Out bid on ebay yet again.

[greebozz]

I am a bit depressed swiched on my computer and found I have been outbid yet again. I am just to stingy with my bids, it is really starting to piss me off.

Don't get me wrong I am putting in sensible good high bids, I bet it is some rich collector hovering up the good stuff. The swine.:grumpy:

 

[ranger88]

It could be that the seller gets people to bid aganist you just to make you bid higher. Here's an ebay experience I recently had. I placed a bid on a wholesale lot of SAK's, Then someone placed a higher bid, so I responded with an even higher bid. This went on until I wasn't willing to go any higher. So the auction ended with me losing, but here's the fishy part. The auction had no sooner ended, when I recieved an Email stating that the wining bidder could not pay, and that I was offered a second chance to buy the items, at, of course, My maximum bid. A classic scam that backfired for the seller, because I didn't bite.

 

[bladeprince]

Decide the max you are willing to pay for the item. Type that in the box as your bid. Open another window and keep refreshing it to check how much time is left. When there is about 20 seconds to go, enter your bid and ebay will do the bidding in $1 increments for you, up to your max. I believe the technique is called "sniping".

Good luck

 

[ranger88]

Decide the max you are willing to pay for the item. Type that in the box as your bid. Open another window and keep refreshing it to check how much time is left. When there is about 20 seconds to go, enter your bid and ebay will do the bidding in $1 increments for you, up to your max. I believe the technique is called "sniping".

Good luck

Very Interesting.

 

[rifon2]

I've been seeing more sniping on ebay...sometimes in the last 5 or 4 seconds. It's getting crazy, IMHO.

And the auction price ends up being what they could buy it for at a retail dealer, sometimes even higher.

 

[Esav Benyamin]

That justifies exctly what bladeprince advised:
Decide the max you are willing to pay for the item.

Sniping is inherent in a system like ebay. It is an intelligent approach to bidding. Otherwise, you just sit there pushing each other to higher and higher bids, and in the end, even the winner is a loser.

Watch the bidding only at the end, and if it's not too high for that item, go for it.

An ebay winner:
someone who paid more than anyone else would
for an item that the seller didn't want. ​

 

[soa]

I use a site called snipeswipe.com.
I decide my maximum bid, and enter that, and the site enters a bid around 6 seconds before the auction finishes.
No-one knows I'm interested. The most I pay is my maximum bid.
Once I really badly wanted an item, and was willing to put a high bid on it - say $80. The eventual winner had been winning at $25, and ended up paying $81. I'm sure he was distressed, but I would have paid $80.

On another occasion, I got a Second Chance from a seller, was suspicious, refused it - and bought a similar item from him a week later for $20 less than the Second Chance.

For me, it's worth the around 1% I pay to have my snipes managed (I get email to tell me if my max bid is too low... in which case, I pass).

 

[DaveH]

It is an intelligent approach to bidding

I disagree in the case where you have to watch an item manually and bid at the last minute yourself, this is only worth while if your time spent messing with the auction + the price you payed, is still a good deal.

Automated sniping is a better idea.

OTOH, as has been noted, there are few good deals left on ebay, at least that are easily found, which means it costs you time again.

 

[soa]

OTOH, as has been noted, there are few good deals left on ebay, at least that are easily found, which means it costs you time again.

I sympathise with that a bit, but ebay is a service for buyers *and* sellers. Many sellers are now making a nice living out of ebay, as their shop front allows them to expose their tawdry wares to a wider array of the gullible.

Having said that, it is still possible with persistence to find the odd thing you want - just like digging through the detritus in a jumble/car boot/garage sale.

I've recently bought pens (Rotring) France,Leatherman Squirts (UK/US), a down vest(Gerry)US ; a camping lantern (Australia! mark you); a Seiko watch (UK).

All far cheaper than shops, some I had to bid for 30-40 sperate items. (as there were a lot of bidders who seemed to want to pay more than retail!)

 

[spyken]

just use esnipe. fire and forget.

 

[on_the_edge]

My experience with Ebay has been that they can barely manage to follow-up with someone who is clearly defrauding buyers, eg. some schmo who lists an item, collects his $, and then fails to deliver on the goods. With that in mind, my guess is that they are even less able to address the seller who somehow manages to push up the bids on an item he is selling.

I have seen used knives on Ebay go for more than what you could get them for as brand new in a store. I am not talking about hard-to-find stuff, but stuff that is readily available. Whether it's some kind of "feeding frenzy" phenomenon or the seller is pushing up bids on his item, IMHO, a lot of people fall prey because they are ignorant, lazy, or both.

Take the time to check product availability and price BEFORE you look at Ebay. If you are going to go look at Ebay, decide what you are willing to pay before you see what everyone else is willing to pay. That way, when you get to Ebay, you have a pretty good idea of whether your realistic in your acquisition hope or not. And for the love of God, hold your ground on your max bid. Unless it's a "one-of-a-kind", it's only a matter of time before the same item, or a similar one, pops up again.

Just my .02.

 

[db]

I guess I don't see what good sniping really is. Set your max you want to pay and stick to it. If it's more than the others will pay its yours doesn't matter if you snipe or place your bid early. I don't see any difference between sniping or placing a bid other than you may think you are somehow sneeking in under the wire but I don't think so.
edited to add...
no one has ever sniped away an item from me for less than my max bid.

