How to Win eBay Auctions?

Of course not, but it sure beats tethered to a computer counting down an auction ending. I have better things to do than that for MOST auctions.

 

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I didn't know it has a fee & I like to limit the amount of my information including CC #s is out there.

 

Lol no argument there. But with the app you're never really stuck at the computer for the auctions and they sometimes give out app only or higher eBay bucks for using the app

 

Thanks for the suggestions.
The stuff I buy is 60- 120y/o. I've never bought anything from CraigsList, check them out.

 

Which Bidding Service do you guys recommend?
Thanks.

 

Midas1,
Is that a Leica IIIf w/ an f2.0 Summitar?
Really nice film camera collection,
J.T.

 

"that a bunch of bidders are coordinating and driving the price UP ? "
IMO, they're are using automated bidding software.

 

I haven't bid on eBay for a while. My "Strategy" was to determine the most I would pay for an item and enter that number from the outset. If I won, great, but if I didn't, I was pleased I didn't get into a bidding war. However, I auctioned a 'gently' used Hitachi framing stick nailer and started the bidding at $125.00 The final realized bid was $565.00 which was twice the going price of a new one. The caveat was, this was just after the horrendous storm passed through the middle of the states and I guess there was a shortage of these nail guns?

 

Many nowadays do not have fees. I used to use snip.pl, which had a very low fee like 8 cents per successful auction. Effectively nothing.

If its a credit card, I don't worry about it. If someone charges something I don't like, just don't pay and inform cc company of error. People who use debit cards online scare the bejeezus out of me.

 

I buy a decent amount off of eBay. I don't use any third party tools or services. I tTake advantage of your watchlist to track interesting items. Generally, bid one of two ways: enter my highest bid out of the gate; or, wait until there are ~20 seconds left in the auction and then try to bid on the item. The idea here is that it gives your competitors less time to react, think, and place their bid.

 

Thanks. I've more of 'em but no room to display them.
Yep, my mother gave me her Leica many years ago.
My brother gave me the Nikon rig, it's got just about every Nikon accessory produced for the camera at the time = big telephoto, filters, you name it. He said it would never take a good picture. I took it to the Nikon shop in DC used by professional photographers. They told me the light meter needed to be calibrated. They tuned it up, lubricated the lenses, now it works great. Many years ago, a friend who's a professional photographer borrowed the original receipt. (It was purchased in Greece in the early sixties.) Never got it back.

addendum: I guy that traveled in my social group was always asking to look at my stuff. He wanted to take the Leica to a local camera show and get it appraised. Before he took it to the show he offered to trade a 17 or 18th (don't remember) century octagonal shaped pocket watch for it. I replied where am I going to glass octagonal shaped crystal for it? I loaned the camera to him. Got back a few days later. Later, I realized the lens was different the camera body did not have the same wear patterns as the one I gave him. The original lense a small scratch on it. The lense or maybe even the camera had been switched. My buddy admonished me for loaning him the camera.

 

I took that advice. It appears eBay didn't enter my high bid just the next incremental bid. That'll work. It's going to be tough to follow all these auctions.

 

Correct; if the item starts at $1 and you enter a maximum bid of $100, it'll bid $1. If I come along and bid $2, it'll automatically increase your bid to $3.

Once you've bid on something, feel free to remove it from your Watchlist. It'll be tracked in your Bids/Offers list now. There's also some functionality to let you group items into sub-lists, but I've never messed with this.

Good luck!!

 

As far as I know there are no snipe programs that will accept an unlimited or Buy bid. You HAVE to specify a maximum bid.

It shows the current high bid which is one increment over the second bid. But if the high bidder has a max bid in it DOESN'T show what that max bid is, just the one increment over the previous high bid. This is why you see those instant bids when you place a higher bid than the current one. Ebay accepts your bid which is then instantly outbid by the other guys max bid. That continues until you place a bid higher than his max bid.

Placing a snipe bid or placing a max bid, in neither case will you ever have to pay more than your maximum bid. But you have a better chance of paying LESS with a snipe bid than with a max bid placed early on.

If you are up against increment bidders (people trying to get it cheap by bidding one increment over the current high bid) a max bid placed early will be run up until the increment bidders reach their maximum bids.

If you snipe the increment bidder placed his bid at the low level and it has just been sitting there. Then your snipe comes in and he doesn't have the time to bid again and you get it at one increment over his low level bid and well below what he was actually willing to pay.

Placing the snipe max bid can be done either in person or by the snipe software, the result is exactly the same. But with the software you don't have to be there hovering over the computer waiting to place the bid. I have won many an auction while I have been home in bed sleeping.

 

Much thanks I"m going the try the eBay "maximum bid" first.

 

No problem.

One thing I would say is you will never know what you don't know. You will never know if you didn't place ANY bid until the last second how much money you would have saved. I always found if I placed a bid early it always got driven up over the course of the auction. It simply gives people ample opportunity to change their minds, raise their bids, over and over basically driving up my costs. After I started sniping, this mostly went away, since no one had time to change their minds and bid higher and higher against me.

Like I said, do what you feel. I would encourage you, though, if you are serious about buying on Ebay to try sniping and see how it feels. I cannot overestimate the ability to retract your bid. I changed my mind frequently and was never stuck with a coin I had second thoughts about.

Just a suggestion, and to others as much as you sir.

 

I use Auctionsniper, the rate per auction was cheap, there is no fee unless you win, and I just keep a small balance on file with them that I reload when needed from my Paypal account.

Medoraman reminded me of another advantage of snipe bidding. There are some unscrupulous sellers out there, that when they see there is interest in one of their auctions will place shill bids to artificially increase the amount you are bidding. They place bids that they have no intention of honoring just to get your bid higher. If they accidentally go too high and exceed your high bid, they then retract that last bid and leave you stuck there bidding your maximum.

By snipe bidding they don't have the chance to run up your bid.

Max bids are the way to go, but for best results they should be placed either live or by snipe software at the last moment, not early on..

 

Just got the email from "eBay" Do you think the sender's address is real???

 

No, those phishing emails happen all the time. Also for eBay and PayPal never ever ever ever click any links in the email addresses. If the message is real you will be able to see it when you long into your account

 

For now, Iml going to try the eBay "Maximum Bid" and the Watchlist. Later, I try sniping software. I agree, bidding early is not a successful strategy. I just got an eBay email that I'm not sure is legitimate. Check out the sender's email address.
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5:06pm
I haven't used my eBay acct in a long time just logged in changed my password and billing information. Did not receive any notification when I was logged into eBay that my acct was "limited"