First eBay experience

pdora

pdora

Senior Member
I tried my hand at eBay last night for the first time, going after a Zenith carburetor. I lost in the last few seconds.

Two savvy bidders swooped in and took over, leaving me in a cyber ditch.

It occurred to me later that, considering the item in question, the bidders in this particular auction were likely Ford Barn members.

How strange! On the FB we are all the best of friends, but once we log into eBay we turn into fierce competitors. Such is life on the Internet.
 
I too have been burned on EBAY with last minute bids that I thought that I had won.

The way that I have solved the problem is to make a bid that is the absolute, top dollar value and lock it in early. If it sells for more, then I just don't care. Less, and I have made some money.

Marc
 
Hey Pete,
I've "won" a few bids on E-Bay only later to find out I could have purchased the same item in one of our catalogues as cheap or cheaper when you add freight. Typical auction, last minute frenzy and you end up over paying. I bought a Model 60-A on E-Bay and regreted it. Pete
 
i use e-snipe which automatically bids for me the last second or seconds. its has worked great for me and i dont have to be home.
 
Most of the acceleration in the money offered at eBay is made by the seller in the last 90 seconds of an auction.

Auction economics are geared around the last second bid to NOT LOSE the item. There is no kindness nor hard feelings in an auction.

Bid the most you are willing to pay, and if you lose there will be another item like it available soon. Hence, the dramatic prices paid for one of a kind items like Artwork where there is no substitute.
 
I have many eBay-bought parts on my car. Some of them were real bargains. The key is to be patient, have a top price in mind, and stick to it. And watch out for excessive shipping charges, some sellers try to make their profit that way.
 
Pete
Your doing better than me. It took me a couple of times to catch on to that. Now you know whats happening with the bidding process. Put the highest amount that your willing to pay and let the automatic bidding do the work. If it goes over what your willing to pay, so be it. The other guy isn't getting any bargan. It's been my experience also if a seller (not all) doesn't get what he wants, he'll jack up the shipping. Again just a few will try that. I look at sellers feedback, check shipping,know when the auction is over, (exact time) and use auto bidding. I always have a set amount I won't go over. I try to find out what things cost before I bid. I might be telling you things you already know, but it don't hurt to try and help. And one more thing, you might be aware of some sellers have friends bidding on there item to jack up the bid. Not legal, but it happens.
 
I think ebay should be set up where the last bid generates another 30 seconds before the gavel falls. It is that way at live auctions with the auctioneer calling for any last bids. It would surely put the hurt on snipers and guarantee earlier bids.
 
One way of avoiding jacked up shipping charges is to ask the seller early in the auction what the charges will be to your area before you bid. Most are happy to quote the price. Then you add that to what your highest bid will be. If a seller won't give you a shipping price then don't bid, because it probably means they'll change the price to make their profit.
 
I never bid until the last few seconds. Any bid before that only temps another bidder to raise the stakes. I want to pay as little for a part as I can, the only winner in a bidding war is the seller.
 
Followup from OP

Combining the wisdom contained in this thread with some other sources I have begun to develop an eBay strategy:

1. Only bid on things I actually need.

2. Research previous auctions of similar items to get a feel for market price.

3. Determine the maximum that I am willing to pay in light of shipping costs and compared to new catalog items.

4. Put in an automatic bid for my maximum price and walk away.

5. Do not watch the final bidding so as not to be sucked into a frenzy. (This is the hardest one of all).

6. If I don't 'win' try again later with another similar item.


The Model A may have 5000 parts, but this is only a tiny fraction of eBay listings. Sooner or later almost everything will come along again.
 
Ebay is not a live auction

If you treat Ebay like a live auction you will get frustrated. In a live auction everyone gets to know what everyone bids throughout the auction and everyone keeps bidding until only one bidder is left. Ebay dose not work that way. It is a timed auction. The highest bid entered before the end of the auction wins. I treat Ebay like a silent auction. I decide how much I want to spend on an item and I bid at the last second. If I win I am happy if I loose then I am still happy because it went for more than I was willing to spend. That way I do not get caught in a bidding war which will almost always cost me more money if I win the item. This method will not work if you are not sure what the item is worth to you or you tend to second guess your valuation of the item after the auction is over. Bidding early lets other bidders know what you are willing to spend and therefore gives them an advantage over you.

Bob
 
I think it's not smart to bid high early. This gives other bidders more time to think about it and talk themselves into paying more for the item than they really should.

The more time you have to think about a $100 item, you can easily talk yourself into saying, "Well, I would pay $120 actually. It's just $20 more, and I would have it now rather than waiting."

Bid at the last minute and others don't have time to think about paying more than they should.
 
Peter, you can also set up an automatic search so that you will get an email whenever an item you are interested in comes up for bid.
 
7. Save up all the money and make the annual trek up to Hershey in October...buy parts you can touch and examine from people you can discuss things with!
 
Elrod said:
I think it's not smart to bid high early. This gives other bidders more time to think about it and talk themselves into paying more for the item than they really should.

