Bidding on eBay - Daaeng!

[Andreas Wideroe]

I agree, but then you won't get those crazy bargains. In a way I feel that's one of the best things with auctions. Crazy prices, Silly bargains!

(Anyone from Aussie here? Crrraaazzzzy Clarks or Siiillly Sollie )

/Andreas

[crimsonson]

Ok - I will give you a tip if you want bargains - http://www.ebay.de

Those crazy Germans are selling their super 8 cameras at double the price in EBay USA [like Alex Peters, Super8cam, etc, etc[. But if you go to Ebay Germany, many of them are selling it at half the price. If you are willing to deal with international sellers its a good way to find bargains. Bauer 715XL for less than $175 [Almost $300 in US], Nizo Pro for $200 [$350 in US], Leicina, Goko, etc, etc.

I don't do it much. But have bought couple of stuff from Ebay Germany that would have cost me double in Ebay USA.

[oh dear]

yeah see what you mean, prices are good, only trouble,i dropped German and French at school so i dont understand a word..that will teach me

[Andreas Wideroe]

Ok - I will give you a tip if you want bargains - http://www.ebay.de

I know! That's where I do most of my trading

[filmbuff]

Those crazy Germans are selling their super 8 cameras at double the price in EBay USA [like Alex Peters, Super8cam, etc, etc[

Dr Alex Peters acutally takes it a step further. He wins the camera cheap in Germany, breaks it real good, then sells it to someone out of country (mainly U.S.) as a "new old stock" camera. Of course its sold as-is. Kazam!! you have an awesome paper weight.

Moral of the story is DO NOT BUY FROM DR. ALEX PETERS. In general don't buy Nizo's from Germany unless you are positive its not that be-yatch (he goes under several different names). Buy from Kurt Gardella instead, you thank me later.

[Another Auction Sniper]

The only bidders snipping helps you outbid are those that try and incrementally bid themselves.

By "incrementally bidding themselves", they are in fact raising the price of your purchase for you as well.

If you simply bid the maximum amount you are willing to spend, then ebay will increase your bid for you as necesary.

Why put you maximum bid out there for someone else to increase by poking at your bid price. That's like handing them your money and having them help determine how much you will be spending today.

When you bid an amount more than the bid increment higher than the current bid it simply bids for you the current bid + the bid increment, then if anyone outbids you ebay will automatically increase your bid for you up to the maximum amount you have entered.

The whole point of sniping is to win the auction with the least amount of money spent. By not placing your bid in the actual online auction until the last few seconds, your bid will not increase beyond the last bid placed. This whole concept is a no brainer. Auctions are a competition of funds. Why let someone else raise the stakes by having the opportunity to play with your funds. Go straight for the finish without all the financial hits and bruising to your bid along the way. You know what you are willing to pay. If someone else doesn't see you coming, they won't have a chance to think about how much (more) they are willing to spend. You are in fact eliminating those bidders who bid to win by continually poking at the high bid, and hopefully getting a bargain for yourself as well.

IMHO the main effect of everyone waiting until the last minute to bid is that people end up bidding more than they really want to because they don't have enough time to really think it through.

If you use sniping software, you have plenty of time to think about it before the end of the auction. You even have the opportunity to cancel your bid before it is placed if you have second thoughts. You are simply placing the same bid as you would otherwise, just not until the last few seconds. If you use sniping software, you are not placing a bid in the last few seconds, you are placing a bid days ahead of the end of auction. The bid is simply not placed on the actual auction until very near the end.

Figure out the maximum you want to bid, bid it and then as long as someone isnt willing to pay more you will win, snipping service or not.

Except using the sniping software, the other bidders will not know you are even interested until it is too late. The whole point of sniping is to win the auction without the other bidders having the opportunity to raise your buy price during the auction. If your bid is not there to poke at and increase during the auction, your chances of getting the item at a bargain increase.

"Life is not always fair, bend the rules in your favor."

Bid once - your maximum amount you are willing to pay for that item. Its the least complex and safest way to do it.

I agree with this, but not in the context crimsonson meant. Not all sniped bids make it to the intended auction. Even these sniping services have trouble making connections and placing bids in the last few seconds. If you really want your bid in the auction for something you really want, it may be best to get your bid in earlier than the last few seconds. It is possible to lose an auction simply because your snipe bid is not placed due to technical difficulties. Some services let you place your bid at times you specify.

[ulrichsd]

I always snipe. There are way too many people out there that will go crazy bidding and bid twice as much as they originally would once they see someone else is interested. Maybe it is a not-to-be-beaten sort of mentality.

Either way, wait as long as possible before placing your bid, preferably in the last 15 seconds as long as you are sure you know your user-id and password correctly!!! Then bet the max you want to pay and no more. If you lose, then at least you didn't pay out the nose because you got into a bidding war.

