Well the auction for my motorbike has less then a day to go! and i have 85 people watching it!!
i think this is the highest i have ever had by quite a margin :)
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Well the auction for my motorbike has less then a day to go! and i have 85 people watching it!!
i think this is the highest i have ever had by quite a margin :)
nice, ebay is great... but to many dicks... like today i got outbid by 4 pence while i went to toilet and then lost :(
You what? Nobody with any sense bids on an ebay item unless there are less than 15 seconds to go*- and why the hell were you in the toilet at auction end? Could you not have held it?Quote:
Originally Posted by Cozwin
The way that ebay works means you should always bid a little bit over the round pound- because if you bid, say, £25 and someone else has already bid £25, you lose as they got there first, whereas if you bid £25.01, it\'s the highest bid and they have to go with it. I\'ve been an ebay member since 1/3/2000, and I realised this fact on about 1/4/2000:p. Then I realised that early bidders realised this too, and started making their maximum bid £x.05 to foil the cheating snipers. So now I always bid £x.x7 to foil them too. Sometimes it works, other times I have the consolation of the fact that the winning bidder will have to count an extra x7p out of their wallet because of the bid I chucked in with 7 seconds to go:lol:.
*unless they really want it and really can\'t be there when the auction ends. Occasionally that\'s me, and in that case my maximum bids are always £x.x7 too:p
Ive got 10 on my warhammer army, although admittedly yours is a much better item and im only selling as its old and not used!.
No bids yet and 22hours left after 7 days, how about yours?
Buy now or snipe a "full and final" offer at 20-30 seconds to go is the only way I get items, an early bid only pushes up the price of the item for someone else who will nibble away at you till you are out bid. I wish every time bid is placed, the auction end time was extended to atleast 30 minutes if it was less.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cozwin
In light of above I will now bid +0.09p!
i hope you mean Julian Dicks, the ex Liverpool defender.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cozwin
Bolded for truth!Quote:
Originally Posted by oolon
And personally, I watch a lot of items I don't intend on buying just to see the going rate of something I might want to sell myself.
Sold some forks (mtb) the other day, out of 123 or so watchers there was only 1 bid so try not to get your hopes up!
Especially not when selling a motorbike, so so many of them will be trying it on.
it started 99p no res. Now its had 17 bids and is at £430. got 86 watchers now too :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Hicks12
My technique, unless it's a one-off or very rare item that I really want, is simply to decide what the maximum I'm prepared to pay is. And I bid that. Then, either I win it at a price I'm happy with, or I don't and I look for the next one. If I get outbid, it's because someone wants it badly enough to pay more than I'm prepared to pay, and if that's the case, I gladly concede it to them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rave
Doing this, sometimes I win, and sometimes at WAY below what my max would have been. Quite often I lose, which just proves I wanted it for less than it was really worth on the market. Okay, so be it.
I do agree about the extra few pence though, but I add more than you do.
I might add that max bid of mine with days to go. If you wait for the last few seconds and snipe it still comes down to whether you're prepared to pay more than I am. If you aren't, my bid will outbid your snipe, and waiting for the last few seconds won't help you. If your snipe is larger than my bid, then it would win whether you waited or not.
What I don't do is play leapfrog with bidding. If you outbid me, you outbid me and you're welcome to it, be it 5 seconds or 5 days before the close. A seller gets one bid and one bid only from me, and I win or I don't.
I don't agree about nobody with sense bidding before the very end. It's not as if my max bid is what it's going to cost, regardless. It only costs me that if the bidding goes that high, and as it was my max, if it goes above that, it costs me nothing because I wasn't prepared to pay what it goes for anyway. If the bidding doesn't go that high, then it only costs me as much as the bidding goes, regardless of having put in a max bid higher than that.
What I'm not prepared to do is sit watching the screen waiting for the seconds to tick down. I'm not prepared to live around eBay bidding schedules. It's not that important to me.
Sniping only works if you come across a competition with someone else that's sniping, where the objective is to pay as little as you can. My objective isn't to minimise cost, it's to get something at a price I'm happy with, or to not get it at all, and not to expend much time or effort doing it.
