Your eBay strategy when bidding

p1tse

p1tse

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Personally I don't bid until last moment and only do so if the bidding hasn't gone over my budget

Just as I see bids days before the end of auctions pushing prices up and up
 
Exactly the same, however, I missed out on something this morning because my mouse cursor was in the wrong place after the little "live" bid window refreshed...
 
last few seconds here, only problem is when I forget about the auction and miss it :bonk: really pee'd off as missed out on a couple of really big bargains as a result recently... I try to find the ones that are incorectly listed or not described well.
 
jST said:
Exactly the same, however, I missed out on something this morning because my mouse cursor was in the wrong place after the little "live" bid window refreshed...
Click to expand...

not quite sure of what you did ...but

I open 2 windows

eBay\my watch list\ item

then the same again but minimise this one to just the bidding bit
then enter my max say £100, bid, but wait before hitting the 'confirm'

put this small window on top of the main window

you can now watch the price in the main window
3 secs before closing, hit confirm

HTH ...john
 
I give myself a maximum I'm willing to buy the goods for and bid that when there's less than ten seconds left. If I lose, then it's because it went for more than I was willing to buy it for.
 
Bilko said:
I give myself a maximum I'm willing to buy the goods for and bid that when there's less than ten seconds left. If I lose, then it's because it went for more than I was willing to buy it for.
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10secs means somebody can say

''hmm i can afford £2 more '' and so you lose

if you wait till 2 or 3secs, they dont have a chance to rebid

I know there are ways of using a program to enter a bid at the very last moment - just dont use them...:D
 
Personally I muse the goofbay sniper - asnd just set myself a macximum, put that in to ther sniper and set it to 5 secs to go then forget about it until I nget the succesful or not email
 
Yardbent said:
I know there are ways of using a program to enter a bid at the very last moment - just dont use them...:D
Click to expand...
Sniper! and a few others. They were suposed to be banned once!
I use the two window method myself. (y)
 
I figure out my max price, then add the listing to "My Auction Sniper" app on android.

Drop the price in, set it to put my bid in with 3 secs to go :naughty::naughty:
and sit back and let technology do it all for me.

Since using auction sniper I have won 5 out of 6 auctions without even sitting at the PC or on the phone :D
 
I try and look for auctions with high start prices that are still below what I'd pay, they often get overlooked and everyone watches the 99p auctions for a week and all try and pounbce last minute, leaving me to win with an opening bid on my item.
 
I often look at what i consider to be overpriced, and allow the auction to finish, and then contact the seller and try to do a deal
Another is the last minute bid at whatever I would be willing to pay, plus a couple of quid because I would hate to lose an auction over that.
Often some buyers list collection only for larger items. Parcelmonkey recently collected a £300 child seat that I bought after the auction ended with no bids. Total cost for the seat was under £60
If there is something specific that I want, I research the price and then set the auction reminder on my Iphone, so everytime a new auction is listed, I find out. Buy it now on new auctions are often good bargains, but this requires patience
 
i just put in "Pentax" and find I am the sole bidder. Cannot see what the issue is.
 
stupar said:
I figure out my max price, then add the listing to "My Auction Sniper" app on android.

Drop the price in, set it to put my bid in with 3 secs to go :naughty::naughty:
and sit back and let technology do it all for me.

Since using auction sniper I have won 5 out of 6 auctions without even sitting at the PC or on the phone :D
Click to expand...

I use this in conjunction with Pocket Auction on my android handset, and there is also a "my auction sniper" plugin for firefox that comes in handy. Set it and forget it.
 
antihero said:
I use this in conjunction with Pocket Auction on my android handset, and there is also a "my auction sniper" plugin for firefox that comes in handy. Set it and forget it.
Click to expand...

Cheers for the extra info (y)
 
Originally Posted by Bilko
I give myself a maximum I'm willing to buy the goods for and bid that when there's less than ten seconds left. If I lose, then it's because it went for more than I was willing to buy it for.

Yardbent said:
10secs means somebody can say

''hmm i can afford £2 more '' and so you lose

if you wait till 2 or 3secs, they dont have a chance to rebid

I know there are ways of using a program to enter a bid at the very last moment - just dont use them...:D
Click to expand...


:thinking::thinking: You also mention John you might put a max bid of say £100 on an item. It dont matter if there is 20,15, 10 or 5 seconds left :shrug: Ebay will just keep changing the price in whatever increments up to your`s or anybody else`s max bid.
 
u8myufo said:
...................10 or 5 seconds left :shrug: Ebay will just keep changing the price in whatever increments up to your`s or anybody else`s max bid.
Click to expand...

true...if somebody has posted a max of £105 then i lose
 
I'll make my ONE bid with about thirty seconds to go. If it becomes the leading bid and I know I have a good margin up to my bid value, then others will normally try and beat it by the minimum increment needed. They will then see they are not winning and usually do not have time to bid enough to win.
 
I'm in the make my maximum bid and leave it camp, at any time in the auction. If I decide an item is worth £50 to me, it's worth £50. Not £52.25.
No doubt some ultra-competitive bidder will be overjoyed at having paid £2.25 over the odds and 'beaten' me, but I don't care :p ;)
Plenty more auctions for the same item, usually. Patience, Grasshopper :)
 
I put in my max bid whenever, because it's my max bid.

