Tips on how to be a better ebay bidder
 

I'm PO'd. I've been watching the wool jersey below, the starting bid was 19.99. Nobody had bid on it, and with 5 seconds left I bid $25. But then the frigging window asking me to confirm popped up and it took me a second to long to click it. Someone got it for 19.99. But I've lost before for bidding a few seconds too early, and someone else will win with like one second left. Anyone have some master techniques?

This was the item:

auctionsniper.
It bids in the last 3 seconds for you and cost is only 1% of winning bids.
It gets you the best possible price and also keeps you honest with yourself about the maximum price you're willing to pay for an item.
You can set up bid groups - e.g. all the Chorus brakes you can find - it will quit when it wins one for you.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7.../aP5040002.jpg

Use a Snipe program. There are many. Scope out what you want to buy, decide how much you're willing to spend, set the program to bid for you at a given time (such as 5 seconds before the end of the auction) and forget about it. Check your email later, see if you won. Don't get PO'd about it.

Use Auctionsniper.com. I use it for all my eBay purchases and it works great. The fee is tiny, and I've won everything I've ever bid on in the 6-7 years I've been using it, assuming of course that my offer was high enough. I just set it to bid the maximum amount I'm willing to pay, and forget about it. Another nice aspect of it is you dont have to be there at the end of the auction.


Editing to add: Bulldog beat me to it. :)

subbed. I've won most of the items I've wanted, but probably because I'm ridiculously persistent when I want something and not because I'm a savvy bidder. Thanks for the tips. I'll use them.

I don't purchase anything on eBay anymore unless it's buy-it-now or I use a sniper. The sniper that I use is myibidder.com and it's free. You set it up ahead of time and then forget about it. Mine is set to submit a bid 6 seconds before the auction ends. If I get outbid, I don't worry about. I usually set my bid at the max I am willing to pay. If it sells for more than that, it was more than I wanted to pay.

Wow, I didn't even know there were programs out there for this. So that's how they do it.

For years I did it with a sweep second hand, calibrated to ebay auction clock. I built up a collection of vintage (mostly) fly reels (and sold many to buy bikes).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...ss/curio34.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...ss/hager22.jpg

I manually do it, if its something I really want. Enter my price and click submit. Wait on the confirmation page until 3 sec or so and put in final submission.

I did the auction snipper thing long time ago. Forgot about a snipe I had setup after I had found a nicer alternative and won it...expensive learning experience.

Some are free to try. You get like three snipes. I used that and have not since as I don't bid often. But will if something I want comes up!

It will help you live up to your name too.hahaha

It's sort of sad watching newb' bid up an auction for a week, just to get wiped out in the last minute. Frankly, it's all about the last 3-6 seconds, and to do it well you need to have a program doing it for you. Also sad that eBay doesn't block automated bidding, it sort of flies in the face of what eBay was intended to be, but I am showing my age.

Another vote for auctionsniper. :)

I've not had a need for a sniper program. I wait until the last 60 seconds then open a new window with the item. I watch the clock and have an amount already entered that I think I can win it at and press that with 30 seconds to go. The verify screen pops up and I wait. When 5 seconds are left I hit it. I switch to the other screen and immediately enter in a larger number that I can live with and hit enter and wait for that verify screen. If it looks like I'll lose, I hit that one. I rarely miss using that technique. If I do miss, well, I probably didn't "need" the item anyway...LOL!

You do need to be quick on the keyboard and mouse with this though.

Best ebay buying is auctions ending on family holidays.
On a Christmas Eve I bid unopposed on a 1917 Hardy St. George for $500. (Just like the one Hemingway bought when he came home from the war). I fished it 3 years and sold it for $1050, which was the price of a new kayak for my daughter and I to tandem.

I use esnipe for auctions...

As previously mentioned, auctions ending on Holidays tend to be good targets. I'll occasionally search at odd hours of the day for auctions 'ending soonest'.

Peak auction times are Saturday and Sunday nights from 6-9pm pst.

Why is sniping better than just entering your maximum price? If you win, great. If you don't, oh well, it was more than you were willing to pay.

No reason to show your hand before you need to, and if you do there are frequently those who keep pinging your bid until they surpass it. It becomes a game, maybe an irrational game.
By sniping, you bid your max, if you get outbid, so be it. It is the element of time, your opponent runs out of time to outbid you, even if your prevailing bid is significantly below your maximum.
Consider it game theory.

One time though, I placed a bid early, (pre snipe program) and thought, maybe I really did not need the bike… lost at the end, then became the victor as the winner backed out. All's well than ended well, sold the bike in a month for double what I paid, and did it locally.

Because when you snipe nobody gets to see what your max bid is so they may not bid high enough and then you have a higher likelihood of winning and likely will win at much less than your maximum price. It's like playing poker where your cards are hidden vs where your cards are all face up.

sniping keeps both you and any other bidders out of bidding wars

sniping will get you the best possible price, and it keeps you honest with yourself

Buy it now.
 

Eventhough it is against policy, it is my understanding that the seller either can, or used to be able to see the max bid you put in. So, an unscrupulous seller can arrange a shill to either drive up the price or a second account to "sell" the item to himself.

It's hard to prove, even harder among a well organized group of sellers, but if near the start of an auction, you bid $80 on an item and within the last minute the price sky-rockets to $79.99 then sticks one penny short and you win, you know what happened.

It's against policy, but even if you could find a way to prove it, it's still not worth the pursuit.

So, I guess incremental bidding, medium to late, and live with a few losses. Snipe with an obscene amout at the end if it's an item you can't live with out and be willing to live with the consequences.

Or, just Buy It Now and accept it may not be the best price, but you beat the bidding war.

You can also stick to obscure things sane person would ever want or misspelled items.

They always say eBay is a great place to sell things. Nobody ever says it's a great place to buy.

Aaron

^This is the key - you have to truly bid your maximum. Then if you don't win it's ok, because it went for more than you were wiling to pay for it.

Pretty sure the other bidders can't see your max bid. I hadn't heard that part about the sellers being able to see your max bid, but I'm skeptical. I've sold things on ebay and have never been able to see the max bids.

Is this really true? I've won and lost both ways. Assuming you are competing against another competent sniper, it will still come down to whoever submitted the highest bid.

I suppose this is true if you're the kind of person who gets caught up in the bidding and ends up paying more than you wanted to. I usually just enter one number and wait for ebay to tell me if I won or lost.

as opposed to getting caught up on an internet bulletin board?

I use the sweep hand on my watch and rarely loose out unless items goes beyond the price I am willing to pay....

I think what the OP is referring to is the "bay" is inconsistent when placing a bid......sometimes you are asked to confirm your bid "after" placing it so you need 15 seconds or there about to confirm, other times it just places the bid for you. If the latter is the case and you bid early that 15 seconds is enough time for someone that was out bid to get back in and seal the deal.

Anyway there's a lot of stuff out there and it will come around again.

I suppose the services offered for auto bidding are good for multiple items ending at similar times or if you are out and about, I like the simple way and plus it is fun.
JM2C's Ben

^This is actually backwards. eBay is much better for buyers than sellers. The site has every protection possible now for buyers, but very little for the seller, right down to not being able to leave negative feedback. And the seller eats the many fees while the buyer pays nothing.

I don't see how wasting time on BF is the same as bidding in an auction?