Thread: Winning on Ebay

I don't like the term 'win' in an ebay auction. When I email the seller I never say I 'won' the auction. To me that would imply that I would be getting the item for free. I always say I am the high bidder.

There are two (maybe more) schools of thought on starting an auction at no reserve with .99 cent opening bid as opposed to a reserve or a high opening bid. On the one hand if it is no reserve but a high opener many may watch it .....or ignore it. A very low opener people are more likely to throw in a bid as they are not feeling threatened should they end up the only or the highest bidder.

If a seller knows his product and is selling something like a reaper or a clean Wonderedge he can start it low with no reserve and be confident that it will bring a good buck. OTOH, someone like Artifacts100 prices his stuff ridiculously high. How he ever sells anything is beyond me.

I have two friends who sell tobacco pipes on ebay on a regular basis. One uses a low opening bid with a reserve and sells his pipes at ridiculously high prices. The other starts at 0.1 cents or something like that and gets high prices anyhow but he has developed a following and sells consignment pieces usually.

Presentation is everything on ebay. Good pictures with the enlargement feature and a complete description go a long way. Both of the fore mentioned sellers have their auctions end on Sunday at around 8PM USA central time. They feel that at that time more people are home and perhaps on there PC then at other times.

[I am going to bed at 3 AM almost every night to follow auctions on ebay.com ]

To be honest, I don't use a sniping program. I'm way to cheap for that. Bob Keyes aka Altima55 told me about them. I speak to him quite a bit, He's a great restorer and a pretty nice guy once you get to know him. He's retired and uses Ebay as a supplement to his meager retirement. If you bid your max, Then, No Worries. My point is simple, Why in the Hell, bid up an item 5 days out. surely, you must agree, this makes no sense. When I started Ebaying, long ago, for Harley Parts, A friend told me who's very good at it, Don't get into a bidding war with someone, you'll just jack up the price. wait until the auction is just about over and place the maximum you want to spend. Sounded good to me. No one's arguing about what an item is worth, or what someone is willing to pay. It's just smart shopping. Why are people stupid enough to jack up prices a week out. Like that reaper that Ray is talking about. Don't you know someone is gonna place a nice juicy bid on it with less than 30 seconds left on the clock.:hm

I had a few nice catches on the Bay - swore more often for the seller was not shipping to the other side of the pond ;-) - but I refuse to enter outrageous bid to be sure to won the auction (too dangerous... you could find another bidding idiot doing the same and, while asleep, bid up to 500 bucks for a common piece).

I also stopped sniping; I find that this not useful for me. Indeed, I know always how much I am going to bid for an item... so it is of no use for me to bid the right amount 5secs before the end of the auction, when I know my price at the beginning of it.... and if somebody overbid me... that's it... like - I think - Lynn said: don't be sad, you'll always find another catch sooner or later.

And I also refuse to bid more than 70-90 bucks for the common ebay piece that needs to be sanded, cleaned, rescaled and sharpened (I have a few restoration projects - waiting for time and place - and none of them costed me more than 40 bucks)... when I can have in the classifieds or from other sellers, members of this very forum, nice restored razors with beautiful scales for 100 to 140 bucks, and even sometimes less (there has been very nice razors sold lately in the Classifieds for around 60 bucks!) But this is maybe why I am not winning many razors any more on the Bay ;-)

I don't use a sniping program either. I like the adrenaline rush of hitting the return key in the last few seconds. I agree with Ockham as to deciding what my maximum bid will be. That is one reason I snipe at the very end. I am not tempted to go above whatever my max is should someone outbid me.

The other thing is that if my max is say $110.00, and I bid early, the other guy may be of a mind to outbid me whatever it takes. If,OTOH, I send it in at the last few seconds the same guy may not have gone that high and I end up the high bidder. Lately when I get outbid at the end I am glad.

Originally Posted by Rajagra

Hmmm... Pushed past $250 by a bidder with a feedback of 3.

A good example of why not to get into bidding wars.

Ray,

What's a feedback of 3 mean? I'm not up on al the Ebay stuff...

Rich

Zip, I also share your frustration. Why do people bid up stuff with 6 days left on an item. I sometimes think they just wanto to see there name up there as "high bidder"

I dealt with a guy like this for years when I was buying Weatherby gun items.

ok this is how I feel about placing your highest bid on ebay. I have found that if you place your highest bid for what you are willing to pay for an item, You just open yourself up to paying exactly that much for that item because some one will come along and just keep bidding because they want to see themself as the high bidder.Some people may not even want the item that much but get so caught up in bidding and seeing if they can get it, I have done that myself and it's a rush, but the prices of stuff on ebay has gone out of control of this. I now watch items untill the last few seconds , and use a sniping program, I dont get aggraviated over this anymore .

Originally Posted by zib

Ray,

What's a feedback of 3 mean? I'm not up on al the Ebay stuff...

Rich

Not to put words in Ray's mouth and then quote him.... but I think he is saying that with a feedback of 3 you have little or no experience in the ebay techniques of sensible bidding.

Originally Posted by zib

Ray,

What's a feedback of 3 mean? I'm not up on al the Ebay stuff...

Rich

Feeback of 3 means that the bidder has probably won a total of 3 auctions on eBay (I guess that number could also include feedback on items he has sold as well).

So like Jimmy said it could just be someone new to eBay and maybe more susceptible to getting sucked into the thrill/rush of bidding war.

Or.

always the possibly of a "shill" account directly or indirectly connected to the seller in there solely to run up bids. (eBay does an ok job of looking for this but it's out there).