Skullduggery on eBay

I was outbid during the final seven seconds :rolleyes: I was on my mobile and couldn't get my browser to respond fast enough to the bid... I guess, I learnt a lot about eBay :)

That is hard luck.

4 seconds.... That is the time left in which I have learnt that my WiFi allows me to submit a final bid. I very rarely bid on anything outside of the last few seconds.

I should add, it wasn't me who out bid you on this occasion. There is quite a lot of tactics involved in the bay bidding. Akin to methods in gambling.
 
Maybe that’s why I like eBay ! ...I almost always tune in for the last few moments of an auction watching the last few seconds of the bidding...it’s about the only excitement I get these days :eek:ld: .. And I don’t really care about the fees and such co’s I don’t do it as a business...it’s just something that I can do instead of sitting in an armchair and watching TV 24/7. ;)

Surely not Ken, doesn't your garden provide ample delight? You must have some veggies about ready by now? In my own garden my peas are just about there, the squash are coming on nicely, as is the broccoli, beans and tomatoes. Even the aubergines are flowering in the sunshine. Apple's plums and pears look good too.
 
I was outbid during the final seven seconds :rolleyes: I was on my mobile and couldn't get my browser to respond fast enough to the bid... I guess, I learnt a lot about eBay :)

That's eBay for you. Bid sniping is a technique used by more experienced bidders to lull other bidders into a false sense of security that the item will sell for a lower price so that they don't need to put in a higher bid and hopefully the last second sniping bib will win for a lower price.
There is a simple way to defeat it and you can do it way in advance of the last few seconds.

Importantly. A winning bidder CAN put in a higher bid themselves while they are already the highest bidder but this won't change the current winning bid until another bidder bids you up.
Here's what you do. In the early stages of an auction you can play the game like everyone else and just bid the price up in small increments. Lets say the auction is a day out from ending you have to decide, what is the most I am prepared to pay? What's your price where if another bidder beats you by say $5 your just going to say, "good luck to them". I've bid as high as I'm going to go.
You just put in your highest bid in advance even if your the current highest bidder.
If you win you win. If you don't you don't. Just be prepared for some bidder taking the price up at the last second so don't overbid.
Make up you mind in advance and watch the ride.
 
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My technique is simple. I wait until the later stages of the bidding process and, if the price goes higher than I am prepared to pay, I lose interest. Otherwise, I bid my highest offer with a few seconds to go.

John Colter
 
My technique is simple. I wait until the later stages of the bidding process and, if the price goes higher than I am prepared to pay, I lose interest. Otherwise, I bid my highest offer with a few seconds to go.

John Colter

There are many different strategies at play on eBay, and as you have pointed out, if the price seems too high to you, you lose interest.

So, one strategy at play is to get the price up highish early on in the process in order to limit the interest that a number of bidders may have. If the bid stays too low for too long, what happens is that bidders start dreaming that they will win and then start to feel that they are prepared to bid more in order to win the auction.

So, a couple of serious bidders may decide to bid the price up early in order to put other potential bidders off.

So many strategies. Anyway, if your the current high bidder, your perfectly capable of putting in a higher bid yourself without waiting to be outbid.
 
As I say, I learned a lot - and even more from the tips in this thread :) For now, I'll go with a Kiwaya kts-4 instead - and keep an eye open for another of Ken's ukes on eBay :)
 
eBay is a great study on human behavior. If everyone behaved rationally, according to the same set of "rules" then the outcomes would be totally predictable. The lack of predictability is a good indicator of the lack of rationality among the bidders, and/or an indication that people make decisions by different rules.

If everyone who saw that uke thought to themselves, "The most I'm willing to pay is X" and then went ahead and placed a bid for X, the process would be very straightforward and everyone would end up "happy" - either, you won for less than X - which is great, you "saved" money. Or you won for X - you paid the most you were willing to pay, still a happy ending. Or, you lost because someone outbid you - in which case you are happy because you didn't overpay.

The problem is, many people either don't really know what their X is ahead of time, or they get emotional and change their mind because they're angry that someone bid X + 1, or they do have an X in mind but they think that they can come up with a complicated strategy to increase their chances of paying less than X, even though they are actually willing to pay X...

So - you have a choice to make. Choose your X, place a bid for X, and see what happens. Or - try to predict how others will behave (the three options in the last paragraph, or something else) and build a strategy based on that prediction. But I think, personally, that it's a bit of folly to try to predict how other people will behave, and for every strategy someone comes up with, there will be a bidder on eBay who doesn't behave in a way that allows that strategy to succeed...
 
If you choose your X bid, and place it early or midway, eBay will automatically increase your bid as others bid, driving up the price. Another way is to put your X bid into a sniping program, which will only bid in the last 6 seconds of the auction, if bidding has not surpassed your X bid. That way, the price may not be driven up as much, and you can change your X snipe bid near the end, if desired, when you see the price is near your X. Bidding on ly near the end is the best strategy IMO, YMMV.
 
IME the problem with relying on sniping as a way to save money is that as soon as you get a critical mass of people who either manually snipe or use software, it kind of doesn't matter any more. If there are 10 people all bidding with 6 seconds left, it's still going to just boil down to whomever has the highest bid.

If anything, the prevalence of sniping has made the auctions more legitimate, not less - since it basically just forces anyone seriously interested to make their X bid at the last second. You don't end up with enough time to bid emotionally if someone else beats your X, you just get the one shot at it. Whereas if people actually try to participate by placing their X bid several days before, they now have the time to let their emotions talk them into bidding more when they're outbid.
 
An auction is, in effect, a competition. People talk about "winning" items in an auction. Don't be misled, you did not win anything - you bought it. An auction is designed to generate as high a price as possible. You were the highest bidder, that's all.

John Colter
 
An auction is, in effect, a competition. People talk about "winning" items in an auction. Don't be misled, you did not win anything - you bought it. An auction is designed to generate as high a price as possible. You were the highest bidder, that's all.

John Colter

I'm not sure that is quite true. You buy something from a shop where there is generally an ample supply of a product, the price is fixed, and whether or not you make a purchase has no impact on other customers.

In an auction their is limited supply, often a single item but certainly not sufficient to meet demand. As a result economics takes hold and scarcity + high demand = high price. As there isn't enough for everyone you having the product deprives another from possessing the goods. It is a competition that not everyone can win. It doesn't mean it's bargain, or that others think it was even good value, but you did win the competition. It's a bit like spending €20 at a fairground coconut shy to win a €5 cuddly toy.
 
An auction is, in effect, a competition. People talk about "winning" items in an auction. Don't be misled, you did not win anything - you bought it. An auction is designed to generate as high a price as possible. You were the highest bidder, that's all.

John Colter

I consider it winning. I didn't win a free ukulele, but I won the right to buy it. If I didn't win the auction, buying would be impossible. I like to add as much "winning" to my life as I can. :D
 
It's a bit like spending €20 at a fairground coconut shy to win a €5 cuddly toy.

or like the wife saying she saved $20 by buying a $100 dress (or whatever) that was on sale for $80.
 
Winning an auction by skilled bidding and possibly a disregard to true value does allow one to purchase the item. An auction is competitive and competitions have a winner. Interestingly it’s also a competition for the seller in that their pitch is intended to produce the best practical price relative to any other item that might compete for a sale.

I think that the Fairground analogy is very true. To me some folk pay daft money on eBay and some items (but far from all) ‘sell’ for much more than their utility value ...
 
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