best way to buy on ebay?

johnatho

New to all this.

OK I have joined ebay and set up a paypal account.

The item I want to bid on is a fairly high value item, over £200 new

The auction has 4 days to run and only has 3 bids, the latest £5.

Fairly high P&P but I can live with it.

Should I bid now or wait until nearly the end of the auction?

amcluesent

Always use a sniper, set at what the item is worth to you. Most items only make their money in the last few minutes of an auction. Using a sniper, it's trickier for shills

johnatho

Always use a sniper,

it's trickier for shills

I did say I was new to ebay.

hermum

You sign up for a sniper, I use Goofbay, there are lots of them around.

http://www.goofbay.com/
You do have to share your ebay log in with this one, I've used it for ages without a problem.
You set up a snipe bid, at the highest you're happy to pay. I always set it to come in at 9 seconds, you then forget about it until after the auction, when you get an email to say you've either won or lost.
Always enter an odd amount, eg, £5.87 or similar.

brettcta

i find the best way to ebay is whilst wearing a top hat at a rakish angle

Obviously_the_best

With a sniper I always set it to the absolute max I will pay then forget, but unlike hermum I use auctionstealer.co.uk
(oh, and shill bidding is when a seller uses a different account to push the price of their item up to your maximum bid, but with snipers you can stop them as snipers put a bid in in the last 10 secs so there is no chance for shill bidding)

RFW

brettcta wrote: »

i find the best way to ebay is whilst wearing a top hat at a rakish angle

I prefer it at a jaunty angle.

brettcta

RFW wrote: »

I prefer it at a jaunty angle.

only for buy it nows

RFW

brettcta wrote: »

only for buy it nows

This is true, I straighten up for best offers, I won't however reveal my auction angle.

pendulum

johnatho wrote: »

"always use a sniper"
"it's trickier for shills"

I did say I was new to ebay.

Made me smile

Llyllyll

Or try JBidWatcher to snipe. That way you don't have to provide your details to a 3rd party. Been using it for years with no problems.