So if you happen to be bidding against me, you'll win it if your snipe is higher than my max (and only) bid, and you won't if it isn't. My technique may not suit you, but it IS a perfectly sensible approach, given my criteria. Sniping isn't the only sensible approach.
Oh, and I watch a lot more than I bid on. For a commonly occurring item, I might spend a week or two with watches running. It tells me the going price, and the spread, and gives me a guide as to what to expect to pay, and where to pitch a bid if I expect to win.
If that 'guide' price is too high, and some eBay prices are (IMHO) overly optimistic in relation to what I would pay, then I either give up or just buy a new one.
I watch stuff the same as I'm going to sell so I can guage how much its going to go for too...
Number of watchers never means that many bidders..
Only Saracen could expend 582 words on the simple concept of placing a maximum bid in an ebay auction... :rolleyes:
In many of your posts, usage of lots of words is necessary. But this really isn't one of them :p
How much did it for in then end then?Quote:
Originally Posted by j1979
Mine got 6 bids and went for £62 :P, not bad as i valued it at £40 :D.
My tactic is always to snipe, the max i'm willing to pay, sniping programs make this much easier as I don't even need to be watching it.
Most watchers I've had is less than 10............
Will people please stop telling me how to post, because I'm beginning to get seriously pissed off with it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fraz
I've said it before and I'll say it again. I post how I want to. If you don't like it, it's simple - don't read it, BUT QUIT TELLING ME HOW TO POST.
You wouldn't like him when he's angry...Quote:
Originally Posted by Saracen
http://geekoutonline.com/wp-content/...x_Hulk_003.jpg
I've made profit with less than 100 watches. I think the most is still no more than 200 (a discontinued, yet back then well regarded point and shoot camera). I snipe because I think most people do and it gives them less time to have 'second thought' (raise another fiver again and again).
Granted, it would be not much use against someone like Saracen, but not every auction has someone bidding like that.
It also provides minor protection against bill shilling. It won't help against someone who bid a high 'minimum' on their own auction, but it protects against someone who tries to instigate a 'bidding war' with legitimate bidders, or attempt to discover/close on to their maximum bids.
It's true, but if it's his way of expressing his opinion, I don't see the problem really.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fraz
I fully agree with that - I'd far rather see a reasoned logical argument about something thatn a one liner that gives me no clue as to the value of that opibion. And to my mind, Saracen is THE master of logical and reasoned argument - and long may it cotinue!Quote:
Originally Posted by SammEl
True. But not all auctions attract buyers with your clarity of thought. I know from my own early experience that some buyers bung in bids 50p or £5 at a time (depending on the value of the item) until they get the high bid, then stop. This type of bidder can be beaten with a last minute snipe of the max you're prepared to pay, even if they themselves might have been prepared to pay more. As a result, you can save money, or win items that you would not win through your 'bung in the max you're prepared to pay' method.Quote:
Originally Posted by Saracen
As ever, my 'nobody with any sense' comment was flippant, as my qualification- that sometimes I myself bid my max +£x.x7 if I can't be there at the end of the auction- shows.
When I'm not at work, my time is completely free, and I don't have a lot of spare money, so winning an item for less than the going rate would be a score for me:shrugs:.Quote:
What I'm not prepared to do is sit watching the screen waiting for the seconds to tick down. I'm not prepared to live around eBay bidding schedules. It's not that important to me.
Sniping only works if you come across a competition with someone else that's sniping, where the objective is to pay as little as you can. My objective isn't to minimise cost, it's to get something at a price I'm happy with, or to not get it at all, and not to expend much time or effort doing it.
No, but it is the only sensible approach for someone with more time than money. How about that:p.Quote:
So if you happen to be bidding against me, you'll win it if your snipe is higher than my max (and only) bid, and you won't if it isn't. My technique may not suit you, but it IS a perfectly sensible approach, given my criteria. Sniping isn't the only sensible approach.
