How does eBay bidding work?

Those sellers have make offer on for a reason. I have twice now been offered well over my asking starting bid price. And my starting bid price was already inflated to allow room for the guy who wants to make a lesser offer. The last one, the guy offered 75 over my 199.99 asking price. I probably could have countered and gotten more. But I was already expecting 150/75. So no problem.

 

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Actually you kind of can given that ebay plays a lot of games with search results and who will hide listings from people to try and get a more preferred sellers listing to sell, promoted listings etc. While eBay is a race to the bottom for pricing they could very easily have played a role in a low selling price with their search games

 

i hate those types of auction, always at the last second, another bid, then another 5 minute wait, sucks (if you are the bidder), good for the seller though

 

this happened to me last night, a coin was at 51.00 for the last 6 weeks (50,00 was starting bid) at the last instant (3 seconds left) i bid 80.00, my bid does not even register in the list of bidders, lol coin went for 318.00..(was a struck through reeding scrap kennedy half dollar)

 

For very expensive stuff like 5 figures plus I can see the benefit of it, but the overwhelming majority of things sold on eBay people would revolt if they did everything like that. No one wants to sit around for an hour with more bids happening for like a 100 dollar coin.

 

It's my guess that the $51 bid or possibly a snipe trumped your $80 bid with a higher amount so yours didn't even register.

 

Be very careful with soft close bidding. Also read the rules of the Auction House. Most of them allow shill bidding. As long as there is no shill bidding, eBay's format is the best. There really is no strategy to bidding on eBay. Have a max amount you are willing to pay for the item and place that bid within the last few seconds of the auction.

 

But you've already captured the essence of the issue: not all eBay bidders are rational or well-informed.

If you put in your $500 bid on a $500 coin with days to go, the "amateur" has plenty of time to bid $100, $120, $150, $200, $300, $400, $500, $600... and so on. If you put in your bid in the last seconds, the "amateur" might put in his $100 bid, see that he's the high bidder, and (a) forget about the auction, (b) have time to reconsider, (c) decide that maybe the coin isn't all that if his bid is still in the lead... and so on, again.

 

Based on everything I've read on this post, and my own experiences on e-Bay; it seems the best course of action is set your maximum and then bid at the last few seconds. There are times that the last-minute bidding went over my set maximum so I didn't even bother bidding on that particular coin. The key, of course, is setting the maximum price that you are willing to pay, and don't, under any circumstances, get caught up in a bidding frenzy. A pleasant surprise happened yesterday when I won a coin with a last second bid that apparently did not have to be a last second bid. The last bid sat at $44.00 for 5 days with 27 bids on record. To my amazement, I won the coin for $45.00, almost half of what BIN sellers are asking. I lucked out that no snipers were bidding on that particular coin.

 

Shill bidding allowed by some Auction Houses ??? I can see having a reserve but shill bidding is by definition corrupt. At least eBay considers it against their rules and they have banned crooked sellers who they catch doing it.

 

If you're a regular eBay bidder you will catch a great value like that from time to time. Then you hope the seller doesn't cancel your win because they "lost" the coin. Some sellers have a habit of "losing" the coin when they don't like the outcome of their auction.

 

Amateurs, AKA "Bid Dummies" are precisely why many experienced bidders wait till the last few seconds of a eBay auction.

 

Good point!

 

Ironically I've never had a "lost" coin on valuable underbid coins, but I have had several "lost" coins on nondescript coins that really did not sell for much less than general value (based on other sellers asking prices). Go figure. The coin in question sold for several dollars less on an earlier auction, and I was mad that I missed it. I already have a shipping notice with tracking number and the post office has received it.