How Not To Bid On Ebay

[wspohn]

I know some people who, when out bid as t***c was, will put in bids to see how much they can make the winner pay for the item. Of course, sometimes those people end up accidentally winning the auction.

 

 

I have also seen sellers using other IDs push the bid up until they see what the maximum bid you put in was, and then you come second, but after the auction a second chance offer comes to you allowing you to buy at the highest price you'd bid because the 'winning bidder' had defaulted (i.e. the fake ID operated by the seller, which they will change as often as need be).

 

Bidding early is a mug's game - do it if you don't really care how much you bid or if the anxiety of bidding late is too much for you or if you have no self control and fear that YOU may get carried away and exceed your high bid. Any more sensible bidder would be a fool NOT to place his bid at the last possible time, assuming he won't be unavailable or asleep when it ends.

 

And the school of thought that says sniping is somehow immoral is just the sour grapes of losers that got outbid. High bid always wins, but if you place as late as possible you eliminate all the people that might, given enough time to consider it, decide to raise the bid even higher.

[PaulK]

It was interesting reading everyone's input. I think I've done a combination of the "if it is meant to be...." to sniping a great deal in the last seconds of an auction. However, I will say that I have never ever allowed myself to become a keyboard warrior where I competitively bid so I could beat the other person. That's just plain silly.

 

I've also never had any remorse over items "lost" in the auction. I bid what I felt was reasonable and that I was willing to pay.

 

I've also used Ebay as a measuring stick for what specific items are going for, for instance, certain manufacture/model pens.

 

 

-P

[shadowsforbars]

I simply follow the instructions on the screen and put in my maximum and forget about it until I get the email after the auction. I put in lowball bids expecting to win only 1 in 10 or 1 in 20. The trick for me is not to fall in love with a pen until I own it.

[lanacre]

I always do my research first, decide my highest offer then watch, if bidding hasn't reached my limit when there are 8 seconds to go I put in my maximum limit. That way I don't get carried away and I don't give a lower bidder time to think about it. If I get beat by someone who put in a higher bid than me earlier on then so be it. I won an item today where there were no bids showing, I put in my max that I would pay for the item with 8 seconds to go. Another bidder did the same thing as me but bid slightly less and lost because there was not enough time to re-bid. if his bid had been slightly higher than mine I would have lost. Luck of the draw. It's not truly an auction as at a real auction there is no time limit on the bidding, bidding stops when all the bidders are done. It's more of a game really.

[mrcharlie]

The psychology of an auction plays on an innate human desire to "win" and on the fact that our minds tend to think of resources as "scarce", even if we intellectually know they aren't. We evolved in an environment where the critical resources were scarce, and it is very easy to fall into the mindset of "this is the perfect example of <whatever> and there will never be exactly what I want for this price again so I need to win it" when using eBay or in a real auction, etc. Even very intelligent people have to work hard to over-ride that mentality.

 

Both of these strategies (just bid the max early and don't look at it until it is over; set up a snipe) help with that, and both are within the rules. They are both rational responses to a situation primed to get you to pay more than you should. Anyone who hassles you for playing within the rules by sniping is the one being a jerk.

 

The worst thing you can do when bidding on eBay is respond to eBay's prompting to increase your bid when you are already in the lead, because that information is available in the bid history. If the person with the current high bid has two or more bids listed with the current winning price, this lets a) a vindictive competitor, or a shill for the seller, bid up the item in minimum increments until only the most recent bid is showing as the winning bid, and they can do so safely, knowing they will never accidentally "win" the item.

 

Never increase your bid if you are already winning; never. If you genuinely feel like you would pay more than you've already bid, search your soul to make sure you aren't just responding to an irrational desire to win. Remember that almost any mass produced item will have its duplicate show up on ebay, often sooner rather than later; you rarely need to win this one. And then if you still want to bid higher, put your higher bid into a sniping site instead of increasing it on ebay.

Edited March 19, 2012 by mrcharlie

[wspohn]

The worst thing you can do when bidding on eBay is respond to eBay's prompting to increase your bid when you are already in the lead, because that information is available in the bid history. If the person with the current high bid has two or more bids listed with the current winning price, this lets a) a vindictive competitor, or a shill for the seller, bid up the item in minimum increments until only the most recent bid is showing as the winning bid, and they can do so safely, knowing they will never accidentally "win" the item.

 

Excellent point. I liked the days when you could still see who was bidding against you and could research their bidding tactics and track record. It made for some psychological fun, if you had the time to spend playing around with it.

[pmhudepo]

Some may crucify me for this, but I put items I'm interested in into my Watch List and monitor how the bidding goes on them until the very end. If I feel like jumping in on it, I put my max bid in in the last couple seconds. If someone has a higher max bid, or outbids me on a snipe, no big deal. But I don't get involved until the very end, and I research out my price ceiling ahead of time.

 

It's a bidding war, I see no reason to make myself known until absolutely necessary.

 

Same here!

 

I usually add a little bit to whatever I'd like to pay for the item, say $1.37. For example, I might bid $201.37 for an item, hoping that I will win from other people who think 200 dollars is about right. Of course, that doesn't help if someone else has $205 as their maximum bid, or even $201.38, but that's the nature of the game.

