberg]

20 minutes ago, Jewbacca said:

HAHAHAHA

I can't help it if my good deals draw you in like a moth to a flame!

Nico, one cannot implement cast iron rules in an open market. I get that you are annoyed, but the current market is price inflated and parts/bikes are like gold due to the global shortage, production being slowed, shipping being a mess etc..

It will balance out, but now is NOT a time to gripe about things unfortunately. I've said it before, try buying a wetsuit. Anywhere in the world. Medium and Large are sold before they arrive, average suits cost nearly double what they did 18 months ago and there is no old stock being sold off.

So it's not just bikes and bikehub, it's part of the pandemic.

I would suggest that unless you accept the current circumstances and market fluidity you are just walking yourself 10 steps closer to cancer.

Take a break from hunting the classifieds or order a bike from a shop. Hunting for what you believe to be 'fair' is obviously not doing you any good.

I'm aware of that increase in prices, and happy to pay a 'fair price' as defined by what the majority of things sell for. You might have noticed that many of these inflated bikes are on the hub for weeks, get renewed at exactly the same price, and have descriptions like 'no offers'. As much as I consider the majority of resellers only slightly above molerats, I'm not really talking about that.

 

I'm talking about stalking the hub, getting a good deal on something, and then having the seller go ahead and sell it off to someone else after everything has been confirmed and agreed. This hasn't just happened to me once or twice, it has happened to me every single time I've tried to buy a mountain bike this past year. This behaviour can very easily be curtailed through decent rules. If you've ever used Carbonite, or more intense, AVforums, you'll understand. A complaint or two of any severity and you face being banned, and if you're banned, you can't buy or sell because seller details are restricted to members. It's not a very hard system to imagine, but there is a severe lack of imagination (and understanding of systems) on this platform. 

Edited July 11, 2021 by Nico van Loggerenberg

[IceCreamMan]

1 hour ago, Nico van Loggerenberg said:

Weird then that it happens seamlessly on all the other platforms I use!

 

What exactly do the site owners/admins do on these other platforms to prevent buyers from reneging an sellers from selling to someone else?

 

my word…your word is always true in personal dealings 

[Matt]

4 hours ago, Nico van Loggerenberg said:

Buying on Bikehub has become an exercise in futility. Say, somehow, magically, you find yourself first in line for a good deal, before the leaches (sorry - resellers, apparently some smooth brain hubbers consider this business savvy). You're excited! A new bike to actually ride (not just take rubbish photos of, describe incorrectly and put a R15k markup on). Don't count those chickens - the likelihood that the seller actually sticks to their word and keeps it for you is lower than 20%, if my experience is representative. 

I am tired and angry of making a deal, confirming it verbally on the phone, arranging to pick up a bike at the most convenient time for the seller, and then having the seller message me and say it's been sold while I'm on my way. This is a serious lack of  honesty or sticking to your word.

This isn't even a hard system to correct. I've been active on forums for something like 20 years now, and without a doubt Bikehub is the worst of the bunch. Two simple tweaks would fix this: charge resellers a more significant sum to operate, levelling the playing field a bit, and use that money to run the site and ensure there is someone to moderate disputes. Two or three strikes and you're out. How is it possible that there are so many sellers with serious allegations against them and 1 star reviews running free? 

Yeah, Matt and the other admins are good with outright scams. Good luck getting a response on anything else - emails, direct messages, and the help chat have all so far yielded nothing more than radio silence. 

I'll throw an aside out here for the trolls that are sure to congregate: this has exclusively happened with mountain bikes. For some reason, the roadies seem like decent bunch in comparison. Perhaps it's because they're so used to huddling together to escape the wind that there's some kind of camaraderie. <new post from off-topic so it actually shows>

Firstly, apologies for the non-reply to your message via our help desk on this.

I think you're conflating a few separate issues here.

1. What constitutes an agreement
In many of the disputes we encounter the "agreement" between buyer and seller doesn't exist or in the absence of clear terms is viewed very  by either party. Not to say that is the cause of your experiences, but vague or unclear communication is often at the root of disputes of this nature. e.g. Where a buyer thinks they're first in line or the seller is not entertaining any other offer, but the seller never explicitly agreed to these terms.

