Advice for a newby ebay buyer, bid now or wait till the last minute?

JoolzS

NeilJung wrote: »

This is great advice if you actually want to pay your max price. As a seller, I love people like this, but I'd never be stupid enough to do it as a buyer. It's totally !!!!!! and you will pay more than you could have got the item for if you just sniped it in the final seconds.

Wow, what a fun front you have.

I do bid the maximum price I am willing to pay. I have no idea what you were advising in your post. I can only assume that you have some financial interest in "sniping" software. If so, you are are pretty scummy. I just hope you have a happy life.

Julie

NeilJung

JoolzS wrote: »

Wow, what a fun front you have.

I do bid the maximum price I am willing to pay. I have no idea what you were advising in your post. I can only assume that you have some financial interest in "sniping" software. If so, you are are pretty scummy. I just hope you have a happy life.

Julie

Ok, read this several times and read it really slowly so it sinks in this time.

If you bid your maximum at the start of an auction then the price of the item will go up every time any other genius makes a bid. This is bad.

If you wait till the end of the auction, nobody else will know you are interested in the item in advance. This is good. Surprise is your friend.

In the final seconds make your max bid. Never show your hand early or other muppets might help you push up the price in what is known as a "bidding war" (bad).

Like I said, as a seller I absolutley love people like you. I wish there were more like you. Seriously. I do. I think you are awesome and you help my items get good prices. Thanks!

However, it's still a bloody stupid buying strategy. I certainly would not do it myself and I do have a bit of a chuckle at people who do, because they are stupid. It's a damn stupid thing to do. The only person who ever benefits from actual "bidding" on ebay is the seller.

I do love it when people bid on my items, but I assume as a matter of course that most are too smart to do so. I wish it wasn't the case, as my items tend to go for more when there are bidders rather than snipers, but that's the reality of the situation.

Now, read that a few times and think about it. Let it sink in before you reply with some mad accusation about me being the chairman of JustSnipe (best snipe site ever!).

TurkishDelight

Best match is affected by how many bids there are on the item, so more bids=more people see it=more bids.... etc.

Sniping is also the surest way of combatting shill bidding (a seller using a second account to bump up the price) as they have no time to nibble away at your bid to find out how much you will pay.

Sniping can be done without any software, if you are nervous about giving your details to a outside company (a valid fear, as some people have had warnings from ebay about using goofbay etc.) or via a trusted site if you don't have time to wait around. Basically you would be nuts to just stick a bid on, for all the reasons that have been pointed out in this thread.

NeilJung

TurkishDelight wrote: »

Basically you would be nuts to just stick a bid on, for all the reasons that have been pointed out in this thread.

Quite. The only exception to this is that I often make multiple very low bids when I first spot an item I want, pence on pence, so that an item shows as having lots of bids. I find it quite successfully puts off other bidders. At a glance (which is often all an ebayer will give an item before moving on) it looks like the item has a lot of interest. It doesn't. I just bid six times and won't bid again till I snipe it.

NeilJung

JoolzS wrote: »

If so, you are are pretty scummy.

Julie

Just because I called you out on being patently wrong doesn't give you a licence to abuse me by the way.

shelly

I usually only bid on items that are ending at a time I am able to bid on them myself.
I have 2 screens open, place my max bid in the last 5-6 seconds and pray my PC doesn't lag

janceyb

NeilJung wrote: »

Just because I called you out on being patently wrong doesn't give you a licence to abuse me by the way.

you pretty much called her !!!!!!...

pot and kettle.....

cyberbob

JoolzS wrote: »

I have no idea what you were advising in your post. I can only assume that you have some financial interest in "sniping" software.

Julie

You dont have to use software to snipe . Just bid in the last few minutes

Maybe you should reread the thread then you may understand what people are saying.

1/If you put a bid on early other people are more likely to bid therefore pushing the price up. If you bid your maximum in the last few seconds you are more likely to get the item at a lower price.

If you want to pay more than you need to then bid early yur choice

cyberbob

janceyb wrote: »

you pretty much called her !!!!!!...

pot and kettle.....

Maybe you should reread what Neil said. Myabe his choice of words wasn't the best but he was calling the idea of bidding early !!!!!! (bad choice of words). So Joolz response was a bit over the top considering

cyberbob

shelly wrote: »

I usually only bid on items that are ending at a time I am able to bid on them myself.
I have 2 screens open, place my max bid in the last 5-6 seconds and pray my PC doesn't lag

The new layout with the countdown is actually a bit of a pain as sometimes there is a wee lag. So you have to bid a few seconds earlier. I have missed a couple in the past few weeks due to this