 

[mycroftt]

I guess I don't see what good sniping really is. Set your max you want to pay and stick to it. If it's more than the others will pay its yours doesn't matter if you snipe or place your bid early. I don't see any difference between sniping or placing a bid other than you may think you are somehow sneeking in under the wire but I don't think so.
edited to add...
no one has ever sniped away an item from me for less than my max bid.

Sniping only works against those who don't enter their real maximum bid. I decide what my max is and enter it - I never go higher for any reason so sniping doesn't really work against me.

Most people don't have a clue what they are doing in the online auctions. The last thing I bought was a blues CD that started at $2.50 and had a "Buy Now" price of $5. There were a couple of copies with the same price. I set a max bid of $5 and some clown sniped it for $5.50 with like 6 seconds to go. I just went to one of the others and bought it for the 5 bucks. What a tool!

FWIW the CD was Roadmaster by Johnny Charles featuring Bill Holloman on Hammond B-3 - great stuff.

 

[Cougar Allen]

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[Parker]

I am a bit depressed swiched on my computer and found I have been outbid yet again. I am just to stingy with my bids, it is really starting to piss me off.

Don't get me wrong I am putting in sensible good high bids, I bet it is some rich collector hovering up the good stuff. The swine.:grumpy:

Greebozz, it sorta comes down to how much you are willing to pay for whatever you are bidding on - if you know that you are willing to pay $100 for some gizmo you will use and $100 is what it is worth to you, supposing there is some fetishist who has to have this thing and he or she simply is willing to pay whatever they have to for it?

If there is someone who wants it more than you, and this is determined really easily, by the price they are willing to bid, then why sweat it?

 

[rifon2]

I use a site called snipeswipe.com.

just use esnipe. fire and forget.

I'd been hesitant to use a snipe service - just didn't feel comfortable with it, somehow.

Also, I'd not known anyone using these services - and especially they ask for your ebay sign-in info, which they need - I guess - to bid for you.

But now with you two guys giving these particular services the OK, and what with the increased ebay sniping...

I'll have to look into this again.

-----------------

Sniping is inherent in a system like ebay. It is an intelligent approach to bidding. Otherwise, you just sit there pushing each other to higher and higher bids, and in the end, even the winner is a loser.
[/RIGHT]

Esav, you make a good point. And not only is it an intelligent approach - but it's increasingly becoming
the way the ebay game is played.

At least on the buy side.

 

[Triton]

Sniping only works against those who don't enter their real maximum bid. I decide what my max is and enter it - I never go higher for any reason so sniping doesn't really work against me.

Most people don't have a clue what they are doing in the online auctions. The last thing I bought was a blues CD that started at $2.50 and had a "Buy Now" price of $5. There were a couple of copies with the same price. I set a max bid of $5 and some clown sniped it for $5.50 with like 6 seconds to go. I just went to one of the others and bought it for the 5 bucks. What a tool!

FWIW the CD was Roadmaster by Johnny Charles featuring Bill Holloman on Hammond B-3 - great stuff.

:thumbup: Exactly. Put in the amount you are willing to pay. Then forget about it until it is over. It's far to easy to get caught up in the "competition" and then you are going to spend far more then you should.

 

[Danbo]

I determine exactly how much I'm willing to pay for an item(shipping and handling charges included), and then wait until the last minute of the auction. Only then, do I enter my bid. Why encourage a bidding war? I figure if somebody comes along after I throw my bid in at the last minute and outbids me, then all the more power to them.

 

[SharpByCoop]

I'm laughing that sniping is 'increasing in popularity'. It's been the rule of any savvy eBay buyer since it's inception. I've been the King of the under-10-second bid. You HAVE to, in order to minimize your cost.

Here is a real example: I saw an engraved knife years ago that was something I HAD to have. It was mine at $650 for a while. I knew this would be challenged.

Well, the night of the closer I could not be there to snipe my final bid. I figured out what I would pay MAX and placed my final bid, even though I was the high bidder. It was MUCH higher than I figured it would go for, but now I wanted this piece.... Off to the performance with my wife.

I come home and once every five minutes within the last 30 minutes to close, a single bidder drove the price up another $600 in $100 increments. I won, after he gave up, but the price I paid was really exaggerated. He walked away shrugging. I had a $1300 knife, I had to have....

Had I been there to snipe, I would have LET him 'win' it at $100 or $200 higher. At the closer I would have snuck in there and then grabbed it at the substantially lower winning bid. He would not have kept overbidding himself, guaranteed.

By bidding my full reserve early, it gave him time to keep upping the ante and get emotionally entangled in it--as much as I was. Sniping removes much of this and it's a one-shot deal.

Sniping is masquerading interest. Online auctions are an emotional 'investment'. No one wins in cards with a bad poker face.

Coop

 

[G3]

It could be that the seller gets people to bid aganist you just to make you bid higher. Here's an ebay experience I recently had. I placed a bid on a wholesale lot of SAK's, Then someone placed a higher bid, so I responded with an even higher bid. This went on until I wasn't willing to go any higher. So the auction ended with me losing, but here's the fishy part. The auction had no sooner ended, when I recieved an Email stating that the wining bidder could not pay, and that I was offered a second chance to buy the items, at, of course, My maximum bid. A classic scam that backfired for the seller, because I didn't bite.

Same here. Buyer beware. I've had good and bad experiences with EBay.