Was there a mutual agreement in place with a set of clear terms? e.g. price, method and time of delivery/collection, inclusions/exclusions. 

2. Repercussions for buyers/sellers not sticking to agreements
Where issues arise around a sale that took place via Bike Hub or there was a clear agreement in place, the user rating system generally works well to address these issues. Poor ratings are a key signal for would be buyers.

You mention that there are many sellers operating freely with serious allegations / 1 star ratings against them. Provided the allegations are not of unlawful behaviour (in which case more serious sanctions may apply), is it not better to have this visibility of ratings vs. banning a user after X many infractions and risking them creating a fresh profile with no ratings? 

3. The ethics of re-selling
There have been numerous discussions over the years around the ethics of reselling. Our view on it is quite simple: while obviously some basic rules and standards must apply, overall the market will self-regulate around these dynamics. As a seller there are pros and cons of selling to an end-user vs. a reseller. Similarly as a buyer there are pros and cons of buying from an end user vs. re-seller.

Relating this to your post: it sounds like you've lost out on a deal or two to a re-seller. Looking purely economically that tells me that either the seller had significantly under priced the item or your offer was significantly lower than true market value (or a mix of both). If your offer was 10% more than the re-seller's offer would the sale have gone to you? 

Your note that this is less prevalent when dealing in road bikes is very likely linked to the far lower demand for road bikes in the market. i.e. buyers have fewer offers... less demand to drive up the price and less opportunity for resellers.

Where demand is high your offer will need to be good to beat out the competition. 




 

[Hairy]

31 minutes ago, Jewbacca said:

HAHAHAHA

I can't help it if my good deals draw you in like a moth to a flame!

Nico, one cannot implement cast iron rules in an open market. I get that you are annoyed, but the current market is price inflated and parts/bikes are like gold due to the global shortage, production being slowed, shipping being a mess etc..

It will balance out, but now is NOT a time to gripe about things unfortunately. I've said it before, try buying a wetsuit. Anywhere in the world. Medium and Large are sold before they arrive, average suits cost nearly double what they did 18 months ago and there is no old stock being sold off.

So it's not just bikes and bikehub, it's part of the pandemic.

I would suggest that unless you accept the current circumstances and market fluidity you are just walking yourself 10 steps closer to cancer.

Take a break from hunting the classifieds or order a bike from a shop. Hunting for what you believe to be 'fair' is obviously not doing you any good.

Like a moth to the flame .... that's the way love goes

 

[Nico van Loggerenberg]

6 minutes ago, IceCreamMan said:

What exactly do the site owners/admins do on these other platforms to prevent buyers from reneging an sellers from selling to someone else?

 

my word…your word is always true in personal dealings 

See above. There is a warning system, eventually leading to banning if not resolved. I've been on both sides of it, and it works. 

2 minutes ago, Matt said:

Firstly, apologies for the non-reply to your message via our help desk on this.

I think you're conflating a few separate issues here.

1. What constitutes an agreement
In many of the disputes we encounter the "agreement" between buyer and seller doesn't exist or in the absence of clear terms is viewed very  by either party. Not to say that is the cause of your experiences, but vague or unclear communication is often at the root of disputes of this nature. e.g. Where a buyer thinks they're first in line or the seller is not entertaining any other offer, but the seller never explicitly agreed to these terms.

Was there a mutual agreement in place with a set of clear terms? e.g. price, method and time of delivery/collection, inclusions/exclusions. 

2. Repercussions for buyers/sellers not sticking to agreements
Where issues arise around a sale that took place via Bike Hub or there was a clear agreement in place, the user rating system generally works well to address these issues. Poor ratings are a key signal for would be buyers.

You mention that there are many sellers operating freely with serious allegations / 1 star ratings against them. Provided the allegations are not of unlawful behaviour (in which case more serious sanctions may apply), is it not better to have this visibility of ratings vs. banning a user after X many infractions and risking them creating a fresh profile with no ratings? 

