Bumping up prices

itgirlinuk

I have following a particular seller's items, as I decided I was going to buy a MP3 player from him. A power seller and I am not doubting his ability to supply the goods.

Item description: "512MB MP3/WMA Player REC/FM/USB Red"

The seller has loads of these to sell and they are constantly listed. But for some bizzare reason, every single item seems to sell for £30 or more. I was tracking 3 of these items through the day. It would get up to £16 about 20 mins to end time and then suddenly few users would bump it to £31 or more very close to the end time. (This is a 3-day item, starting at .99p listing)

All I was wondering is, are there "non-buying" buyers working to help the price? And is there any way of identifying such users?

Or am I just trying to look for something that's not there? ???

Raggie

if you suspect something is being done like this, you can look at those bidders that have bid, and do a search on other items they have bid on.

(Under Advanced search)

If they only bid on items by the same seller, then it is possible some shill bidding is taking place. you may then consider reporting them.. (or not bidding)..

VH

I think you're probably being a little bit paranoid. I sold 2 mobiles recently on Ebay, but my auctions received most of their bids within the last 30 minutes (not from me by the way ).

I think that most people leave bidding till as late as possible. I do this myself as I think that bidding early on items just draws attention to the auction, and reduces my chances of getting a bargain.

You will also find sometimes that bidders will often get into a bidding war in the last few minutes - this pushes the price up even further.

Ebay has software which monitors auctions for so-called 'Shill Bidding', i.e - pushing prices up using fake ids. It does go on but I suspect it is not very common.

Hintza

You will find that once a price gets accepted on EBay most auctions will end at or around that price.

They can of course drift up or down over time.

I have a bluetooth headset to sell....prices have drifted down but after todays news I hope (pray) thry will start to drift back up again as demand starts to exceed supply.

If I were yo I would decide the price you want to pay and bid with less than 15 seconds to go. You'll get it eventually. Check past sales for the times when prices are lower. (eg Monady Morning 3am...lol).

Try Ebay.com for US sellers as well.

sp41700

I have noticed when I sell things on ebay a lot of bids come in late and things seem to sell at a certain level. I used to think that people are putting in sham bids, but if you check out the bidders as suggested I think you will find it isnn't the case.

newskiller

I started following an item recently and was suspicious that of those previously sold a fair proportion were at or just over £34, never below. This looked an obvious candidate forshilling but if it is it is far too clever for me to spot. A few days on I bought one for £30.

If a seller has a large number of the same auctions and demand is fair it is logical that a standard price will set itself for most of them.

Baggy_3

You could do a bid history search on those bidding to see just what they are bidding on. If it looks like its only this sellers stuff you caould report but Ebay don'r seen to do anything about anything now.

Hintza

Had a look at this.

The guy is selling hundreds of these. It is certainly not viable to shill bid on them.

The price is the price.

One guy even paid £60....ouch.

Baggy_3

 Check past sales for the times when prices are lower.  (eg Monady Morning 3am...lol).


I never thought of doing that!

Thanks for the tip!

Hintza

Actuallly on electronic goods I think its about 3pm but do your research