Keep getting killed on ebay.....

[Donziweasel]

I have lost 3 bronco's in the last month in the last minute of bidding. Man, this is killing me. One of them I had set my max bid price 2000.00 over current bid price. Still, in the last minute, someone out bid me by 100.00. Aghhhh!!!!:hangum:

[BlownCrewCab]

It's called "Sniping"..... You can do it manualy if you keep refreshing and watching what others are bidding, then throw you highest and best in at the end and hope you got it..Or.. Ebay has it's own Snipe function where you just put in your highest bid and it's entered on your behalf (by ebay) at the very end of the auction, that way no matter whos bidding/sniping if yours is higher nobody knows because they cant see it and you'll win it. I sold a prop pitch checker and watched the action at the end of the auction,thought one person had won it, but another did, I asked him how he did it, he said he wasn't even home, he had ebay snipe it for him. he just put in his max bid and they don't show it till the end, different than just bidding.

[gcarter]

You know you can go crazy w/bidding if you're not careful. You can win but pay WAYYYYYYY too much for the item.
I decide the ABSOLUTE maximum I'll pay and let the process work. Sometimes ya win and sometimes ya don't.
In most cases there's always another item just around the corner.

[BlownCrewCab]

Hah, once I was bidding on a pump for my cloronator on my well. I waited till the last few seconds, went to type in $80.00.... accidently hit a "comma" instead of a "period" and it entered my bid as $80,000.00....Needless to say I won the Item....For $124.00..whew. could have been worse.

I feel if you bid early your just driving up the price, wait till the end, then bid.

[rustnrot]

If it is something I really want, I absolutely wait until the last twenty seconds or less and enter my FIRST and ONLY bid. This does several things:

1. Does not show my hand although less important now that all bidding is anonymous.

2. Does not drive the price up early.

3. (Probably the best one) is if I do not get it, I'm out of time to offer more $$.

4. If I am high bidder in the last several seconds after putting in my best, highest and only bid, time usually runs out before someone else has a chance to up theirs and exceed mine.

In my opinion, humans, given enough time, will continue to drive the price up. By bidding at the last second or so it eliminates me upping the ante and also someone else as the auction ends before that can happen. A 7 day auction, IMO, is 6 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes and 45 seconds of "advertising". The last few seconds are the "real" auction!

[Greg]

rustnrot, I do exactly the same as you. If I am the highest bidder, I go back and raise my bid 1.00 at a time. If you are the highest bidder e-bay will go to you before anyone else, there by blocking anyone elses bid. Doesn't work all the time, but more success than failure. Ultimately, it's just a microsecond mouse click away. Good luck to you.

[synack]

There's programs out there that will snipe for you... I never used one so I'm not sure how well they work.

[mjw930]

I use http://www.phantombidder.com/PhantomBidder/Default.asp for every auction I actually want to win. It works just like setting your limit price inside ebay but you don't drive up the bidding by making your presence known.

Just make sure you put in the max price you are willing to go to and let the system take over. It will email you if the bidding goes over your max price at any time prior to the end of the auction so you can adjust your target price as needed.

You may not agree with snipeing but as long as others continue to use it you will continue to lose auctions without it.

[BlownCrewCab]

I Think snipeing is fine, It's just everybody bidding in a hurry at the end. Instead of just driving the price up during the week. if you bid early thats all your doing is driving up the price.

[Donziweasel]

Never new about sniping. Thanks everyone for turning me on to it. I don't buy much on ebay. I did find a Bronco donor, so it will be a while before I bid again.

[joel3078]

If you are a seller on ebay, spend the extra 15 cents or whatever it is and set your auctions so they end in the early evening. You have to do a little match as this setting is actually a delay to when you want your auction to start.

Anyway, this lets as many people like rust-n-rot do manual sniping as possible. If your auctions ends at the wee hours of the nite or during the work day, the manual snipe people probably won't have the ability to bid on your item as they can't be around to watch/snipe it.