how do i put in a last minute bid on e-bay?

pennylane99

benjimoron wrote:

Isn't that the point I made that I've quoted above? The point I'm trying to make is that someone's gonna bid £500 it doesn't make he slightest bit of difference when you place your bid. Also you could be shooting yourslef in the foot as if an item that's worth £500 was still at 99p with not long to go then it would surely attract losts of interest from snipers/people looking for a bargain whereas if the item was at £100 there'd be a lot less interest from snipers/bargain hunters.

it does make a difference when you place the bid though if the buyer is looking to get the best price. If the item is at £100, and you stick in a max bid of £500 with a couple of days to go.,..you may get people slowly adding to that £100 bid to try and find your maximum amount.....so pushing up what you finally pay.

Gorgeous_George

I've never used a sniper programme but I have bid at the last possible moment and saved £££s.

The answer (to beat snipers) is for eBay to change the auction rules and make them more representative of a real auction. A 7 day auction should end after 7 days but only if no bids have been received for 5 minutes. Any bids received reset the 5 minute counter.

This would improve the deal for sellers.



GG

benjimoron_2

pennylane99 wrote:

it does make a difference when you place the bid though if the buyer is looking to get the best price. If the item is at £100, and you stick in a max bid of £500 with a couple of days to go.,..you may get people slowly adding to that £100 bid to try and find your maximum amount.....so pushing up what you finally pay.

I totally agree with you, that's the point I made in my first post. My point was that if someone's gonna put £500 on it then it doesn't make ANY difference when you place your bid. My main point was in reply to someone saying that they "beat" people at 5 seconds as most people seem to place their bids at 8 seconds. I already said in my first post that placing bids early usually only serves to increase the final price however at the same time a low price near the end of an auction only serves to get more people interested in sniping/getting a bargain.

The fact remains that if someone's gonna bid £500 then 5 seconds, 5 minutes or 5 days, it doesn't make any difference. Obviously you take a chance that no-one is gonna bid £500.

If you've put in your maximum bid that you would be willing to pay at 30 seconds and you refresh the page and see you've been outbid, would you then re-bid at more than the maximum that you were willing to pay just 30 seconds ago?

pennylane99

benjimoron wrote:

If you've put in your maximum bid that you would be willing to pay at 30 seconds and you refresh the page and see you've been outbid, would you then re-bid at more than the maximum that you were willing to pay just 30 seconds ago?

no..I wouldnt ...but some people do get carried away in a last minute bidding war, when more often than not there are plenty of other same items on there to choose from.

Avoriaz

Gorgeous_George wrote:

… The answer (to beat snipers) is for eBay to change the auction rules and make them more representative of a real auction. A 7 day auction should end after 7 days but only if no bids have been received for 5 minutes. Any bids received reset the 5 minute counter…

I can see at least one fatal flaw.

It would be very easy to set up a computer programme to repeatedly bid increasing amounts for items every 4 minutes 59 seconds from at least two separate ebay ids and thus prevent an auction from ever finishing.

Anyone who wanted to cripple ebay, or sabotage an auction would have a lot of fun.:D


There is nothing wrong with sniping. Everyone plays by the same rules.

The highest bid wins so if you want an item bid high enough to win.

pennylane99

I think someone found a flaw with snipes a while ago....

if a bidder places a high bid close to the end, then retracts their bid....it will cancel out most snipes that have been set up as being over their bid anount, if the snipe doesnt re-check the current bid total

frivolous_fay

Gorgeous_George wrote:

The answer (to beat snipers) is for eBay to change the auction rules and make them more representative of a real auction. A 7 day auction should end after 7 days but only if no bids have been received for 5 minutes. Any bids received reset the 5 minute counter.

This would improve the deal for sellers.

I've seen this idea posted before. Looks like a really nifty way for shillers to continue eking out every last £ from their gullible bidders

Gorgeous_George

Avoriaz wrote:

I can see at least one fatal flaw.

It would be very easy to set up a computer programme to repeatedly bid increasing amounts for items every 4 minutes 59 seconds from at least two separate ebay ids and thus prevent an auction from ever finishing.

Anyone who wanted to cripple ebay, or sabotage an auction would have a lot of fun.:D

That would be expensive fun and would hardly cripple eBay. If they wanted to have their fun this way :rolleyes: I'm sure they could do it manually. Thinking about it, they probably do lots of things manually.



GG

Snooze_Control

benjimoron wrote:

I totally agree with you, that's the point I made in my first post. My point was that if someone's gonna put £500 on it then it doesn't make ANY difference when you place your bid. My main point was in reply to someone saying that they "beat" people at 5 seconds as most people seem to place their bids at 8 seconds. I already said in my first post that placing bids early usually only serves to increase the final price however at the same time a low price near the end of an auction only serves to get more people interested in sniping/getting a bargain.

The fact remains that if someone's gonna bid £500 then 5 seconds, 5 minutes or 5 days, it doesn't make any difference. Obviously you take a chance that no-one is gonna bid £500.

If you've put in your maximum bid that you would be willing to pay at 30 seconds and you refresh the page and see you've been outbid, would you then re-bid at more than the maximum that you were willing to pay just 30 seconds ago?

Oh I give up....... You're just not getting it are you. :rolleyes:

spikypixie

I find that phantombidder.com is excellent and uses more than one server to bid at the last minute. The point is, it avoids a bidding war, and is ideal if you want to stick to your limit! If you bid with 12 seconds to go, and someone else's bid tops it, you think "ooh oooh - oh what the heck" and bid again. They then go - "ooh ooh - what a cheek" and bid back, and whoever wins may have bid more than they really intended. I have no discipline, and can get quite competitive, so phantombidder.com is ideal for me. If I win, I win .... if someone else bids more, good luck to them - I just try not to watchthe auction end. (have given up ebay this year as I won too much and have no money left!)