Why do people bid on items with days of the auction to run?

what you've just said is basically if someone is willing to pay more for an item than you then they will win it... Erm.. Duh!?

But the thing is, Fleabay has more than just you on it. There are snipers, there are people that alter last bids, there are people who sit back with an early max bid. If you want to realistically win. You need to be able to try and figure out what the top bid is.

How can you not grasp the concept of a single early high bid inorder to gauge the highest bidders max bid? At 60 seconds put in something high, but not your real max bid. this will sometimes put you on top(and therefore you end up with a bargain), At other times, it will just give you an example of what sort of money is in play, with regards to what you're bidding on. You dont enter your real max bid until the last few seconds, And at that point, you either win. or lose out to someone with a higher max bid. But thats fair enough...because like you said. If you lose to someone willing to pay more. Fair enough right?

But please dont try and push your method forward as the right one, and try and put us last second bidders in a dim light... It makes you sound so damn arrogant.
 
wannabedamned said:
You dont enter your real max bid until the last few seconds
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Why? It makes no difference.
Example:
Item starts at 0.99
Bidder1 bids £50 first. Items shows bid of 0.99, does not show his max of £50.

Now, there are 60 seconds left. What do you do?
Option 1:
60 sec to go, you bid £20, you are outbid by Bidder1's max bid, auction now shows £20 as winning bid.
30 sec to go, you bid £40, you are outbid by Bidder1's max bid, auction now shows £40 as winning bid.
10 sec to go, you bid £60 (your real max). You are the current high bidder, winning bid is £51

Option 2.
60 sec to go, you bid £60, (your real max). You are the current high bidder, winning bid is £51

spot the difference?
 
touch said:
Why? It makes no difference.
Example:
Item starts at 0.99
Bidder1 bids £50 first. Items shows bid of 0.99, does not show his max of £50.

Now, there are 60 seconds left. What do you do?
Option 1:
60 sec to go, you bid £20, you are outbid by Bidder1's max bid, auction now shows £20 as winning bid.
30 sec to go, you bid £40, you are outbid by Bidder1's max bid, auction now shows £40 as winning bid.
10 sec to go, you bid £60 (your real max). You are the current high bidder, winning bid is £51

Option 2.
60 sec to go, you bid £60, (your real max). You are the current high bidder, winning bid is £51

spot the difference?
Click to expand...

Option 3
60 sec to go, you bid £60, (your real max). You are the current high bidder.
30 sec to go, someone else decides to try and out bid you and succeed. They win the auction for £61.
 
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How does knowing the previous bidder's max bid stop you from being sniped?

In both options, your max bid is £60 and your winning bid is £51.
Both options are equally likely to get sniped 3 seconds from the end.

And if the sniper beats your maximum, thats fine, you didnt want to pay that much for it anyway :confused:
 
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Its not about beating 1 bidder, its about winning the item. At 60 seconds, you put in a high bid, and may end up top bidder. At which point you sit and wait with a real max bid until the last 5 seconds. At which point, regardless of being top bidder, you hit the bid button.

Outcome,

1. You get an error because you're already top bidder
2. You jump back to being top bidder after knocking off a sniper
3. You lose to a sniper who put in a higher top bid
 
It doesnt make a difference when you put your max in tho.

There are 2 options if you are the current high bidder when it is sniped:

1 your max bid is higher, you win
2 sniper is higher, you lose.

It doesnt matter when you enter your max bid, the two outcomes are always the same.

your way just introduces more chance of losing because you might mistime it and not get your real max bid in on time.
 
wannabedamned said:
Its not about beating 1 bidder, its about winning the item. At 60 seconds, you put in a high bid, and may end up top bidder. At which point you sit and wait with a real max bid until the last 5 seconds. At which point, regardless of being top bidder, you hit the bid button.

Outcome,

1. You get an error because you're already top bidder
2. You jump back to being top bidder after knocking off a sniper
3. You lose to a sniper who put in a higher top bid
Click to expand...

Ok im back in for a bit I am having too much fun here trying to make sense of the logic

So how does your approach stop you losing to the guy who bids £61 in any way or form or are you saying that hes only bid £61 bacause you bid £60?
What if he bid £70

The problem with your logic is you assume that other bidders (snipers) are snipiung based on your bid, your bid does not necessarily have any relevance to what they bid. They may have setup Auctionsniper 2 days ago with a max bid of £71.23
 
touch said:
Why? It makes no difference.
Example:
Item starts at 0.99
Bidder1 bids £50 first. Items shows bid of 0.99, does not show his max of £50.

Now, there are 60 seconds left. What do you do?
Option 1:
60 sec to go, you bid £20, you are outbid by Bidder1's max bid, auction now shows £20 as winning bid.
30 sec to go, you bid £40, you are outbid by Bidder1's max bid, auction now shows £40 as winning bid.
10 sec to go, you bid £60 (your real max). You are the current high bidder, winning bid is £51

Option 2.
60 sec to go, you bid £60, (your real max). You are the current high bidder, winning bid is £51

spot the difference?
Click to expand...

