Thread: Why Do People Bid on Ebay Auctions Days Before They End?

I don't understand this, as it just drives the price up. I'll put some razors on my watch list, and days out people start dropping bids. I have NEVER bid on any Ebay item longer than a minute to 30 seconds before it ends. Can you Ebay experts tell me why people do this? Am I missing something?

Thanks-Aaron

Aloha!

I understand doing this if there is a "RESERVE" and the reserve has not been met. If you and others are serious about buying it, until it hits the reserve, some will bid to discover what the reserve is set at. Some just message the seller and ask, "What's the reserve?". I've had bidders do this on items I was selling on the bay.

But you are correct. Bidding on items in advance with no reserve on the item only drives up the price pre-maturely.

Mahalo!

-ZipZop

I remember sellers ending the auction early if they don't see much activity or a prospective buyer makes them an offer. I used to place a low early bid and the high bid at the end.

I take a different approach when I post items for sale.

I post them with the STARTING bid already set at the minimum I'll take. i.e., if I were selling a Straight Razor that I'd sell for, say, $40.00 to someone, I'd post it on the Bay with a STARTING bid set at 40 bucks. If it goes no higher and someone waits until the last minute to bid $41.00 and wins, so be it. I'm happy. But most of the time, people bid ANYWAY in advance. So I end up selling it for around $50 or $60. This way I'd never cancel an item for sale because I already set the starting bid at a price I'd "reserve" it for anyway.

My style.

Mahalo!

-ZipZop

I bid what I'm willing to pay, whenever I see something I am interested in. If I win, cool; if not, that's cool too.

I'm too lazy to keep track enough to check on something that close to the end....

If it is something I want badly enough, I will wait and bid
at the end and place a monster bid. Although it has to be stupid nice pieces, My monster 16/16+ Greaves and sweet sweet large coti are evidence of that.

Originally Posted by dinnermint

I bid what I'm willing to pay, whenever I see something I am interested in. If I win, cool; if not, that's cool too.

I'm too lazy to keep track enough to check on something that close to the end....

If it is something I want badly enough, I will wait and bid
at the end and place a monster bid. Although it has to be stupid nice pieces, My monster 16/16+ Greaves and sweet sweet large coti are evidence of that.

That's how I do it. I know the top end of what I'm willing to pay, so I just place my bid. Easy enough.

I use a sniping app.
I place one bid I'm comfortable with for the item, set it for t-3 seconds and find out if I won when E-bay notifies me that I had the high bid.

If I see something I have to have I will put an early bid in. In the event of a tie, the early bidder wins. It has happened to me more than a few times.
If I really have to have it I will wait until 3 seconds and put my max plus $5 in. It's still a gamble.
Bottom line is who ever is the high bidder at the end of the auction will win. I have scored some nice razors cheap by bidding in the last few seconds.
As a seller I like to see early bidding. If I put an item up I start the price at what the minimum price I want for the item. I usually put a BIN price of what I would like to get.

I used to do the same thing until I was told by another member about snipping. I got caught in a shill auction and this solves the problem.
I was never able to follow auctions till the end, usually just forgot about them or the end time was overlapping with other activities.

My opinion on bidding, I bid with 5-10 seconds left. This leaves no time for anyone else to hum and haw about " should I put another bid in???? Awww, just one more." It eliminates that. When I do bid, I always bid what I'm willing to pay for that item, even if it's $300 over the current price. This has worked extremely well for items I really, really want.