Ebay bidding frenzy lunacy.

Avoriaz

ormus wrote:

theres lots of reasons why this may happen.
someone on MSE today, commented that a round trip to ikea would be 120 miles for her. therefore any ikea product at even above the retail price would be ok with her,..

That does not explain why they were prepared to bid up to £170 for an item when there are 5 or 6 auctions every day from the same seller, most of which end at about £110.

Two bidders got into a bidding frenzy and it cost the winner about £60 more than necessary to buy the item.

Avoriaz

mcwarre wrote:

@Avoriaz I don't see what the problem is. If you are getting outbid and you want it then bid higher, simple as that. ..BTW I have bought an item from that ebay seller and had no problems at all.

I don’t have a problem. As I wrote above I am quite happy to wait until I get lucky. I am in no hurry.

The thread is about the bidding frenzy on ONE item sold for £170 when 5 or 6 are available every day from the same seller at about £110.

Thanks for your endorsement of the company. They do have excellent feedback.

Avoriaz

hodgester wrote:

gradedelectricalsdirect are a bunch of con-artists. bought a steel breadmaker from them before xmas which arrived cmpletely smashed up (though the packaging was fine). Sent in back and they re-delivered a while plastic one which was filthy and unpackaged. they then ignored all of my calls and e-mails until I put in a paypal claim against them and got my money back.

Thanks for the warning but I think you were perhaps just unlucky. Their feedback suggests that your experience is not typical.

Avoriaz

bella4uk wrote:

Totally the wrong time of year to get a bargain on this....I'm afraid peoples minds are on spring cleaning, the time when people want to decorate, clean carpets etc. I bet you will have more luck in the middle of summer but don't expect a giveaway.

Good point Bella.

I shall tell Mrs A that she will have to wait 3 months for clean carpets.

That means I can carry on spending my time on here.

Moglex

Avoriaz wrote:

That does not explain why they were prepared to bid up to £170 for an item when there are 5 or 6 auctions every day from the same seller, most of which end at about £110.

Two bidders got into a bidding frenzy and it cost the winner about £60 more than necessary to buy the item.

It is confusing and I believe that it ties in with what I wrote in post #4.

You would imagine that people would get onto ebay, research past prices and then bid each day an item was available until they got an item at a price with which they were happy.

What you actually see in the case where an identical item is up for sale on a regular basis is typically 5 people bidding on it one day and 5 completely different people bidding on it the next. Sometimes yo do see one person bidding on successive days.

It's quite apparant that what these people are doing is coming onto ebay, looking for what they want, bidding on it and then disappearing when they don't win. It really is quite bizarre behaviour so it doesn't surprise me in the slightest that they will bid way over the items 'normal' price.

triplea35

Another thing people do not seem to be taking account of is the actual time spent on trying to get a bargain price. Is it really cost effective spending day after day trying to get a bargain price. I spent a lot of time on ebay etc so not a problem but speak to many people who just haven't got the time/inclination to do so.

Avoriaz

triplea35 wrote:

Another thing people do not seem to be taking account of is the actual time spent on trying to get a bargain price. Is it really cost effective spending day after day trying to get a bargain price. I spent a lot of time on ebay etc so not a problem but speak to many people who just haven't got the time/inclination to do so.

You make a fair point.

However I spend very little time trying to buy this carpet cleaner at a bargain price. Maybe a minute per day at most. I am on ebay regularly anyway buying and selling lots of items so every day I do a search on Vax Rapide XL and add any sales that have not yet gone over £85 to my watch list.

I could buy one in a local shop. That would take me an hour or two driving there, paying about £150 or more, loading it into my car and bringing it home. Or I could telephone them and spend 10 minutes ordering it and paying for delivery etc.

With ebay, by the time I eventually buy one, I will have spent maybe 30 minutes in total buying and getting one delivered for about £100.

I am certainly not going to frenzy bid and get one for £170 just to save a few minutes of my time.