Ebay auction question

[Donn]

If you have some particular auctions in mind where you could look at the details, the bid history should show how it got there. According to what I read, cancelled bids will appear at the bottom of the page somewhere, so make sure to look down there. I'm no expert, it just seems to me that the obvious way to discover the high bidder's bid is to run past, cancel the bid, and then run up to it. But that would be glaringly obvious if it shows up in the bid history. Note that 1) it could be done at any time during the auction, and 2) either seller or bidder (which could be the same person) can cancel a bid, and the history rules might depend on which it is.

[scottw]

By the way, nobody should bid on eBay without a sniping service

I use gixen

What, pray tell, is a sniping service?

[Donn]

Software that submits your bid for you, at the end of the auction. Usually running on a remote server but I think there are some implementations that will run on your own computer, assuming the computer is up and connected at that time. There are probably a thousand of them, many free for limited use.

It's "sniping" because that's what they call it when you submit a bid at the very end, rather than start bidding early and duke it out with other bidders until you've run up the price to some absurd level. You don't need a service to do it, if you're able to be on hand when the auction closes. If the OP really has been getting his bid jacked up by some kind of tomfoolery, then sniping might put an end to it - however it's done, it probably takes longer than a few seconds.

[bort]

Well... What did you get!?

[Donn]

Seriously, if you have some reason to think sellers are gaming the system to maximize your bid, please check in with some details. That's a matter of some interest to others. If you've decided on further review of the particulars that in fact it doesn't look so much like that, fine - let us know.

[FarahShazam]

By the way, nobody should bid on eBay without a sniping service

I use gixen

Yup. I use auction sniper.

[Heavy_Metal]

"I am the type who is liable to snipe you
with two seconds left to go"..................

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuefKsXb2UU" target="_blank

[bisontuba]

now i just decide what i think its worth and how much i want to spend, place that bid and let it go... or find a best offer or buy it now with the same item. shipping fees have to be considered. too many are trying to turn a profit with those.

+1

big + 1

[Michael Bush]

There's always an element of people out there who want to scold about sniping, but if you want a thing it's often necessary. In fact, it is built into the system.

The proxy bidding thing has a flaw well described by your undergraduate philosophy professor. There is a practical application of the sorites paradox here. If $75 is not too much to pay (i.e., it isn't a "heap"), it makes sense to say, "I won't pay $100" because you could reasonably think that is a "heap." But when someone bids $76, it seems arbitrary to say, "I won't pay $77." To think those two dollars turn a non-heap into a heap seems arbitrary.

That's why many people snipe. At the margin, another dollar or two really isn't a barrier.

[Tom]

I do a lot of shopping (read: buying) on ebay - almost exclusively vintage/antique/very scarce items related to my other hobby.

I believe I've posted similar comments here before, but since ebay has come up, I'll address this particular thread as well: your ebay bidding & buying experience is directly related to your strategy which is directly related to how disciplined of a bidder/buyer you are and how badly you've just got to have the item.

Ebay is designed on a timed auction system so you can use the clock to your advantage by entering "snipe" bids in the last possible moments before the clock runs out in hopes that your fellow bidders will not have time to react and bid even higher. This strategy is really only useful when there is a very scarce item listed on ebay in auction format AND you're willing to own it at nearly any cost because there might not ever be another one listed (or perhaps it would take decades for a duplicate to be listed).

I only snipe manually. I do not rely upon third party apps, websites (free or paid), etc. to win ebay auctions for stuff I really want to own. If you seriously want to win an ebay auction, you should be on the auction site for the last 5 minutes of the auction ready to bid in the last possible moments. Yes, I've lost a few times (clock ran out), but only because someone else was entering snipe bids for more than I was - no funny business there, they were taking the same risks that I was and they prevailed. IF you want to win ebay auctions with snipe bidding, you have to be prepared to bid crazy high amounts. Of course you have to be willing to actually PAY that much if you win, too, so it's something to keep in check.

You guys will think I'm nuts, but I've even set my alarm clock to get up in the middle of the night to enter my snipe bids for auctions ending at odd hours .

It is, in my opinion, a complete waste to enter any bid on an ebay auction prior to the last possible moments. All you are doing is running up the price and giving other bidders more time to consider what they're willing to spend and more time for them to ultimately outbid you. There are, however, a lot of people that enter their maximum bid very early in the course of an auction and let it ride. This takes some discipline to enter one bid and let it go and also takes the expectation that you will probably NOT win the auction. That said, those kind of bidders do make a great point - they're willing to pay what they're willing to pay (and no more) at any point during the auction. If they win, great. If they don't it's because they bid their maximum and someone else came along willing to pay more.