3. The ethics of re-selling
There have been numerous discussions over the years around the ethics of reselling. Our view on it is quite simple: while obviously some basic rules and standards must apply, overall the market will self-regulate around these dynamics. As a seller there are pros and cons of selling to an end-user vs. a reseller. Similarly as a buyer there are pros and cons of buying from an end user vs. re-seller.

Relating this to your post: it sounds like you've lost out on a deal or two to a re-seller. Looking purely economically that tells me that either the seller had significantly under priced the item or your offer was significantly lower than true market value (or a mix of both). If your offer was 10% more than the re-seller's offer would the sale have gone to you? 

Your note that this is less prevalent when dealing in road bikes is very likely linked to the far lower demand for road bikes in the market. i.e. buyers have fewer offers... less demand to drive up the price and less opportunity for resellers.

Where demand is high your offer will need to be good to beat out the competition. 




 

1. In both most recent cases, the seller admitted that in fact we did have an agreement, they just decided not to honour it. Not a case of poor communication, rather a case of poor morals. 

2. I would assume it's fairly easy to tell when a user re-registers, using either IP, email adresses, or phone numbers. 

3. Not a case of 'offering' - I agreed to pay the full asking price, no negotiation involved. Whether a reseller could make a profit on it or not is irrelevant, because the 'price floor' is set by the resellers, purely from a quantity point of view. A quick look at the volumes of mtbs sold would confirm this. On other platforms, a reseller jumping in and offering the seller more than the asking price, despite there being a pre-existing agreement with the first buyer, would result in an immediate ban for both. Yet, this is exactly what happened to me. If bikehub is an auction website, where the highest offer wins, that should perhaps be made more clear - my understanding was that agreeing to the asking price was binding. 

[Sid the Sloth]

55 minutes ago, Hairy on a Davidson said:

@Nick

The whole Bikehub pay thing.

Instead of offering it as an added option for a small amount, is there any credence (No clearwater or revivals please) in maybe just charging and even smaller amount for every add. The thought process being the wholesale usage of the service would cover the costs to similar or better than the current option only methodology?

 

At the expense of losing views and ad revenue I think the small cost would be higher than you would expect.

 

Edit: ignore me I should finish reading before responding...

Edited July 11, 2021 by Sid the Sloth

[6AL4V]

Nico, please name these unscrupulous 'rats' ... resellers so that they can be avoided like the plague !!

[Matt]

14 minutes ago, Nico van Loggerenberg said:

I'm talking about stalking the hub, getting a good deal on something, and then having the seller go ahead and sell it off to someone else after everything has been confirmed and agreed. This hasn't just happened to me once or twice, it has happened to me every single time I've tried to buy a mountain bike this past year. This behaviour can very easily be curtailed through decent rules. If you've ever used Carbonite, or more intense, AVforums, you'll understand. A complaint or two of any severity and you face being banned, and if you're banned, you can't buy or sell because seller details are restricted to members. It's not a very hard system to imagine, but there is a severe lack of imagination (and understanding of systems) on this platform. 

I'd be curious to know how they tackle those banned users returning under new profiles? Or are their permissions structures tied in with forum activity, i.e. you can only participate in buy/sell areas after posting X many forum posts? If I recall correctly both AVforums or Carbonite have a minimum post count requirement.

There have some suggestions from Hubbers over the years for a similar rule to restrict Classifieds access to forum posters with a certain number of posts. In a smaller forum-driven community it is a great approach, but practically it's just not a good fit for Bike Hub. 

With all of the above said, while it works reasonable well, we know there is room to improve the rating system on Bike Hub and welcome constructive feedback in this regard.

[Nico van Loggerenberg]

19 minutes ago, CraigT48 said:

Nico, please name these unscrupulous 'rats' ... resellers so that they can be avoided like the plague !!

Have a look through a few reseller profiles and see the 1 star reviews and what they claim

11 minutes ago, Matt said:

I'd be curious to know how they tackle those banned users returning under new profiles? Or are their permissions structures tied in with forum activity, i.e. you can only participate in buy/sell areas after posting X many forum posts? If I recall correctly both AVforums or Carbonite have a minimum post count requirement.