Well, still don't agree. Not quite.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rave
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that sniping isn't a useful and valid approach, or it that it doesn't work. Merely that it doesn't work all the time, or that it's the only "sensible" approach.
If it were a simple trade-off between money and time, then I'd agree with that latest assertion. My point is that it isn't ... for everyone.
In my case, and especially in more recent years, I have a low tolerance for wasting time faffing about. So, in my case, you'd have to balance time, money and irritation factor. It's not simply a case of looking at the monetary value of time, and deciding to buy new if I can't be bothered to spend the time. It's a case of deciding which of these options I take :-
1) Spend the time faffing about, and (perhaps) save money
2) Spend the money and buy new
3) Just do without
There are a lot of things I would like. Some I'd like a lot. But that I'm still not prepared to be jerked about over. For instance, there's a lens I've had my eye on for a while, but new, it's about £1000 and I'm not paying that much for it. I have a maximum figure I am prepared to go to to get one, and either I get one for that or I don't get one. And one came up .... refurbished by Canon, with a full guarantee, from their outlet centre. So I bid, and won. Great, I thought. Not so. I had problems with their payment gateway, and kept getting given error messages. I contacted them, and got no answer. I contacted them again and still got no answer. A third try also resulted in no answer. So I put in a complaint to eBay. Then I get a "warning" from Canon's outlet about non-payment. At that point, my frustration with the hassle outweighed any desire to have the lens from them, so I sent them a polite but very pointed message (still via ebay) that amounted to "I have repeatedly tried to pay and get warnings, and have repeated had my messages to you ignored, so kindly take your lens and shove it in a place not known for sunshine".
My valuation of the hassle had now exceeded my desire for something I really wanted, and I would not have agreed to go ahead with the transaction under any circumstances at that point, even though I was fully aware another example of that lens wasn't likely to crop up any time soon, if ever, and certainly not with a 12-month manufacturer warranty which was a major factor in my purchasing decision in the first place. It's now about 2 years later and I still don't have that lens. Probably never will.
There have been other occasions, over less expensive items, where I've simply gone and bought the item new rather than ponce about trying to save a relatively small amount. The same is evident in a lot of my comments overt the years about mail order. I'm not a fan, and the main reason is the hassle sometimes involved. The hassle comes firstly from having to wait for couriers, and secondly, from mucking about sending things back, with more courier fun, if it proves to be a problem. Again, I'd rather pay a bit more and buy locally, if I can, than put up with the hassle. If I can't buy locally, I may opt for a different items or I may do without, or on rare occasions, put up with the hassle and mail order.
So not only am I deciding, as you suggest, how to balance money and time, but also how much I want something over the faffing about involved, and in my case, it's more about the faffing than the value of time.
It's not the time, at least in my case, that means I don't bother sniping. It's the faffing about. It's having to remember, perhaps several days later, that an auction is ending at a given time and making sure I'm there. So I either have to give it some minutes in advance, or missing out if I mistime it and get their 5 seconds late, or simply forget.
So .... I work out what I'm prepared to pay, and bid it. Sometimes I win, and at well below that maximum bid. If so, either nobody was sniping, in which case, me sniping would have been a waste of time, or my bid outbid their snipe, in which case sniping did them no good. It may even be that my bid and another from someone doing similar put the price up to a point where snipers weren't prepared to go anyway. Or, a sniper may outbid me, but that doesn't matter either, because my maximum bid was my maximum, so even if I'd known someone was going to bid, I still would not have increased my bid.
I use the same principles on eBay as I use in a live auction .... I set out my maximum, bid up to it in advance, and then stop bidding, win or lose.
And a question for you .... if you snipe, presumably you're trying to get it at as low a price as you can, yes? Do you ever lose because someone outsniped you by a little bit? You bid £xx.07p, and someone else bid £xx.21p? Do you ever curse for not bidding just a few pence more? Do you ever end up bidding on several times before your snipe works and you actually win?