If I don't get the item that's fine, it went for more than I was prepared to pay.
 
rarely bid on auction things because of peeps using the sniper thing, I tend to go for the buy it now option

as with all my shopping, I will only pay what I think it's worth so I put a max bid on and leave it. que sera and all that
 
nobody has mentioned baycrazy.com

i use that quite a bit... great for local bargains. Just bought 2 clothes rails for £6 from a bloke less than a mile from me. Just can't seem to remember what i needed them for though :puke:
 
im another one that decides my max price and i put that in ... if it goes over it goes over.....never used any of the sniping tools i prefer to watch the auction at the end :D
 
tino said:
I often look at what i consider to be overpriced, and allow the auction to finish, and then contact the seller and try to do a deal
Another is the last minute bid at whatever I would be willing to pay, plus a couple of quid because I would hate to lose an auction over that.
Often some buyers list collection only for larger items. Parcelmonkey recently collected a £300 child seat that I bought after the auction ended with no bids. Total cost for the seat was under £60
If there is something specific that I want, I research the price and then set the auction reminder on my Iphone, so everytime a new auction is listed, I find out. Buy it now on new auctions are often good bargains, but this requires patience
Click to expand...

Dealing off of eBay will get you suspended if I remember rightly
 
I never set my maximum bid to a round number. E.g. If I think an item is worth around £100 then I'll set my maximum to something like £103.67. The reason being most people seem to think in £5/10 increments - depending on how large the item value is - and expect others to do the same. If the bidding stops bang on £100 then that's likely the maximum bid placed, including by the winning bidder. Bidding slightly higher with an uneven number gives the indication that you may be willing to go higher and perhaps discourage other bidders. That and last minute manual bidding works for me.
 
u8myufo said:
:thinking::thinking: You also mention John you might put a max bid of say £100 on an item. It dont matter if there is 20,15, 10 or 5 seconds left :shrug: Ebay will just keep changing the price in whatever increments up to your`s or anybody else`s max bid.
Click to expand...

yeah true - but a lot of people bid manually so if the price stays low and they sit there all dumb and happy and you whack a snipe in at the last second they dont have time to outbid you
 
big soft moose said:
yeah true - but a lot of people bid manually so if the price stays low and they sit there all dumb and happy and you whack a snipe in at the last second they dont have time to outbid you
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Should I be concerned about that :thinking: ;)
 
not if you dont want to be :LOL:

All i'm saying is that with a sniper (or for that matter bidding manually at the last 5 seconds) it increase the chance of yours being the succesful bid, and because it doesnt goive people time to up bid against you you often get a lower price
 
TriggerHappy said:
I never set my maximum bid to a round number. E.g. If I think an item is worth around £100 then I'll set my maximum to something like £103.67. The reason being most people seem to think in £5/10 increments - depending on how large the item value is - and expect others to do the same. If the bidding stops bang on £100 then that's likely the maximum bid placed, including by the winning bidder
Click to expand...

this - except that you need to bear ebay increments in mind - your bid needs to be higher by one increment than the last bid, so if someone bids £100 and you bid £101.87 they can still win if they get in first, if the ebay increment is say £2.50
 
big soft moose said:
this - except that you need to bear ebay increments in mind - your bid needs to be higher by one increment than the last bid, so if someone bids £100 and you bid £101.87 they can still win if they get in first, if the ebay increment is say £2.50
Click to expand...

No, if you bid 101.87 then it'll jump straight to that with you in the lead. If you bid £100 exactly the original bidder would still be classed as highest bidder and you'd have to rebid to the next increment. This is of course assuming the actual bid amount was showing as say £25 when you bid originally.

if you come to an item that is showing as bid up to £100 you would have to meet the minimum bid which will be £105 IIRC, so in that case you couldn't bid £101.87.
 
big soft moose said:
this - except that you need to bear ebay increments in mind - your bid needs to be higher by one increment than the last bid, so if someone bids £100 and you bid £101.87 they can still win if they get in first, if the ebay increment is say £2.50
Click to expand...

Only if the time runs out before you bid the 101.87
 
No if the bidding is standing at £100 and the increment is 2.50 you can't get a succesful bid with anything less than 102.50 - so if you snipe 101.87 it won't be succesful
 
big soft moose said:
this - except that you need to bear ebay increments in mind - your bid needs to be higher by one increment than the last bid, so if someone bids £100 and you bid £101.87 they can still win if they get in first, if the ebay increment is say £2.50
Click to expand...

Yeah I should have included that bit too, thanks!
 
neil_g said:
I just whack my maximum whenever, it's my maximum so it doesn't really matter if it's 2 days or 2 seconds to go. Still win plenty that way.
Click to expand...

My way too, if you have a max bid it doesn't matter when it goes in, it's too easy to go a bit more(or too much) at the last moment.
 
I use the "put the max I want to pay" in at any time and leave it at that. If someone wants to pay more then so be it but considering they pay more than I am prepared too does that make them the winner?
 
I usually place a bid to remind me of the auction, then if it is something I really want I will place my final maximum bid in the last 10 seconds of the auction. I win a lot more than I lose this way and usually at a much lower price than I was willing to pay. If I do not win it's because someone valued it more to them than I did to me.
 
if it is an item you want just bid £200,000 this normally works... 100% win rate
 
:LOL: till 2 people do it and one of you winds up commiting to buy something for £200k
 
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