What is it with some bidders on eBay?

[Wihlborg]

I haven’t found anything on eBay that I was interested in bidding on for a while now, but I did find a coin I was interested in last week that was ending tonight. I entered a max bid that I felt would be more than enough to win the coin and was the high bidder going into the last half hour of the auction.

 

At that time I noticed someone bid on the coin, causing my bid to automatically increase. Well, over the next 2 minutes or so this person kept increasing his/her bid until they finally outbid me by $49. From looking at the bid history I realized that this person increased his/her bid little by little instead of making one strong bid to outbid me.

 

Because the coin is really nice, and given the above I felt I could still win the coin for an amount that I would be comfortable with, so I waited until 5 sec. before the auction ended and increased my bid. Sure enough, I outbid the other person by $25 and won the coin.

 

Now if this person had outbid me with one strong bid I probably would not have bid on the coin again. My thinking being that I had already bid what I thought the coin was worth to me, but that the other person felt it was worth more to them than I bid and so they placed a bid that was stronger than I would be willing to exceed.

 

Over the years I have seen this same type of bidding pattern hundreds of times and I would say that most of the times, the person who bids like this does not win the auction. All they accomplish is to drive the final price up for the winning bidder.

 

I just don’t get it. Why does someone increase their bid in small amounts over and over trying to outbid someone? I mean if you are really interested in a coin why not bid the max you are really willing to pay for it?

 

John

[gmarguli]

I've never understood why people bid before the end of the auction. A strong bid at the end of the auction would have outbid this bidder at a much lower level.

 

esnipe.com & auctionstealer.com are your friends!

[Wihlborg]

Greg,

 

You’re exactly right, and that is how I normally bid on eBay. I had been using a program called Bidsniper Pro, however when I tried to use it for this auction it kept giving me an error saying that it couldn’t get the auction data, so I had to revert to the manual method of bidding.

 

With the two programs that you mentioned, do you download the program to your computer, or do you have to give your eBay info to them?

 

John

[JamminJ]

With the two programs that you mentioned, do you download the program to your computer, or do you have to give your eBay info to them?

 

I also use auctionstealer with good effect. You just have to provide them with your e-bay ID and password and their server does the rest.

 

-JamminJ

[gmarguli]

With the two programs that you mentioned, do you download the program to your computer, or do you have to give your eBay info to them?

 

You give both of them your eBay info. They are both fairly well known companies and have been around for a while. I wouldn't worry much about giving them your info. I use both of them all the time. Since AuctionStealer is free for 3 snipes a week, I use that one first. With esnipe you pay, but their snipes are closer to the closing time of the auction.

[Wihlborg]

JJ,

 

Do you use the free service or the pay service? It looks like the free service only allows you the place three bids a week. Is that correct?

 

John

[Wihlborg]

Greg,

 

You answered my question before I even asked it!

 

Thanks for the info guys, I’ll give them a try next time I want to bid on something.

 

John

[JamminJ]

Do you use the free service or the pay service?

 

I use the free service. 20 seconds seems like enough time to keep people from mulling it over and deciding tobid more. I've never found enough coins worth buying in a single week that I needed more than two snipes.

 

-JamminJ

[Wihlborg]

I've never found enough coins worth buying in a single week that I needed more than two snipes.

 

Yeah JJ, that’s what I think too, so I just signed up for the free account on auctionstealer. Now I’ll have to wait for something I want to bid on to try using it.

 

Thanks again Guys

 

John

[EZ_E]

Because people usually want something for as near to nothing as possible.

 

When I've sold on e-bay, my auctions were watched until the last moment and then bids were placed in order to attempt to snipe the item.

[jom]

I just use Esnipe and have a few second buffer. I pay a few cents when I bid but it's no big deal....I like the fact I can wait until the last second so I pay for that. Plus, I don't use it that often anyway...

 

jom

[TomB]

My inclination is to think that the person has no clue as to bidding strategy and only understands the "bargain" mentality where you try to buy something for as little as possible regardless of its true worth to you.

 

Alternatively, you might have been the victim of someone who was trying to drive the price up on you. By bidding in small amounts, the person does not pass your highest bid by much, and this allows you to bid again to win the auction. In this way the rival bidder takes a small gamble with each bid that they will overtake you while you do not bid again. They are, of course, counting on you to see the pattern of bids and to overtake them.

[jom]

They are, of course, counting on you to see the pattern of bids and to overtake them

 

Which is just ridiculous since anyone that knows what they are doing are ONLY going to bit up to what THEY think the coin is worth. That is why it is best just to make this absolute HIGHEST offer at the LATEST possible moment. That way you will never be upset if you lose AND you can't get your bid run up by some of these dorks like John did.

 

jom