"To Out" or "Not to Out"

[Bigdaddy]

So what's the purpose of 'not outing an auction'? Allowing someone to pay less than fair market value for an item? Artificially limiting demand for an item and therefore reducing a seller's income? Manipulating free market conditions?

I'm all for fair and efficient markets. The whole things sounds communist to me.

[steve B]

The purpose doesn't really matter does it?

What does matter to me is if something is listed oddly or in a place that's not obvious. Like lets say I list a bunch of stuff and forget to change the category so a T206 Cobb gets listed in the bicycle parts section of Ebay.

As a buyer, I wouldn't want the entire list to know about it. Even though many people use specific searches and it will probably bring an appropriate price anyway.
If it's in the baseball card section, out away, everyone who is going to outbid me - nearly everyone- has probably seen it.

If a card or something is in a small poorly publicized auction, that's something I'd like to keep fairly quiet.
That being said, when the auction I used to go to(now closed) had cards that I thought were a good fit for someone that I couldn't afford I did tell a couple people who I knew might be interested. Just not publicly

[Snapolit1]

Originally Posted by Bigdaddy

So what's the purpose of 'not outing an auction'? Allowing someone to pay less than fair market value for an item? Artificially limiting demand for an item and therefore reducing a seller's income? Manipulating free market conditions?

I'm all for fair and efficient markets. The whole things sounds communist to me.

The point is to steal something at a lower price because others would be interested it if they knew about it.