 

I'm always hoping I am the only one to have discovered a particular auction and try not to draw attention to it by early bidding.

 

Edited to add: as lanacre puts it, "[t]hat way I don't get carried away and I don't give a lower bidder time to think about it."

Edited March 19, 2012 by pmhudepo

[drgoretex]

 

I have also seen sellers using other IDs push the bid up until they see what the maximum bid you put in was, and then you come second, but after the auction a second chance offer comes to you allowing you to buy at the highest price you'd bid because the 'winning bidder' had defaulted (i.e. the fake ID operated by the seller, which they will change as often as need be).

 

 

 

Don't want to get caught doing this. Shill bidding is illegal and can land a seller in pretty hot water:

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1267410/Ebay-seller-faces-fine-bidding-items-raise-prices.html

 

Of course, I suppose it depends on where you live...

 

 

Ken

[wspohn]

Quite right, shill bidding can get you into trouble if the laws where you live prevent it.

 

I see it mostly out of the far East - from Thailand particularly, on pens. There is one guy that seems to have his family hooked up as other IDs and back when you could get access to who was bidding on what, you'd see the runner up in half this guy's auctions bid ONLY on his auctions, an obvious sock puppet. He would periodically create a new sock puppet ID, use it for a couple of months and then change again. Ebay doesn't have the staff to chase these crooks, and even if they did, they'd ban them and they'd just show up again under a different name. I do not know if the law in Thailand would care whether or not someone was doing this sort of thing - maybe one of the only honest sellers that lived there, Speerbob would know.

 

The guy managed to sell almost 1800 items, but I just checked and he hasn't been active for 6 months, so has probably switched IDs again.

 

Everyone always repeats that you should never buy from a Thai seller. Well if you do your homework that isn't necessarily the case.

 

First, look at their history (as far back as Ebay allows) and if they have been selling $1 items repeatedly to other Thai sellers just to rack up a positive score that will impress buyers too unsophisticated to do any research, shy away.

 

Second, if the item is something that you would really like to buy, assuming it is real AND you use a Paypal account hooked only to a credit card, you can take a shot at it anyway. The worst that will happen is that you get taken, apply for a Paypal refund and if they come back saying (We find in your favour but unfortunately the seller has no money in his account (as has happened to me a couple of times, you just institute a refund through your credit card. If you do this, pay careful attention to deadlines for reporting' lest you leave it too late to qualify for a refund from whichever source works.

 

BTW, the best strategy is to know your seller. Toolhaus.org is a valuable tool - you can see what negative feedback a seller has been given (and what feedback they in turn have given) more easily that scrolling through pages of Ebay history.

[wspohn]

BTW, I'll add one more comment on fraudulent sellers. I was after a rare one - they made maybe only 100 or so special demo Waterman Man 100 pens in vermeil (gold plate over sterling) and delivered them only to their dealers so they could sell the 18K solid gold Man 100 without having to stock them (the list price was over $10,000).

 

See Jim Maimoulides interesting write up on them at My link

 

They come up for sale every 2 or 3 years, so they aren't easy to find. I was going to bid on one on Ebay when another one came up out of London, and I chose to bid on it. Turned out that it was a fraudulent seller so I missed the other )real) one and waited a month to get my money back. :bonk:

 

Took me at least 3 years to find (and this time buy) another one.

[amk]

I find sniping is a good way to discipline myself. I keep lots of things that are interesting on my watch list, but I don't usually bid on them - it's a way of tracking a particular pen and its prices. When I seriously want to bid, I sit down and think what is it worth to me? and then put in a snipe. Then I walk away and forget all about it. If I get the item, fine, and if I don't, well at least I haven't wasted money pushing the price up - no chance to get all emotional about it.

 

Snipes are also useful for US listed items (I'm in UK) owing to the time difference.

 

However occasionally I have found that an early bid will win - usually the case where an item is quoted with a start price that is fairly close to what I'll pay for it. Say a pen is worth $40 and is listed at $25, the bargain-seekers tend not to come into the bidding; whereas if it's worth $40 and listed at $1.99, bargain-hunters get attracted to the item and start a little bidding war, and occasionally the item will go for $60 as they all have emotional capital invested.

[sumgaikid]

I've said it before in the past--I have no problem sniping. It causes me to research the

item I'm looking at,gives me a general idea of what the item will go for(this takes prac-

tice)and keeps me patient. Also,if the price in my mind is too high,I can always choose

not to snipe.

 

I also never bid early because invariably a buyer or the seller(or their friends) will shill

bid the price up if they think it isn't moving fast enough.

 

 

 

John

[matveik]

This type of analysis overlooks the people that didn't participate. It's quite likely that there were people considering sniping, but because t***c ran up the price, they elected not to in the end.

 

It's true that it's probably better to wait until the end for some of the reasons that others have mentioned, but I think it's a mistake to think that it could have gone for 30% less.

Edited March 19, 2012 by matveik

[sumgaikid]

This type of analysis overlooks the people that didn't participate. It's quite likely that there were people considering sniping, but because t***c ran up the price, they elected not to in the end.

