Thread: Winning on Ebay

Guys, especially new guys, Winning on Ebay is not rocket science, You can place your maxium bid and be done with it, and say, "That's it" I'm not bidding any higher" or you can wait until last minute, the smart way to win. There are actually sniping programs that will get your bid in with seconds to spare if you have no other tools. What I see and is just ridiculous is bidding up items with 5 days left in the aucton. The only one that wins is the seller. Why jack up an item. If you don't want to put the item in your watch list, then place a bid, any bid, Don't jack up the price of a normally 100 dollar item to 300 dollars. It's stupid. Bid Smart. Me, personally, if I see an item I want, I'll get it. I'll wait until last minute and bid what ever it takes to win it. But, I will not get into a bidding war with someone 5 days out.
The best place to buy IMO is the classifieds. I've seen razors worth maybe 75 bucks go for 300 bucks.
I'm thinking, Man, You could buy a Livi NOS or somthing nice. To top it all off, It's so hard to tell from PICS in EBay, I guess as long as you use Paypal you can get your money back. Anyway, What I'm trying to say is, If you bid on EBay as many of us do, Don't jack up the bidding 5 days out, We all lose..

Is there a particular item that prompted this? I don't spend much time on ebay so I'm curious.
But bidding wars is just part of ebay - it will always happen even if all srp members only snipe.
Once I read something about the psychology of various bidders on ebay, seemed to make sense.

If I was to guess I would say that this is the one.

Item number: 250382888328

No, Not one particular item. This is common place on Ebay as Gugi said. I usually look for particular sellers. I don't understand it, no matter what it is, why people bid things up with 7 days to go. it just makes no sense.

No, I saw the reaper. It looked OK, I don't know the seller however, If I wanted it, I'd bid a grand, and be done with it. Case Closed. I doubt it'll go for more than 400 in reality. Even that, why not wait until the last few hours? Doesn't it make sense?

If I put an early bid in it is a token bid. My serious bid is in the last few seconds. The advantage being I don't drive the price up. The disadvantage is that I don't have time to put in another bid if mine isn't enough. Then again , that is an advantage too.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

If I put an early bid in it is a token bid. My serious bid is in the last few seconds. The advantage being I don't drive the price up. The disadvantage is that I don't have time to put in another bid if mine isn't enough. Then again , that is an advantage too.

+1 Jimmy, That's exactly what I'm talking about. You think like I do. I'll place any bid just to get in, and then go for the kill in last minute. Why drive up the price....?

Originally Posted by Shooter

If I was to guess I would say that this is the one.

Item number: 250382888328

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

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

This always makes me a little curious... Why all the anti-seller sentiment?

I remember selling a Butcher on eBay to a guy who turned out to live in the same city as I did, so we just handed the razor off to avoid shipping costs. The razor sold for slightly less than I was expecting. Anyhow, I commented on how he got in just under the wire as I was unfamiliar with eBay. He told me he was using a sniping program that bids in the last five seconds and then sends a load of gobbledy gook to the server in order to try to prevent other bids from landing in the couple seconds after his bid went in.

As you can guess, my reaction was, "What?!"

Why isn't this frowned upon? I understand trying to get the best deal, but why does everyone seem to be out to screw eBay sellers? Is it that we've all been screwed on an eBay razor once too often or something? Why get so upset about bidding going too for you on a razor? There will be another, most likely exactly the same along in a month or less. Why get so angry about a seller doing well you need to rant to other people telling them to pay less?

Fair market value is what someone is willing to pay, right? If someone is willing to pay 250 for a razor, and apparently a couple people feel that way in order to drive the bidding up that high, have you considered that's the razors current value?

Originally Posted by Cobo

He told me he was using a sniping program that bids in the last five seconds and then sends a load of gobbledy gook to the server in order to try to prevent other bids from landing in the couple seconds after his bid went in.

As you can guess, my reaction was, "What?!"

Why isn't this frowned upon?

I've never heard of that (trying to overload the system) and I think 99%+ of ebay users would frown upon it.

If I was the seller and he had told me that before I'd handed over the goods I would tell him to shove off (only less politely), then reported him.

I do nothing to cheat sellers, I just follow good tactics to get the best bargain I can.

If everybody placed a simple bid of what they think the item is worth and let the proxy bidding system do its stuff there would be no need for any of this nonsense.

Maybe it's time for eBay to let us place blind bids on all auctions. I think a seller can already choose a blind-bid auction, but few if any use it. Not much chance of them a making such a drastic change I think.

well, trying to overload the servers is definitely against ebay's policy (i like to read such things before i click the accept button) and they'll likely suspend your account if they catch you.
when i win on ebay it's quite often around my bid, on few occasions it's been half of it and i was pleased with that no doubt, but as long as the item matches the description i'm happy if i win it even at my maximum bid.

actually once i played a trick on another buyer and bought something for 1c over his bid. I noticed he was the second high bidder on something i just won and he had the highest bid on another very similar razor from the same seller. i thought he may have had bid the exact same amount and placed a bid for 1c over that on the other razor. when i won it i thought it was really funny But that was just a one time experiment - i got the opportunity and it was too hard to resist.

i have personally witnessed few great razors sell for way under what they should be selling for (30+ watchers and no snipes too), and worse razors with worse pictures and descriptions sell for more before and after in the same week. i'm always puzzled at such behavior, seems like ebay bidders actually don't want a fair deal, but a wild gamble.

i don't mind paying high prices for good stuff, on ebay and in the classifieds. but i've noticed that i'm sometimes prone to taking gambles on ebay and they rarely end up well.

as far as sellers go i think they have plenty of tools at their disposals to get the price they want. there is a reserve option and there is a buy-it-now option, to say nothing about the opening bid. if a seller starts an auction at 0.99c and free shipping i'm willing to take this at face value, that they are actually willing to complete such transaction. but it seems the sellers are gamblers too....