Of course its even more fail if bidder1 has put in £65 cos no matter all this tactical snipe bidding you still lose, and hes out living his life while sniper is sitting at keyboard trying to save a couple of quid ;)
 
If you're all bashing in last second bids at random increments, that isn't an auction it's a lottery.

I bid on a car part a few days ago for £5. I decided it was worth no more than £5. Somebody outbid me and it went to £5.50 with 10 minutes to run. I don't know if that person bid £6 or £600 and I don't care, because I was only willing to pay £5 for it. If it went for more, I wasn't interested.

If I sat there increasing my bid to "drive up" the price then I'd be the loser because I'd likely end up winning the item and winning it at a higher price than I wanted to pay - ergo it would be a bad result for me.
 
Glaucus said:
People are idiots, as said it only drives up the price and achieves nothing. If you are lazy, use a sniping tool.
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To be honest, it's so glaringly obvious, I'm surprised that some people don't get it.

If you want to get the best price, you bid in the last 5 seconds.

Only don't do what I do, try to bid and then find eBay has logged you out for inactivity :p Doh!
 
When I'm bidding on something, I usually put in an early bid during the early stages, but not a maximum. Then push it up with individual bids as other bidders beat me.

Obviously it also depends a lot on what the item is and the demand, but I've learnt the lesson too many times that if you are attempting to get a bargain and wait until the very last minute then it's highly likely you will loose.

So I think it makes more sense to get the item closer to its real value before the closing minutes, that way it comes down to what people are actually prepared to pay for it, like a real auction.

I see what people are saying about eBayers using shill bids to push it up, but not every seller is doing that.

The real bargains are just getting lucky and finding something you want that has been listed to end a silly hour for example.
 
Sometimes if you show no interest whatsoever with the intention to bid - and others have done the same - sellers sometimes get nervous and pull the auction. This is annoying. You see it most on things with no bids at all. So sometimes people put in a fairly cheap or average bid to make it high enough that it gives the seller more difficulties in simply ending it.

However, majority of auctions are bid on days before auction end because people know no better than to bid like that, and also might not be around for auction end so just whack a max bid on early. Too early.
 
FoxEye said:
To be honest, it's so glaringly obvious, I'm surprised that some people don't get it.

If you want to get the best price, you bid in the last 5 seconds.

Only don't do what I do, try to bid and then find eBay has logged you out for inactivity :p Doh!
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I just won an item. I bid on day 1 (of a 7 day auction). Someone else bid during the last 10 seconds of the auction, but they didn't bid enough to beat my initial bid (£10 - although ebay only listed it as 99p due to the increment system)

How did bidding early cost me any more than bidding late, unless the person bidding against me was a shill bidder? I was prepared to pay up to £10, I paid less than that, job done.
 
I only go for BUY IT NOW if it's a price I don't mind paying.
A couple of years ago there was a Marshall TSL602 for a BIN of £400 which was a bargain but I decided to put a max bid in of £400 and duly watched it over a week going up £10 from around £190.
When it came to the end it sold for £420 and I could have had it for £400 :(
A few months later there was one for £400 BIN so I had it.
 
FoxEye said:
eBay is not an auction. Auctions are not run the way eBay is run.

Doesn't everybody know this by now?
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Er no it is an auction. It works in exactly the same way as any other auction the highest bidder wins.
Obviously because they cant do it real time they have had to change the exact bidding process but it very much still is an auction.

The person who bids most wins, just unlike a normal auction you cant hold out at the end you have to decide up front your max. Although at a normal auction you can place bids up front just like ebay and they will bid it for you.

So in reality ebay works as if the only bid method was commissioned bids.
 
SciNeT said:
No, never do this, it starts to show interest for one thing, the more bids an item gets the more the value/desirability is confirmed to people who are teetering.

Put £601 in auctionsniper with a 4 second lead time. :)

EDIT, you're not buying it!
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Actually, I emailed him about the postage thing and he says

"Hi

Just listed a few items and if you do not change it it just comes up the same as the last item listed. My mistake sorry but I will not just drop it of at the post office and tell them "the cheapest please"

Michael"


To which I looked and he has like 6 other auction, various random stuff from golf clubs to cookbook to a fish tank going all ending the same time.
 
Raymond Lin said:
Actually, I emailed him about the postage thing and he says

"Hi

Just listed a few items and if you do not change it it just comes up the same as the last item listed. My mistake sorry but I will not just drop it of at the post office and tell them "the cheapest please"

Michael"


To which I looked and he has like 6 other auction, various random stuff from golf clubs to cookbook to a fish tank going all ending the same time.
Click to expand...

You can always arrange for a courier to collect if your worried about him not sending.
 
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