At What Point Do You Bid?

[Scooter Guy]

Originally Posted by ShaneZahn

My reasoning is.
I have to win this item, in which case I will be the last bidder at the highest bid. I have to baby sit the last half hour of the auction.I do not do, any bidding until the last few minutes. If I did. I would just be wasting money. To many sellers have proxy bidders to run up the selling price, assuming someone will out bid the proxy bidder. In the last few minutes of an auction, only true bidders will be against each other. Its a gamble as to how close to the last second you can bid & be the winner.
Shane.

A man after my own heart!

This is EXACTLY what I do, why I do it, and who those final second bidders are.

[CaseyS]

Originally Posted by Doug Oldenburg

I sell on ebay quite a bit & to me.......... the bid blocker CaseyS refers to is one of the BEST tools that SELLERS have available to them. I have about 10 bidders in my permanently blocked list, that I will never have trouble with again. The people that are in that list are the one's that I had trouble getting paid for items they bid on & those that I had to file a non paying bidder claim to get get my money. Now that a seller can't even leave negative feedback for non paying bidders,at least this is something that a seller can do to keep it from happening again with that bidder. Please note that I said BIDDER & not BUYER, as most of these just BID & not follow through & BUY. NOW to the main topic........"When to bid". As a seller I would say "Bid EARLY, Bid HIGH & Add to the bid As Needed" to win. As a buyer I usually place a small bid early to stop the item from selling with the "Buy it Now" if it has one & also a person can usually use the "1 click bid option" then. In such case I wait until the countdown is down to about the last 7 sec. & hit it with my MAX. amount I am willing to give.

Not the bid blocker i am referring to the Chinese came up with a new tool that you can set up a snipe bid and block all other bids at the same time it has happened to me 4 times now.

[sdowney717]

If I am interested in something, I just place a bid, but my serious bids are in the last few seconds, typically about 50 seconds before the end. I will also sometimes in the last minute do multiple last minute ending bids in case another bidder will come in and outbid me on something I think is still a good deal.

Another reason I place a bid, is EBAY watch page is terrible! I am watching a lot of items, and I swear to you, sometimes things I watch disappear or never appear on the list. It is so bad I have been thinking I need to make a draft email of items I am watching with an intent to buying.

It seems like when the watch list goes over 80 items, watch list starts getting screwy, and I cant search my watch list??

[Bolens 1000]

Its pretty simple, highest bid wins, if you really want it spend the $$ and get it

I do prefer last second bids because it helps keep the price down from the "Granny" bidders who keep raising the price $5 at a time days before the auction ends to stay ahead of everyone.