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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;iPen, post: 2070335, member: 69760&quot;]I&#039;m always eager to learn a better way to bid on eBay, so as to minimize my price paid (as would most everyone else I&#039;m sure!). If some of you want to get into a deeper analysis (e.g. say, using game theory justifying the Nash equilibrium choice...), be my guest! What&#039;s your go-to bidding strategy on eBay? Do you have a better idea, or a different strategy for a specific situation than what I do?</p><p><br /></p><p>Mine&#039;s two-fold, listed below.</p><p><br /></p><p>1) Bid your maximum once, at the very end seconds before the auction&#039;s end. This avoids feeding into or starting a bidding war on your part (since that&#039;s the part of the auction price <i>you</i> can control), and avoids hinting at your maximum price to other potential buyers so they can&#039;t one-up you. You could use a sniping software/program (helpful when you&#039;re away), or enter your bid within the last 10 seconds. Remember that you have to confirm your bid, so there will need to be time added for that, depending on your internet connection and other mishaps. You bid your max already, so there&#039;s no need to respond with a higher price in case there&#039;s an automatic bid by a different buyer. You also won&#039;t have time to &quot;emotionally&quot; bid past your rationalized maximum price.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>2) This is used less often than #1 for me. Bid your maximum once, at the very beginning. Why? If the item&#039;s availability and price are relatively stable, you know what it will sell for, so it will almost never go higher than that price. Usually, you&#039;ll see a consistent buy it now (BIN) price, or you&#039;ll notice the history of what it will sell for at auction. Find the lowest BIN or auction price (advanced search, past sales price research; or by observation). Assuming your reservation price matches the lowest BIN or recent historical final auction price, set the auction at that price now. If everyone&#039;s trying to get a deal below the lowest competitive price, they likely won&#039;t set their bids equal to the lowest BIN or auction price.</p><p><br /></p><p>Since this is a second price Chinese-style auction, you will likely end up paying less than the maximum bid you placed (you only pay for the second highest bid amount). At worst, you paid your maximum reservation price, or what it goes for at the lowest BIN price. If you lose the auction and want it immediately, you can buy the item now from a different listing at your reservation price. That means someone paid higher than what can be paid for anytime using BIN at a different listing (assuming the exact same item, condition, etc.). Also, eBay is first come first serve, so you will beat whoever matches your max bid.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>The tricky part is when your maximum bid price is much lower than what it will usually go for... In that case, you may be better off finding deals by:</p><p><br /></p><p>- Bidding on low traffic days/times.</p><p>- Looking for mis-categorized items.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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