Scott

[DriveIn]

... as long as you are sure you know your user-id and password correctly!!!.....

If you sign into eBay, then you won't need to worry that you typed your password correctly. Only need to make that mistake once to remember. Click the box to stay signed in for bidding.
http://cgi3.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?SignIn

[Alex]

I agree with "another auction sniper". If you bid too early, the price can be jacked up by a mysterious bidder who could be a friend of the seller.

However, there is a lot to be said for bidding what you are willing to spend and not worrying about it from a "peace of mind" point of view. One other strategy involves "buy it now". If the buy it now price is significantly higher than the starting bid, it may be worth putting an early bid in, which will then eliminate the buy it now feature from the auction.

[Steve P.]

Throwing my two cents: Agree, agree. Sniping is a winning strategy. And eBay wants it that way (tacitly).

Sniping is, unfortunately, a winning strategy. As has been said, sniping only cuts off the morons (moron from the perspective of a buyer) who decide after submitting a losing bid, "Okay, well I'll just bid twenty euros more." And then twenty more. And again, and again.

I paid $120 extra -- 30% of the final price -- for my first eBay camera because of some moron with that strategy. If it had come all on one bid, I wouldn't gripe (as much). But it was five bids from the same moron in the last two minutes. +$20. +$20. +$20. +$20. +$20. +$20. Looking at the bid history was like watching $20 being taken out of my pocket every fifteen seconds. I felt robbed. You can say I bid the most I was willing to spend and got the camera in the end, but never again that strategy for me.

If everyone got just one bid per item, and amounts and bidder's identities were held secret and not announced until the end, sniping wouldn't be useful. But that's a different game, and it doesn't encourage the maxmium winning bid price. Which is what sellers and eBay want.

[MovieStuff]

The whole idea of placing a proxy bid early because it's the highest amount you theoretically would pay simply doesn't work in reality. The reason? Anyone that would supposedly pay $100 maximum would gladly pay $101 for that same item, if it meant winning the auction and not having to go through the headache of staking out another auction all over again. And anyone willing to pay $101 would also pay $102 for the very same reason.

If $100 items were routinely outbid at the $200 level, then proxy bidding only $100 as an absolute maximum would be smart thinking and a great way to protect against bidding too much on an auction. However, the reality is that $100 items are more often lost to another bidder not at $200 or even $101 but, usually, at $100.50. THAT'S why sniping at the last minute works. Auctions aren't generally lost by a margin of hundreds of dollars but, instead, by pennies.

Setting an early proxy bid simply means you'll be beaten by someone else with more patience and 50 cents more than you. ;)

Roger

[DriveIn]

I used sniping software this evening. Bought myself a pair of new prescription eyeglass frames for pennies on the dollar. Other bidder never had a chance to bid me up. I don't feel bad at all. Gave up trying to play by ebay's rules a long time ago. Steve P. learned the same way I did. I had my bid run up in small chunks until it was not such a bargain anymore when I first started bidding. Then I got stuck paying up for someone elses bidding folly. Never again. I always use sniping software now. I don't place a bid at all. Just let the sniping service take care of it for me in the last few seconds. :twisted:
Now if I can just sell enough stuff on ebay instead of buying, I can afford a workprinter.

[Steve P.]

Okay, so sniping looks like the dominant strategy. Well, duh. What sniping program-service rules the eBay universe? Which do you use?

[Steve P.]

Saw this (vaguely) amusing article on the topic: EBay Bidders Sold on Sniping

http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,55204,00.html

"Now everyone snipes," said Tom Campbell, president of eSnipe, a hosted service that charges users 1 percent of each winning bid, up to $10. "If you put something up for sale, it just sits there until a few minutes before the end of the auction."

Campbell should know. He purchased eSnipe on eBay in 1999 by sniping.

[Technicolor]

Andreas, I can sympathise with you and anyone else who has lost an item in the closing seconds of an auction.

I got my first camera on ebay with no competition, and encouraged by this bidded on a Nizo S8E that no-one else seemed to be interested in and was going for around £25. I put my bid in about 24 hours before the end of the auction and I was the only bidder right up until about a minute until the auction ended, then WHAM! some git outbid me by £1, one lousy pound!!! By the time I'd stuck another quid in it was all over. I really wanted that camera too.

The problem for me is my connection is far to slow, I'm on 56k and I noticed when I won my first auction the other day that when the time left until the end of the auction is say, 1 minute, you refresh the page (this takes about 5 seconds) and the times gone down to about 20 seconds. What!?!? that can't possibly be right!

Personally I think these sniping programs sound dishonest but if thats how people get what they want then I guess that the only choice is to do the same. :?