 

It's true that it's probably better to wait until the end for some of the reasons that others have mentioned, but I think it's a mistake to think that it could have gone for 30% less.

 

One never knows--I remember the post about someone that was the only person to

put in a bid on a black Parker pen(as the seller described it,with no other description

and pics to match)coming out of the UK. Turns out that it was a Senior-sized 30's Vac

that they got for a sumgai price.

 

What helps is if one has an idea of the present value of a vintage pen--then they can

deduct the percentage to see if the buyer won a deal.

 

 

John

[wspohn]

This type of analysis overlooks the people that didn't participate. It's quite likely that there were people considering sniping, but because t***c ran up the price, they elected not to in the end.

 

It's true that it's probably better to wait until the end for some of the reasons that others have mentioned, but I think it's a mistake to think that it could have gone for 30% less.

 

 

I think that begs the question. Yes, there may have been others out there willing to snipe at a price lower than the eventual sale price (if they'd been willing to go over that price, they would have sniped despite the bid progression - I've won a bid with a snipe of $.50 over the last visible bid).

 

All that means is that if you were the winning buyer and put in a snipe bid for enough to win it, you'd still get it, but for maybe somewhere between the point where our second bidder would have stopped, thinking himself secure, and where the bid on that auction wound up at. In other words by sniping, you'd still get it lower than the price if finally sold for, just maybe not as low as our second bidder would have stopped.

 

In the end there is nothing to be gained by bidding early, and possibly something to be lost. QED - bid late.

[Marlow]

Glad I used the power of search rather than start this topic myself as I had been planning to!

 

I absolutely agree with the OP and anyone else who says not to bid early!

 

As Hannibal Lecter pointed out to Clarice Starling, "we begin by coveting what we see every day" - ebay auctions (as opposed to Buy-it-nows) that last 10 days instead of 3, 5 or 7 are designed to keep your item in view for a lengthy enough time that a) large numbers of potential buyers see it and want it and that, b)those that see it early-on get to look at the listing frequently so that they may covet it more and more as the end of the auction approaches and as the price rises as multiple buyers keep nudging the price up, increasing the generally perceived value.

 

When, as very frequently happens with collectables, people place bids well before the auction ends what is a common outcome of that? - newly arriving potential bidders see the possibly already large number of existing bidders and their attention is caught - "Oooh, i wonder why so many people want that one?" - if the item has 'heart value' that exceeds its "brain value", as is frequently the case with collectable items, the perceived desirability of that item then increases significantly.

 

Ebay encourages early bidding precisely because it knows that this is the way to foster the highest possible auction prices - on which it takes a 10% cut and on which its partner site Paypal, takes a tasty slice too!

 

When I read ebayers saying things like "I put a bid on an item I like when I'm bored' or "I bid my maximum straight away and forget about it" or "I like to mark out my territory" or "being in the lead on an auction is 'fun' " I think i ought to sell more collectables myself on the bay! Thankfully for those of us who sell (i dont sell pens), most buyers do not understand how their own (completely normal) psychology works to empty their pockets faster than necessary and thankfully for those of us who buy, many sellers do not bother to work out how best to showcase what they sell to attract the most buyers.

 

In summary, if you wish to pay as little as possible for an item, especially a collectable, desirable item, then do not bid earlier than the last 4 seconds so that you dont add to the perceived desirability of an item, thereby causing other bidders to re-evaluate their highest bid once they see that you have had the cheek to outbid them! Use an auction sniping tool and put your max bid in that instead of on show to the world on ebay. [please ignore this last paragraph and go specifically against my suggestions and follow ebay's advice to the letter if you are bidding on any of my listings!

Edited May 12, 2012 by Marlow

[framebaer]

This type of analysis overlooks the people that didn't participate. It's quite likely that there were people considering sniping, but because t***c ran up the price, they elected not to in the end.

 

It's true that it's probably better to wait until the end for some of the reasons that others have mentioned, but I think it's a mistake to think that it could have gone for 30% less.

 

This logic omits the reality that for many Snipes ( I almost always use a snipe service) I have placed I have gotten back a message that says " when we went to place your bid the item in question had already moved beyond your bid" and thus the snipe was never executed. This process keeps me from bidding more than I have thought the pen to be worth due to "auction fever" in the last moments. Another reason why I LOVE the ability to snipe.

[Chrissy]

I prefer to place my bid in the dying seconds. Sometimes I don't won the item and sometimes I do, but IMHO it's better than having my bid 'nibbled' at for the duration of the auction.

 

I only use a free sniping service (Goofbay) when I'm not going to be near the PC as the item ends.

 

The buzz when you win your item by 1p is fun

[goldiesdad]

Bids ending in the middle of the week have less play than those on weekends. I never bid until the last minute and always look up what the item really costs. Many folks get caught up in the bidding thing and pay way too much in the end ....

 

My 2 cents ...

[reval]

I decide how much I want to pay for an item and set an automatic snipe. If I win great, if I loose, too bad, but not a big deal because it was sold at a price I am not prepared to pay for it.