Sniping - has anyone lost out?

Tojo_Ralph

Sofa_Sogood wrote:

Aaarrgghhhh ..... where's that bid button again?

A good point by Mah Jong regarding auctions being "pulled" because inexperienced sellers believe an item won't sell.

OK..... :rotfl: ..... I have realised there is one exception (or maybe more ) to the "bid once, bid your max, and bid late" philosophy.

If an item is listed with a low opening bid, much lower than I know it will sell for, no reserve, and a high BIN designed to hook an, I WANT IT, I WANT IT, buyer (you know who you are... ) ... then I'll bid the minimum simply to knock out the BIN.

Sofa_Sogood

Tojo? It worked :j lol

I bid high (ish) and just the one bid. Paid £4 less than my own highest

It wasn't the 'must have' though, it was something for my bro. I had to put a 99p on the 'must have' - I'll probably lose that one lol

Is that what you were trying to say too VeryTrying? Just put your best bid in and hope they don't catch you? (It's not Denby pottery btw )

nbt

I lost out today with an early bid. It was only a CD and I wasn;t too bothered, I put in a 50p bd whe I saw it and was winning at 1penny until about 6 hours to go - then got pipped with a 55p bid, and forgot to bid again just at the close!

Sofa_Sogood

nbt wrote:

I lost out today with an early bid. It was only a CD and I wasn;t too bothered, I put in a 50p bd whe I saw it and was winning at 1penny until about 6 hours to go - then got pipped with a 55p bid, and forgot to bid again just at the close!

Ohhhhhhhh I hate it when there's only a few pence in it. (You can tell I bid for low items )

Do you think it was a sniper?

VeryTrying_2

Sofa_Sogood wrote:

Tojo? It worked :j lol

Is that what you were trying to say too VeryTrying? Just put your best bid in and hope they don't catch you? (It's not Denby pottery btw )

Yes, that's right, Sofa. If your best bid wasn't good enough and you lost, that's just luck - another chance will come along soon. But if your last minute bid is the highest, then nobody can catch you and add on that extra 50p. You've caught them on the hop.

How have you got on with the 99p must have? As long as you don't carry on nibbling away, pushing the bidding higher and higher, a single early bid might be forgotten about by the other bidders - until you slap a big one on right at the end!

Tojo_Ralph

Sofa_Sogood wrote:

Tojo? It worked :j lol

I bid high (ish) and just the one bid. Paid £4 less than my own highest

It wasn't the 'must have' though, it was something for my bro. I had to put a 99p on the 'must have' - I'll probably lose that one lol

Is that what you were trying to say too VeryTrying? Just put your best bid in and hope they don't catch you? (It's not Denby pottery btw )

Woo Hoo

Another point to note ..... I often get asked in the office to check out auctions for folk, and often, simply because there are no bids. Because there are no bids when folk think there should be, they are put off, concerned and instead bid on items already receiving bids!!! All psychological

Sofa_Sogood

VeryTrying wrote:

Yes, that's right, Sofa. If your best bid wasn't good enough and you lost, that's just luck - another chance will come along soon. But if your last minute bid is the highest, then nobody can catch you and add on that extra 50p. You've caught them on the hop.

How have you got on with the 99p must have? As long as you don't carry on nibbling away, pushing the bidding higher and higher, a single early bid might be forgotten about by the other bidders - until you slap a big one on right at the end!

I must have worded that wrong I've only ever won one last minute bid lol.

As for the 99p one? Someone's bid £1.06 (or similar) and I'm banking on putting in about £40 - but not with seconds to go lol, I'm too slow Might leave it till it's either a) gone too high, or b) still got a couple of minutes left. Confuse the bounders

Sofa_Sogood

Tojo_Ralph wrote:

Woo Hoo

Another point to note ..... I often get asked in the office to check out auctions for folk, and often, simply because there are no bids. Because there are no bids when folk think there should be, they are put off, concerned and instead bid on items already receiving bids!!! All psychological

I forgot to mention this (lol), but I bid on something because no-one else did - 99p but a bit steepish on postage. Still a bargain though.

I didn't even follow the auction which is really unusual for me, I've got a window open with two hours to go type thing

I won it lol

It must be psychological Tojo because I fully expected to be outbid by about £10 ..... it just didn't happen lol But I often think, like your friends do, that if no-one else has bid, it's not worth having at all. I couldn't be more wrong.

(I'll let out a buyer's secret one of these days )

VeryTrying_2

Sofa, if you put your best bid on with a couple of minutes to go, you will get beaten most times.

Can you open two windows at once? Go to the list of items your musthave is in. Right click the mouse on it. Left click on "open in new window". Click "place bid" and then key in your best price. Hit "continue" .... and then do nothing. Sit with the "confirm bid" button all ready to go.

Now go back to your list and open your musthave item again in the normal way. You've now got two windows open. Keep on refreshing this second window so that the time is counted down. When you get below 30 seconds, switch to the first window and hit "confirm bid". Then shut your eyes and wait for the auction to finish because if your bid wasn't high enough to beat somebody else's proxy, it's too late to do anything about it now!

If you knew how to do this, apologies, but perhaps it might interest somebody else. Good luck - just keep off the Denby pottery.

Sofa_Sogood

VeryTrying wrote:

Sofa, if you put your best bid on with a couple of minutes to go, you will get beaten most times.

Can you open two windows at once? Go to the list of items your musthave is in. Right click the mouse on it. Left click on "open in new window". Click "place bid" and then key in your best price. Hit "continue" .... and then do nothing. Sit with the "confirm bid" button all ready to go.

Now go back to your list and open your musthave item again in the normal way. You've now got two windows open. Keep on refreshing this second window so that the time is counted down. When you get below 30 seconds, switch to the first window and hit "confirm bid". Then shut your eyes and wait for the auction to finish because if your bid wasn't high enough to beat somebody else's proxy, it's too late to do anything about it now!

If you knew how to do this, apologies, but perhaps it might interest somebody else. Good luck - just keep off the Denby pottery.

LOL, after my disaster with Swarovski crystal, I'm avoiding fragile stuff

I've seen it mentioned about multiple windows etc, but by the time I've mucked about - I've lost track. But they're usually all going in minutes - same seller.

If I'm bidding on 2 items though, I tend to concentrate on the one I'd love to win, and leave the rest to luck. But I tend to put a high bid in for something that I really really really want .... just not as early as I used to lol. (Listen to me, I've only been at it a few weeks )

Say I'm winning it and the bid's up to £25, but I'm still showing as £2.05 for instance, I'll see how far people go. If they outbid me at £25 then it's theirs. That's not a lot to some people I know, but I reckon if they'll go that far (on that particular item), they'll go the whole 9 yards.

I saw one thing go for £8 and a couple of weeks later it was £75 :rotfl: I'm only laughing because I thought (maybe like Tojo's friends, that at £8 it was too naff or something), but at £75? They must be nuts lol.

Thanks though, I'll copy and paste that and try it sometime - after payday

It's like someone else said - it's only worth what someone's willing to pay. I think that's true, just sometimes people get lucky