Tricks to win Ebay bids?

[Tom Phillips]

...I have lost many items by a single "buck."...

That has happened to me many times. However, we have to keep in mind that, in a real situation, you may have had to pay much more than an additional "buck" to win the action. For example , if you had bid $20 max and the winner got it for $21, it is possible that the winner had set a much higher maximum bid. You don't know how high they were willing to go. The high bidder always wins an eBay auction for the next incremental amount unless the seller sets a reserve price. Also it only takes two bidders worldwide who really want the item, to push the sell price up to a high level.

A good approach on eBay is to have patience. I have resisted the bidding wars on things like classic books. Sometimes it takes a long time but I have bought excellent copies of books for very low prices such as $3.95 Buy it Now that regularly sold for around the $75 dollar range. Also, there are times when no one else bids and you get the item for the low opening bid amount.

[Sock Puppet]

I snipe - I get a splitting bad head if I'm waiting to bid at the last minute!

I use Gixen with the mirror, set the bid and forget about it.

They have this to say:

Gixen - Why Snipe?

[Steve A.]

I haven't used a sniping program yet but found it best to wait until the last 10 seconds before bidding. The less attention paid to an auction before then, the better. (I think that bids beget more bids.)
It's largely a matter of luck- like that the current high bidder is not paying attention when you swoop in during the last few seconds and that the item is not in high demand.

Funny how when you want to buy something EVERYBODY is interested but when you are trying to sell something it's like a ghost town...

Steve Ahola

P.S. I just listed my first two items at Reverb•com last night- no listing fee, 3.5% fee for sold items plus PayPal charges (2.9%, I think)
Today Reverb•com, tomorrow eBay...

[g1]

Funny how when you want to buy something EVERYBODY is interested but when you are trying to sell something it's like a ghost town...

This is because of the large amounts of buyers that are sniping. The upside is for buyers, the downside is for sellers. Thus the rise of "buy it now" and ebay becoming more like amazon than an auction house.

[Chuck H]

Agree. Of course ebay is a very powerful company and they got that way marketing a sellable product. But I do wish they could do away with "buy it now" and "reserve price" options for sellers. If you have a "reserve price" in place then that IS your opening auction price. Absolutely no different except that it would save a lot of people a lot of time. And "buy it now" is just a damn store, not an auction (although they are often combined on the same item). A regular auction style is a lot more fun anyway.

[The Dude]

I use this one:

Auction Sniper: eBay Sniper and eBay Bidding snipe, bid sniping for eBay

....for several reasons.

1) I'm on the road a lot and not often available when auctions are ending.
2) I don't want to run up the bid by getting in early.
3) I haven't the time (usually) to sit around and watch an auction end.

I figure out what the maximum I want to spend is on an item, set up a snipe, and let'r buck. If I win, fine. If I lose, the item went for more than I wanted to spend anyway, so I don't care. There is a very minimal fee, but IMO, it's worth it. You don't pay if you don't win. They also have a "snipe it now app" that lets you set up a snipe from the auction page so you don't have to navigate over to their site to setup a snipe.

Edit: I should add, for those unfamiliar, that when you setup your snipe and put in your max bid, that doesn't mean that's what your going to pay. It's just like any other auction bid. You will still get the item at a price based on the next lowest bid- often much lower than your maximum bid.