See .... it's more hassle. Me, I bid and win at a price I'm willing to pay in which case I'm happy, or it goes for more than I'd pay, in which case I'm content because I wasn't willing to pay that much anyway. I don't get the frustration of wishing I'd bid just a little bit more.
Sniping may work against that type of bidder, but it won't work against me and the price you pay is the hassle of doing it. I understand the point of sniping, and I'm not disagreeing. My point is that it isn't the only sensible approach. It depends on your criteria, which aren't always just about time and money.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rave
Also, you say you have free time when not working, but do you really? Time is a precious resource, and we all decide how to "spend" it, every day. Every moment, in fact. Sure, some is "spent" by working, to pay bills, provde for self and family etc, and the rest is "free time".
Only it isn't. Or if it is, I really feel sorry for you.
I'd bet that you don't just sit in that spare time, staring at a wall. You might be spending time with the kids, or watching TV, repairing the car, building an airfix model, reading a book, listening to music, working in the garden, doing a second job, having a drink with your mates .... or posting on HEXUS. Or whatever. But my bet is you do something with that time.
Time is never "free", because whatever you do with it, you pay the opportunity cost of not being able to do something else with it. Once it's "spent", it's irrevocably spent, forever.
If you choose to spend it sniping, then that's great. But what you're really saying is that the savings you make against the type of bidder you describe have a monetary value sufficient to justify sacrificing spending that time on something else and, if it were me, putting up with the hassle. I choose to spend my spare time reading, or listening to music, or taking photos, or whatever, not watching an eBay screen.
Either I get the item within my max price, or I don't get it, and either way, I'd rather avoid the hassle and spend my spare time on things other than sniping. The more I want the item, the higher my max bid will be, and that includes pricing in that I may lose the item to someone bidding incrementally in the way you describe, or to a sniper, but either way, only if they're prepared to pay more than I am. And if so, so be it.
I seldom bid on large ticket items, so for me the Saracen (TM) method is generally best. I either win or I don't; c'est la guerre.
However I recently had to buy two items I really needed, in a small market (one was a bound set of frog drawings) and I had to win, but knew the price could go ballistic, so I sniped, and won at 230.07 Euros. For me, knowing that only a few people would be watching, but that we all wanted it, and that the final spurt would add over 100 Euros to the price sniping (using Auctionstealer) was the only way to go.
Similarly I bought some seeds of a very rare, new (and apparently very potent :cool:) variety in an auction recently, and I knew that other people with a legal place to grow them would want them too. Eventually the price went way over what I would normally have paid, but I knew two of the other bidders and let it get personal. I don't regret it; I have a hobby, and sometimes one needs to be irrational about hobbies. In this case neither sniping nor sensible play would have got me what I wanted, because I didn't want it as much when I started to bid as I did when it got down to the short strokes.
One of the reasons as I do it the way I do it, though, is precisely to avoid the emotional "carried away" response, having done exactly that a time or two in real auctions in the past.
I did also say, though, in the first sentence of the first post ... " .... unless it's a one-off or very rare item that I really want .....". Either of those factors, or both, can change my priorities, and my approach. So I do very much take your point, Brucelles.
My first thought was a 135/ F2L (gorgeous lens) but I'm now thinking 100-400 F4.5-5.6L IS. Am I warm?:DQuote:
Originally Posted by Saracen
I, like you, work out how much I'm prepared to pay- or more often in my case, can afford, then I add about 5% or a tenner (whichever is the smaller*), plus my 'snipe factor' of x.x7. The second x is always at least 2 purely for the purpose of outsniping other snipers;).Quote:
And a question for you .... if you snipe, presumably you're trying to get it at as low a price as you can, yes? Do you ever lose because someone outsniped you by a little bit? You bid £xx.07p, and someone else bid £xx.21p?
*One can always find another 5%, and it is annoying to be outbid by a tiny bit. If I bid a smidge more than I really wanted to and still lose, I don't feel bad- in fact I feel some small amount of pleasure for helping the seller achieve a realistic market value.