There have some suggestions from Hubbers over the years for a similar rule to restrict Classifieds access to forum posters with a certain number of posts. In a smaller forum-driven community it is a great approach, but practically it's just not a good fit for Bike Hub. 

With all of the above said, while it works reasonable well, we know there is room to improve the rating system on Bike Hub and welcome constructive feedback in this regard.

I understand your position on this and appreciate the engagement. Completely agree that a minimum post count or similar would not work on bikehub (AVForum takes quite a bit of work to actually get active on). I would still recommend some form of reporting or conflict resolution (warning system with one or two strikes, or temporary ban on the account / temporary stay on being able to access the website). This requires a more clear set of rules - for example, what happens if someone offers a higher number to a seller when a deal has been agreed on? Clarity of rules should really help this, and knowing that there is some recourse if you've been shafted. 

Secondly, it would be my recommendation that resellers are charged more for listing, and are kept to a stricter standard in terms of after-sales service. The fee goes towards helping run the conflict resolution system. I regularly see resellers charging three times what they paid for a bike. They can afford it. Remember, most of the people buying from resellers are first time buyers. They often don't know what to look for, and I have seen them taken for a ride first hand. The old hands would generally not go for those bikes anyway.

In addition, like on carbonite, resellers often offer some kind of after-sales service or short warranty. In this way, there is an extra benefit to buying from a reseller, and they start running something more like a legitimate business rather than the scalping of prices that most of them currently do. If I'm getting some peace of mind, then perhaps the extra price is worth it. This is something Bikemarket does well, for example. 

In short, you guys as the team need to decide what kind of environment you want this website to have. If it's just a marketplace, you will eventually lose out to the Mad Max world that is Facebook Marketplace. At the moment, buying a bicycle feels like a cutthroat and treacherous experience. It doesn't need to be. It's all down to the exact details of the rules and how they are applied. It's not a given of a market system that it has to operate like it currently does. When I see something I want on carbonite, I check the reseller or sellers rating, and if it's good, I buy it sight unseen, without a worry, and I have never had a single issue. 

[Matt]

29 minutes ago, Nico van Loggerenberg said:

See above. There is a warning system, eventually leading to banning if not resolved. I've been on both sides of it, and it works. 

1. In both most recent cases, the seller admitted that in fact we did have an agreement, they just decided not to honour it. Not a case of poor communication, rather a case of poor morals. 

2. I would assume it's fairly easy to tell when a user re-registers, using either IP, email adresses, or phone numbers. 

3. Not a case of 'offering' - I agreed to pay the full asking price, no negotiation involved. Whether a reseller could make a profit on it or not is irrelevant, because the 'price floor' is set by the resellers, purely from a quantity point of view. A quick look at the volumes of mtbs sold would confirm this. On other platforms, a reseller jumping in and offering the seller more than the asking price, despite there being a pre-existing agreement with the first buyer, would result in an immediate ban for both. Yet, this is exactly what happened to me. If bikehub is an auction website, where the highest offer wins, that should perhaps be made more clear - my understanding was that agreeing to the asking price was binding. 

My mention of offers and competing bids was in reference to the negotiation phase, before any agreement is reached. Reneging on a firm agreement is a poor show and I can understand your frustration around these deals.

Acceptance of an offer, i.e. agreement on a deal is viewed as being binding. Would we implement the same instant ban policy for behaviour this like other sites you use? For most instances, probably not. Should we consider harsher sanctions for repeat offenders? Yes, absolutely. 

There's a lot we can do around how ratings are used, for example what the implications are if aggregate ratings fall to a certain level. And there's a lot we can learn from the many platforms abroad who face similar challenges.

 

[BaGearA]

"Agreeing " with someone doesn't mean jacksh#t in the world we live in , making good on an agreement is A gentlemanly move and breaking it for a better price is a dickmove but get over it cause NOBODY cares that you're butthurt about it. I've been on both sides of this , i always followed through when i was the seller and lost a lot of items because someone offered more money.

 

Expecting life to be fair is like expecting lion not to eat you cause you're not eating it.

 

Thanks for listening to my TED talk...