Buy-It-Now listings are nice - you want it, you pay a set price and the transaction is done. Best Offer can be similar (although you get three tries) - submit what you're willing to pay and the deal wither goes or doesn't.

There are rarely "deals" anymore on ebay. Instead, it is a platform in which things that actually get sold sell for top dollar. Items rarely slip through the cracks without being noticed by many other folks looking for the same item you want.

Re: shipping fees. Ebay is getting a cut of shipping fees these days. Between the shipping cut ebay takes and the other auction fees that need to be paid, sellers get hit with about 10% in fees relative to what their item sells for. That does not include the cost of the listing and any "features" the seller ads (reserve price, etc.) Many sellers are not willing to absorb this, so they offset it by setting higher prices and higher flat shipping rates for their item. Most are not trying to make a profit on shipping - they're trying not to lose money on shipping.

No, the seller's can't see bid amounts and can't directly run the prices up. Shill bidding can still occur, but it's much harder to pull off these days and ebay aggressively targets and penalizes people that engage in that activity. In 99% of cases that is not what's happening - it's other legitimate bidders running up the price. If you carefully check how ebay's bidding works, you can see that it is possible to win by as little as one cent in certain circumstances.

Everyone likes to talk about the evils of ebay, but nobody has a truly comparable alternative. Many have tried, most have failed. The ones that have managed to hang on don't hold a candle to ebay in terms of users and available items.

[Tom]

...your ebay bidding & buying experience is directly related to your strategy...

Exactly, a game. I don't want to bid and then hope. I want to buy. I do not want to have a strategy when I am shopping.

Fair enough. I can't disagree with that at all and understand how it could be called a "game." I guess I'm often willing to play when I see something I want to buy.

Sure, there's tons of stupid stuff that happens on ebay. Some people get WAY caught up in it and very ordinary and readily available things (like the oil filters you mentioned) get bid up way, way, way beyond market value. I don't get that at all. I look at that and think "huh...those folks have a problem."

As for the old stuff that I buy, I'm very careful about what I buy. I know what I'm looking at/for and don't depend on ebay sellers to educate me nor do I expect them to full disclose everything or even be completely honest about any given item (experience on ebay has taught me that). I do the best I can there, which is all anyone can do on ebay...I examine pictures carefully, I ask questions (I'm not one of those people that bids or buys and then decided to ask for more information after the fact), and if I'm not satisfied I won't bid. I don't "have" to bid on everything nor do I have to "win." It doesn't always work out. My "success record" is not 100% but then again, I never actually thought it would be. Ok by me. BTW, for me this is not the sort of stuff that can be found in an antique shop or other retail location. It would take years of combing through specialty swap meets and decades of pouring through hobby publications to even possibly find 10% of the stuff that I've seen show up on ebay. In that sense ebay has been fantastic for me. Hint: antique motorcycle "stuff." No figurines, furniture or art here!

I'm not getting so caught up in buying stuff on ebay that I "have" to have anything. There's plenty of stuff that I would like to have, but getting to the point where I "have" to have it at any cost, no...I was also careful to say "want" in my first post. Everything I buy on ebay certainly is a "want" and not a "need" or, frankly a "must have." Yeah, I said "win," but I use that term to mean high bidder (thus the buyer) when the clock runs out, not as though I won and game or a contest. It's hobby spending. It's fun to do what I can with what I've got to work with $$$ wise and to see what I can stumble upon on ebay. It's not life and death, not worth being in debt over, and certainly not about impressing anyone with winning this or that or owning this or that (I don't have any friends that would g.a.s. about any of that anyway).

I still think if there's an auction I want to "win," I have my best chance of doing so by bidding my maximum in the last possible moments and so that I use both my maximum spending amount and the clock to my advantage.

You can filter your ebay search results into listings that are only BIN listings. It's not a completely separate site, and it's an added step, but it seems like it would accomplish what you're going for by seeking only BIN listings.

[MaryAnn]

I think gamblers get sucked into live bidding. I've bought a few things, my latest being my oboe that I got BIN at quite a bit less than it was worth. Other things, I have used esnipe. I changed to sniping because of my very first, very learning experience on ebay in which I bought my King euphonium for astronomically more than it was worth, because I got sucked into a bidding war (which could have been with the SELLER who may have seen he had a mark.) Lesson learned in one swell foop. The King is gone, sold for less than half what I paid for it in my idiocy. I esniped my Sterling compensator, and I BINed the oboe. No gambling no more for me.

[arpthark]

My favorite auctions (for buying) are the poorly-described, poorly-photographed, and the (due to some poor wording decisions) sketchy-APPEARING (but digging deeper shows that they are actually not sketchy) sellers.

+1. Case in point, my fantastic Besson.