No. I suppose I might if I lost by a penny or 5 pence but it's never happened. I don't actually use ebay for open auctions all that much TBH.Quote:
Do you ever curse for not bidding just a few pence more?
No. I either bid my 'max + x.x7' several hours before auction end, or I bid with 10s to go. I have a fast internet connection; a true sniper holds his nerve until there are less than 10s remaining. I believe I've held it to 7s before now (bearing in mind there's a confirmation screen that has to load, plus factor a second to find and click the 'confirm bid' button;)).Quote:
Do you ever end up bidding on several times before your snipe works and you actually win?
Edit: did you mean 'several items'? Again, no. For a start I'm an impulsive buyer and gain/lose interest in items quite quickly. For a second, I tend not to buy 'commodity' type items on ebay; you rarely get a bargain. I tend to bid on unusual stuff or items like cars where the value is entirely dependent on the condition.
Even if someone were to snipe you by 5 pence? I may not win many auctions, but I myself never get sniped. I'm not sure if I've ever come up against an automated sniper mind.Quote:
See .... it's more hassle. Me, I bid and win at a price I'm willing to pay in which case I'm happy, or it goes for more than I'd pay, in which case I'm content because I wasn't willing to pay that much anyway. I don't get the frustration of wishing I'd bid just a little bit more.
There's no way of knowing who you're up against, though. So in my case, why not try your luck?Quote:
Sniping may work against that type of bidder, but it won't work against me
I spend most of it on the internet if I'm honest, quite a bit of it on Hexus. I enjoy it. And judging by the length of your posts (not a dig BTW, I'm nearly as guilty sometimes;)), so do you. I can be doing my usual online stuff while I'm waiting for an auction to finish.Quote:
Also, you say you have free time when not working, but do you really? Time is a precious resource, and we all decide how to "spend" it, every day. Every moment, in fact. Sure, some is "spent" by working, to pay bills, provde for self and family etc, and the rest is "free time".
Only it isn't. Or if it is, I really feel sorry for you.
I'd bet that you don't just sit in that spare time, staring at a wall. You might be spending time with the kids, or watching TV, repairing the car, building an airfix model, reading a book, listening to music, working in the garden, doing a second job, having a drink with your mates .... or posting on HEXUS. Or whatever. But my bet is you do something with that time.
Oh yeah? The length and frequency of your posts on here suggest....I'm on thin ice here aren't I?:p:lol::p:lol:Quote:
If you choose to spend it sniping, then that's great. But what you're really saying is that the savings you make against the type of bidder you describe have a monetary value sufficient to justify sacrificing spending that time on something else and, if it were me, putting up with the hassle. I choose to spend my spare time reading, or listening to music, or taking photos, or whatever, not watching an eBay screen.
I'm online much of my spare time anyway, and I don't sit there watching the ebay screen refresh for an hour before the auction ends. And....auctions are exciting. Ebay can't quite match the rush of a live auction- I had some great moments at the police auction I frequented in my late teens/early 20s, of the "am I really going to get this camera/amplifier/DAT recorder for half its market value?!" kind- but it comes close. I bid on this the other day. I sat there with a minute to go with it at £360.00, knowing that I was happy to bid more than that. £400 was what I was prepared to spend for the car, but I assumed a one way train ticket to pick it up would cost me £15. So with 10s to go, heart rate at about 120bpm, I bid £386.27- and lost to someone who'd whacked in a higher bid at 10am that morning. But I couldn't possibly have known that, and I enjoyed the excitement even though I lost (which, TBH, I was expecting to).
Pretty cold on the 100-400, and positively glacial on the 135.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rave
I did very nearly get the 100-400, but not on eBay. My local shop normally matches other major retailers, and I had my coat and shoes (literally) on ready to pop down and get one, when I decided to ring first to make sure they had it. They did but wouldn't get even close to matching. Warehouse Express had them, and were going to open their showroom section to allow collection in a couple of weeks, so I decided to wait, and then take a drive up to Norwich for the day, and make a day of it. Then life intervened. By the time things settled down again, a couple of years had passed, the exchange rate had dived and I was now talking about £1250-ish, not a tad over £900. And I'm simply not paying that. At under £1000, just about. At £1250, not happening.
