How to bid (and win!)

baffcat

I've been buying & selling on eBay for a couple of years. I'm sure older hands than me already know this, but a couple of people I know appreciated me pointing this out to them, so I thought I'd post it here too.

When you find an item on eBay you wish to bid on, there are a couple of ways I've stumbled across that usually ensure I don't lose out on the item I want. Or at least, not because I've bid too low when I would have gone higher.

1/ Bid late. Bidding early often pushes up the final price. Bidding late also leaves less time for someone to out-bid you (pretty obviously).

2/ Bid as high as you're prepared to pay, not as little as you think you can win the auction for. eBay's proxy bidding is a tool too often overlooked, particularly by those new to the auction site.

How these two simple suggestions might work, in tandem or exclusively: -

You see Scalectrix set you once had as a child, and think about how much your son/daughter would enjoy it now. It's only just appeared in the listings, so it's got just under seven days to go. DON'T BID! Watch it instead in "My eBay" (there's a "watch this item" link on every auction page - top right). The ideal is to bid as late as possible; within the last minute if you can, within the last few minutes if that's too hard. Bid as high as you're willing to go. eBay's proxy bidding tool will bid only as high as it needs to for you to win. So if the Scalextric set is at £0.99, and you're prepared to pay £100 for it, bid £100.05 (always bid just over a round number). eBay will bid £1.10 or thereabouts.

If no one else bids, you've got the set. If the £0.99 bidder has placed a proxy bid of £50.00, eBay will bid £51.00 or thereabouts for you. Mr £0.99 bidder sees your £51.00 bid, and tries a £52.00 bid, which eBay immediately outbids for you to £53.00.

This is why bidding your maximum late is a good thing to do. It stops a lot of "snipers" who sit at their screens waiting until the final minute of an auction from walking off with the goods.

My wife wanted a Hostess Trolley for Christmas (no, it wasn't her real present). I told her I'd try getting one off eBay as they seemed to go for around £100, as opposed to £560 online or in the shops. She watched over my shoulder as I bid, and was pulling her hair out as she was sure we'd lose out. We'd seen a Trolley, from a reputable seller (ALWAYS check feedback), and the bidding was at £55 when we first saw it.

With 30 minutes to go, it was creeping up, £57.50, £60.05, £75.00..... She wanted to bid "try £80" she said. I said no, we needed to wait, and how much would she be willing to pay? Knowing they were £560 new, and the one in the auction was "as new", she said £250.00. So I logged into the eBay site, opened a page for the bid, and another to watch the bidding. It's good to have a couple of pages open when bidding, stops you have to wait for the bid page to reload, if not using my "wait late/bid high" method.

With thirty seconds left, and the auction at £90.00, I input our £250.05 bid. When the auction finished, I showed her the bidding. Our bid went in at 18:14:49, and someone had bid at 18:14:48. Their bid was £92.00. If we'd bid £91.00. or even £92.00, we would've lost the Trolley as they'd bid a second before us. As it was, we got it for £94.00 (I assume they'd actually allowed up to £93.00), as there wasn't time for anyone else to get a bid in. Even if they had, they'd have had to bid over £250.05 to beat us.

For me, it was interesting to see that there were a lot of bids (early bids too) from zero-rated bidders, who I doubt used proxy bidding to any great extent.

I'm sorry if this seems longwinded, but execution is far easier & quicker than my explanation.

Fuzzy_2

Those tips are great for newbie buyers.

Just to add to your comments, I had a situation were I wanted to purchase about 4 items all ending within a few minutes of each other on Saturday night. So I opened them all up in separate windows, so could easily move between them, had the first one ready at the final stage page "Confirm Bid", and used a stopwatch to countdown/countup from the last refresh done. As a result all bids went in with less than a minute to go, and I won all the items at a price below the maximum bid I had made.

I couldn't do this without broadband! It does surprise me that sellers have some items all finishing very close together, especially for very specific items that are likely to attract the same buyers, but do as described above, and you can do it. Yes, I know I should get out more!

robnye

some great bidding tips there chaps.... well done :0

bluesxman

baffcat wrote:

This is why bidding your maximum late is a good thing to do. It stops a lot of "snipers" who sit at their screens waiting until the final minute of an auction from walking off with the goods.

Which is exactly what you did Good advice though!

Party_Animal

Nice one Baffcat. I always bid late but I'm not always successful, though I've had some good buys, will take your advice.

donstermonster

I agree - always bid late

I pick a price that i m prepared to pay and then 5 seconds before the end of the auction i bid my one and only biud - if i win great , if i lose , who cares another item will coma along AND better than that i have not beenm tempted to overpay or pay more than i wanted

I use auctionsiper or bidnapper as automatic bidding tools to put my bids on for me and have been very successful - REALLY useful if the auction finishes whgen i am out or in wee small hours

Alias_Omega

You can use a internet based program that does it for you.

I use https://www.auctionstealer.com

which, you register and put your eBay login details into, its advised to have a selling and buying account so that your accounts are safe.

This bids at 10secs to go, and you dont have to pay for it.

When the page comes up asking you to sign up, there is a box at the bottom that proceeds to the free bit. I think its 3 bids a week per eBay name.

This is good as you can input the eBay auction, and the maximum amount and sit and wait. You win, you win, you lose..nevermind...

Good fun tho..and i love to snipe..

VickyA_2

I've just tried to do this on an auction for a book (brand new). I knew exactly what I needed to pay to get it cheaper than Amazon. Someone outbid me at the last minute, and is now paying more (by £1) than they could have got it on Amazon - including postage. Made me chuckle.

Party_Animal

I was checking out this auction bidder yesterday, can't find the thread today. You get 5 free bids. A couple of questions;
1) Has anyone tried it?
2) What happens if you're bidding against someone else whose using the same software?

quizbuff2000

donstermonster wrote:

I agree - always bid late

Whilst these sage words on the subject from all contributors are in the main entirely correct, there can be one exception I can think of.

With certain items - fashion items spring to mind - bidding at the start of an auction by proxy can have the effect of warning-off those looking for that bargain shirt or whatever for pennies. Such snipers take the view that with so many items available (plenty of fish in the sea), they don't need to bother themselves playing about in this way. An assumption is often made, that if the buyer already having bid wants it that much, he/she will have set a proxy bid, therefore what's the point of opting into the game with this person?

It largely comes down to precisely how much you want the item. If it's something that doesn't crop up regularly, this is the way to go. If it's a frequently appearing item, probably not.

I have found however, that with less frequently-occurring items, laying down a marker in this way can often prompt others to 'back off.'

ditzymuppet

I totally agree... put the item in 'my ebay' along with any other items so that you can see whats about if the original item goes above the amount you are willing to spend...

Saying that I have recently discovered two addictions... this site and ebay... bargains galore!

~ditzy~