Sneaky last second bidders

chuckles1066

pgilc1 wrote:

absolutely.

basically if you are serious about bidding you have to enter the absolute max you want to pay....

yes for sure.............as has been said earlier, decide the maximum you're prepared to pay and bid that amount once.

*Louise*

freebie_junkie wrote:

i suppose if people dont like being outbid/bidding etc. they should buy thing in shops?

Exactly.

It's all part of the fun - I have never been devastated about losing an auction to a higher bidder.

freebie_junkie

and the fun of selling is watching it go up and up

and the down-side of selling is wathcing it sell for bottom amount or go unsold

mrbadexample

I always snipe unless I can't be around at the auction close.

If you bid early, it just pushes the price up. If you bid late, the price is usually lower, and people don't get the chance to outbid you. Furthermore, you don't get the opportunity to get involved in a bidding war and end up paying more than you should.

I have missed out on a few things due to being frozen out though, but that's the chance you take.

Tojo_Ralph

superscotsman wrote:

If there is an item THAT YOU MUST HAVE, do as above, only this time put in a ridiculous maximum bid, something far above what you think it will fetch. If you do it that way you will probably get an excellent price, and - best of all - you will get the item.

I would love to hear the logic behind that statement?

Bernie

I recently sold off a couple of surplus mobile phones. Both were on a 7 day auction, the first ended midday Sat, the second around the same time the following day.

In both cases, no bids were placed until within 6 hrs of the auction ending.

Moral of the story, either place a realistic proxy bid through the eBay system or, as I do, use a proxy bidding service to enter your pre-determined "sealed bid" which is effectively "opened" at the end of the auction.

If the price I decided was the highest - I win!

Midmac

When sniping i go for the manual 2 windows option.

1st window refreshing constantly to watch the time left.
2nd window ready to click confirm bid

Oh the joys of ebay

Ps. I just sold an item on ebay and it went from £92 to £148.50 in the last 8 seconds very nice when i refreshed the page and seen the extra £50

superscotsman

Tojo_Ralph wrote:

I would love to hear the logic behind that statement?

Don't see what the problem is. If you put in your maximum bid at an earlier time, there is time for someone else to outbid you, and if you really must have the item you will have to - if there is time - increase your maximum bid. If you had put your max bid in at the last moment, you would have paid less.

There are some items - say, a coffee grinder - where if you lose the bid, you wait for the next one to come along. They also have a maximum value. Now there are other items that are priceless. There was a silent film that I would never get to see starring a film actress whose biog I am currently writing. Suddenly a French pamphlet of the film, containing the entire plot turned up on ebay. This pamphlet contained loads of stills too. I didn't even know this thing existed. There was no question about saving a few quid here or there: I HAD to have it, and once it's gone it's gone. I used the method I recommended and won it.

Tojo_Ralph

superscotsman wrote:

If there is an item THAT YOU MUST HAVE, do as above, only this time put in a ridiculous maximum bid, something far above what you think it will fetch. If you do it that way you will probably get an excellent price, and - best of all - you will get the item.

I would love to hear the logic behind that statement?

superscotsman wrote:

Don't see what the problem is. If you put in your maximum bid at an earlier time, there is time for someone else to outbid you, and if you really must have the item you will have to - if there is time - increase your maximum bid. If you had put your maximum bid in at the last moment, you would have paid less.

Regardless of how much you want something, surely you should always decide upon a figure that is the maximum you are willing to pay?

Recommending bidding a ridiculous amount of money and suggesting that by doing so one will probably get the item at an excellent price is both wide of the mark and a recipe for disaster. If you find you are up against another bidder who is using the same flawed logic..... One of you will end up paying a ridiculous amount of money rather than either of your maximums.

The advice is always the same.....

Bid once...
Bid late...
Bid the maximum you are willing to pay...
And make that amount an odd amount to two decimal points.

superscotsman

Ah, what you think is a ridiculous sum is more than what I would think is a ridiculous sum.
Recipe for disaster? No disaster has ever befallen me.