I never bid an round amount. I always add your "outsniping" factor, but it's always more than 7p, because that level of outsniping factor seems to be prevalent. So it might be 17p, or 77p ... depends on the value and my mood.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rave
So on that bit, agreed.
Nope, I meant do you bid with, say, 30 seconds to go to test the lie of the land or the level of pre-entered max bids like mine, with a view to then sniping at the 10 second mark .... only to get outsniped, so slam in another quick snipe at 3 seconds?Quote:
Originally Posted by Rave
It actually sounds like we do much the same .... work out the max to pay and bid accordingly. The difference is that I don't (or more accurately, very rarely) snipe. I have done it, but very very rarely. I've also missed things I wanted to bid on by intending to snipe, and then forgetting ... to the sound of much cursing.
I guess where we part is that assertion of it being the "only" sensible strategy. For me, it isn't sensible.
I also don't tend to go after commodity items exactly, but they often are items where multiples are available over a period. For instance, a new watch. I also bought a iPaq from HP that way .... and paid about £100 less than I'd seen identical models go for. So .... I decided what I'd pay, and bid ... and lost. Repeat several times. Then I bid and won. :D
I also buy laser printer consumables that way. I bid on what I need and if I don't get it, I just wait for an other. Saved a lot of money that way. :D
oooooooh Cheburashka ! :) молодец
I tend to buy my PC consumables on eBay france. The principle being that I can get something like DVDR DL for 1 Euro plus posting for 5 DVDs, and if I miss the win there are a million more sellers out there. They are about 35 Euros for 5 in the shops, so a bit of a margin is perfectly acceptable.
I don't think I could afford to bid for cars though. I tend to buy too many anyway, auctions sound like a way to run out of garage space.
I recall having 56 people watching one of my go go hamsters last year - before the price crashed, due to people flooding ebay with them.
T'was bizarre, because at the end, ebayers were selling them for less than they bought them.
FonZy = Nuff said
I agree with Saracen to be honest...
When me and my dad started using eBay years ago, we cottoned on fairly quickly that sniping was the way to go - and for a long time, that was the rule.
Now however, I see it completely differently. Maybe some would say it's because I've got more money than I used to, now that I'm working, but I don't think that's it. If I want to snipe an item manually (I refuse to type sensitive login information into a downloaded tool), then I've got to be conscious of when the item finishes, check that the clock I'm going to use is in correct sync with eBay, and then check it all the time - or set an alarm - to ensure that I bid at the correct time. If somebody telephones me or talks to me, I get very stressed because I might get distracted and not bid. I can't go to the loo, or go on a game or something, again in case I miss the deadline. Sometimes, I have missed the deadline, and the item's gone for way below what I would've happily paid.
Alternatively, I decide that £20 would be a fair price, so I bid £20.58 (random number on the end). Then, three days later, I get an email from eBay asking me to pay or telling me that I've lost. If I lose, then fair enough - I only wanted to pay £20 so I've not lost out. If I win, I've got my item. It's so much more relaxing, and for me that's worth far more than the sniping could ever save me. It all comes down to personal preference really - I hate being panicked, rushed or stressed, so it's just not my cup of tea.
IMO, the extra you put in doesn't matter that much. Yes I do it, but I feel it's a bit 'for the lolz'. Let's say I pick a nice and mature number like xx.69. I may beat snootyjim by 11p and feel all smug about it, but I may also lose by 10p if someone decide to put xx.79 in which case I would be shaking my fist. Yet if you are going to put xx.99, you may as well round it to the next pound because you don't want to be beaten by a penny now do you?
Quite. As someone once said to me "Lots of people put an extra 7p on their bids, so I cleverly bid 15p more and beat all of them."
I once won an auction by a penny by bidding £2.01, but most of the time I doubt it makes a difference. I think it's just that natural aversion to losing an auction by some insignificant amount that makes me do it... the number itself is fairly inconsequential.