Page 1 of eBay Tactics

What do reckon is the best method on eBay? Do you bid well in advance or leave until the last minute?

i can never be arsed bidding at the start cos its odds on youll get outbid. i only do it from the start if theres a buy iy now i want. otherwise leave it til the death...

Leaving it until the last minute usually means that someone else`s proxy bid rapidly outbids you. Your best bet is to just enter the absolute maximum that you`re willing to pay for the item. Remember that the item`s price will only reach this figure if further bids are received. If you`re lucky, you may get the item for considerably less than you were expecting. The worst that can happen is that someone else will be willing to pay more than you are. Just don`t be tempted to enter into a bidding war over something that`s only worth a few quid.

I`d agree with Dwight - you decide what you`re prepared to pay and bid it. If you get it, all well and good, and if you don`t, there will probably be another one along in a minute :-)

The other thing to do is shop around. Last month, Richer Sounds were selling off a Yamaha Centre Speaker for £20 (too big for my stand, unfortunately :( ). They seemed to have plenty in stock, too. I checked around for prices elsewhere, and some muppets on eBay were paying £50 + postage for the same model. The postage will have probably been not too far off £20. D`oh!

I`d actually disagree with Dwight here, sorry. :)

The best tactics imho are:

1) Decide on your maximum price and DO NOT go above it. There will always be another one (or five) along in a minute.

2) Bid this price at the last possible moment, the last ten seconds if you have a really reliable connection. This does two things, firstly it stops you getting excited and upping your maximum price when your bid fails, and secondly it stops anyone else doing the same thing.

3) Never bid on an item before the last day at the earliest, because it really does just push the price up quicker.

4) Sometimes you have to disregard all of the above and bid on an item the first time you see it, as this can sometimes put off other bidders completely if you have a good rating, and they assume you have proxy bidded. Depends on the type of item.

but above all...

5) Understand about the way the item you are after tends to sell on ebay. A large number of people in the bid history will mean some idiot will probably pay over the odds for it (and ALWAYS work out what something is worth), whilst a large number of bids from a small number of people often means a last minute bid could win it for you.

There are still a few things I`ve been trying to get on ebay (discontinued board games) which I have yet to win. But new ones always seem to turn up, so patience is the key. By just accepting that I will probably not win these type of auctions, and passing over them time and time again when they got too expensive, I finally got a copy of Dark Tower for £57 in full working order, the cheapest price it has ever gone for. The second cheapest price before that was over £100. :)


Editor
DVD REVIEWER

Always add a few pence on to your maximum bid - never bid in whole pounds.

Lost count of the number of auctions I`ve won by the odd penny :-)

========================
Clayts
Moderator
DVD Reviewer

It depends on the item, with some of the stuff on there, it may be unlikely that more than 1 person will go for it.

Check the postage costs before you bid because a lot of people on there like to steal from you by making up ridiculous postage costs, so take that into account when bidding. A DVD shouldn`t really be more than £1 for 1st class postage, £1.20 max.

Nothing like abit of sniping, ive won 43 auctions doing it!

If you bid the absolute maximum you`re willing to pay, it won`t make any difference when you bid.

Yes Jim it will, because a lot of people don`t bid their maximum. And if you outbid them with 4 days to go, they come back and re-bid till they beat your maximum.

If you bid your maximum in the last few seconds, they can`t come back and outbid you.

But ebay (and sellers) prefer people didn`t snipe, although many an auction has escalated in price during the last few minutes due to bidding wars. :)


Editor
DVD REVIEWER