The more time you have to think about a $100 item, you can easily talk yourself into saying, "Well, I would pay $120 actually. It's just $20 more, and I would have it now rather than waiting."

Bid at the last minute and others don't have time to think about paying more than they should.
Click to expand...

TOTALLY disagree. Show your cards and who cares if you bid early, after 14 years experience and 1 of the 1st 100 members of ebay, it is simple. Either
place your bid for your HIGHEST BID AMOUNT.. DONT return until the auction is over. You loose because you get caught up in the bidding,.that is the idea of an auction and you never loose for a 1.00 as you dont know the other persons high bid. if you are willing to pay 200.00 for an item, place it let the system raise your bid.. if you loose due to the 202.00 bid who cares, you only said 200.00..walk away!
2. Snipe your bid...Use a snipe program and put in the high bid and WALK AWAY from it,. Return when you win...or loose.
eBay is simple if you dont allow yourself to get caught up. I win 98% of all i bid on when i use this method, when i loose it is because i was not willing to pay over a certain amount... it is called self control

Good luck to you all
mark:)
 
marc hildebrant said:
I too have been burned on EBAY with last minute bids that I thought that I had won.

The way that I have solved the problem is to make a bid that is the absolute, top dollar value and lock it in early. If it sells for more, then I just don't care. Less, and I have made some money.

Marc
Click to expand...

What you do jacks up the price of things. A way to get winning bids for less is sniping.

99% of auctions I see are decided by snipers, me included. I seldom lose an auction and I use a FREE sniper and never bid manually. If you want to win ebay auctions, use a sniper. They bid for you in the last 6 or less seconds and any manual bidder doesn't have a chance to make another bid in only 6 seconds. Most ebay bidders bid only a few bucks above the current bid. With a sniper you still have to be the high bid! Another advantage of a sniper is you can change your mind as the bid doesn't get made immediately.

No need to pay for snipers either as Gixen is one of the few free snipers. It works just as good as the 1% fee snipers and I've used it for hundreds of bids without any errors. If you post a link to Gixen on your webpage, you get free backup sniping as well (Gixen makes the same snipe from two different servers.)

See my page for a link to Gixen: http://members.fortunecity.com/pjsauber/

My fleabay handles are ModelA4Rd(seller) and 28ModelAr-RPU(buyer). Yup, 2 IDs. I once had a sleazy seller refuse to sell me an item I won after I cancelled a bid(It was for a F100 Model A steering box I eventually paid $275 for a terrific bargain for an $800 item) I tried to bargain with the seller to add a Buy It Now deal for $275 before the auction had any bids and he said yes but never followed thru. With no follow thru, I cancelled my $275 bid. I won the auction for $201 with a snipe but he wouldn't sell as I'd offered him $275 for Buy It Now.

I also used to believe the Ebay stated policy that a bid is a binding contract. Ha ha on that one. If the seller changes their mind and won't sell to you Ebay won't do anything to make the seller sell. On the other hand, if you change your mind before paying and decide not to buy Ebay won't do anything either to you the fake buyer. All Ebay is interested in is collecting their high selling fees that they have raised repeatedly. One good thing, PayPal will give you your money back if you pay thru PayPal, return the item, and the buyer misrepresented. In that case they are on the buyers side. Fear of negative feedback used to motivate both seller and buyers to be honest, but now only buyers call make a negative feedback!

I once "sold" a bicycle for $1,000 to a deadbeat seller who made several bids in the last 24 hours(not retractable according to Ebay rules) and refused to pay when the auction ended. Ebay's response to me was, "relist the item." I left a negative feedback to the deadbeat buyer and was rewarded with a negative in return even though I did nothing wrong. Ebay's response after I complained about the feedback, "it's only an opinion, don't get upset about it!"

http://www.gixen.com/
 
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I have completely quit ebay now,but I used a sniping service for years.I tried a few,but Auction Raptor seemed to work the best for me.I think I paid $48.per year,unlimited use.I went for the service because it seemed like a lot of peoples auctions end during the night,mostly from another time zone.If I just put in my high automatic bid,others would just bid up until I was capped.If I happened to be sleeping at 3 AM when the auction ended,I wouldn't get to see if I was outbid in the last minutes.People leaving automatic bids are good for the seller though,I once had a British Amal racing carb go from about $25.to nearly $1000.in the last two minutes.
 
pdora said:
Followup from OP

Combining the wisdom contained in this thread with some other sources I have begun to develop an eBay strategy:

1. Only bid on things I actually need.

2. Research previous auctions of similar items to get a feel for market price.

3. Determine the maximum that I am willing to pay in light of shipping costs and compared to new catalog items.

4. Put in an automatic bid for my maximum price and walk away.

5. Do not watch the final bidding so as not to be sucked into a frenzy. (This is the hardest one of all).

6. If I don't 'win' try again later with another similar item.


The Model A may have 5000 parts, but this is only a tiny fraction of eBay listings. Sooner or later almost everything will come along again.
Click to expand...

Peter,
A chess player, your not! Learn chess and use the same skills...without sniper service or elsewise..it's easy then!:rolleyes:
 
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