Originally Posted by
dobber
Here's the thing about eBay, or any other auction for that matter. Decide what you want to pay for an item. Bid that amount. If you get it for less, good for you.
Sure, but one way to decide what I want to pay for an item is to see how much others want to pay for the item. That way, assuming it was an item that garnered lots of interest and spirited bidding, I'm confident that if I decide to resell the item, I can sell it for close to what I paid for it. So it doesn't really matter what I paid the first time around. So I wait and watch and then make my decision at the end on how much I'll pay and then it becomes a strategy of simply not provoking the current bidders to up their bids - i.e. put your bid in at the last second where they can't respond.