eBay

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Merkava_4

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I've been checking out eBay the last few nights; I've been looking at torque wrenches. I can't figure out why some of these guys will bid on top of their own bids; I mean aren't they suppose to wait until someone else bids first and then make another bid? And another thing: this one guy was the first bidder and he bids $70. What if he was the only bidder? He could've bid $20 and won the bid if he was the only bidder. I know the chances of being the only bidder are slim, but why start off at $70?
 
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Never assume that everyone using Ebay has common sense. I don't know why anyone would even enter a bid days before an auction is due to end, unless they're not going to have access to a computer when the auction actually ends. All you're doing is driving the price up when you do that. I always wait until 20 seconds before auction end before I bother entering a bid. Catching the other watchers off guard is what it's all about.
 
Are you sure there wasn't a "reserve price"? That might explain why somebody would seemingly bid against himself, while he is actually just groping around in the dark in an effort to meet the reserve price.
 
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I always wait until 20 seconds before auction end before I bother entering a bid. Catching the other watchers off guard is what it's all about.

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Dude, that's called sniping!
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But seriously, 20 seconds is way too early, and even if you bid two seconds before an auction ends, someone who uses the auto-bid feature will likely win.
 
merkava, ebay uses a proxy bidding system.

lets say you want a watch that is starting out at 99 cents. you are the first bidder and you bid $50 on it. ebay will then bid on youre behalf for 99 cents, and proxy 49.01.

so now someone comes along and bids $5 on it. sence you have a 49.01 proxy, ebay will counter that bid with one from you, for the ammount of 5.25.

and this will continue untill youre proxy is depleted, or you outbid the other guy.

now for another scenario, lets say you are the first bidder and you bid $50 on a 99 cent watch. this makes you the current (and only) high bidder at a current price of 99 cents with a 49.01 proxy. if you bid AGAIN to 100 then you will still be the current bidder at 99 cents, but have a 99.01 proxy.
if the auction ends and no one else has bid, then youre 99.01 proxy gets refunded back to you and you become the proud owner of a watch all for 99 cents.

its this proxy system that makes ebay a non traditional auction house. you dont wait for the next guy to bid. you bid whenever you want and by how much you want. if youre not going to snipe that is.

thats why alot of people snipe at the end.
im a bloody sniper in the last 5-1 seconds. yeah its tricky but i get some REALLY good deals that way. when sniping, you let the lesser baboons battle it out over proxies and minimums. you have to set a price in youre mind (how much is this watch worth to me ) and promise youreself not to go over that price. in the last few seconds, you put youre bid in. hopefully it is only slightly higher than everyone elses (including their proxy).

ive been selling (occasionally buying) on ebay for some years now. ive got all positive feedbacks with the exception of 3. if you have more questions post em up and ill see what i can do.
 
a year or so ago I played around with ebay, buying a little bit of this and that, trying to get a feel for how it worked. I soon realized that I was a sheep in wolf country. I don't bother to look anymore.
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I'd have saved the comment
"Quite possibly the best eBay CUSTOMER in the WORLD! Thank You!!! A+"

Good work !!
 
Around 8 or so years ago (and earlier) it was much more fun selling on eBay.

Oh, the joy, of watching a paperback book soar higher and higher in selling price as the last few minutes of bidding flurry and fury sent what cost me fifty-cents up to 160-plus dollars.... and the buyer paid the shipping.

Wheeeee!

49-cent records auctioned off for various amounts... $27, $56, a real rare one for over $150.

Wheeee!

Grab a $50 audio component from the local used audio store and auction it off for $150.

Ahhhhhhh..... those were the days!!!

In the early 1990s things began to change as more and more folks jumped in as sellers.

Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.

I did notice that final selling prices varied greatly for the same and similar items.

When I was a buyer I learned to not be in a hurry. If I didn't win a particular item I would assuredly eventually get the same goody at a future date at what was often a much lower price.

Savvy sellers know how to word their auctions to attain better on-site search engine placement. Also, putting a goody in the best category also makes a difference.

Yes, Virginia, there are variable involved that affect final selling prices... including basic luck, whether good or bad dependent upon if thou art a buyer or seller.

The moral of the convoluted Coot-type experience of yore being to take one's time and to regularly seek out one's desire(s) and ultimately get one's goody at a lower price than what the goody usually goes for on eBay.
 
What confuses me most about ebay shoppers is the fact that they seem willing to pay more for an item on Ebay than they would if they just went to Wal Mart. For fun, I looked up motor oil on there a while back and people were bidding on cases of Mobil1 that were already higher than retail prices. What's up with that? Does Ebay have some mechanism that causes one's brain to shut down the common sense lobe?

My big gripe with Ebay is that the newest trend is pricing something really low, then raping on shipping charges. That phenomenon has caused me to stay off Ebay a majority of the time.
 
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My big gripe with Ebay is that the newest trend is pricing something really low, then raping on shipping charges. That phenomenon has caused me to stay off Ebay a majority of the time.

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thats called fees circumvention. if you list something for 99 cents and $20 shipping and someone buys it, its only going to cost you about 25 cents in total fees.
if you list it for what its actually worth, and charge real shipping prices, say $15 worth and $5 shipping, its going to cost about a dollar in fees.

this goes up as the price goes up. sell a $500 item, the incetrion fee alone is $5.

why not list that $500 item at $400 and charge $100 to ship it?

its kind of crooked but the buyers are not getting ripped off. its ebay thats getting ripped off. i have been guilty of this once or twice. i had a dozen racing camfhssfts that i was selling with a $50 shipping charge. i just listed the item for $50 lower than i normally would start out at. but ive sence quit this practice. seems like too many people dont realise the final ending price is normally proportionally lower so they wouldnt even bid.
 
I generally use it for stuff you can't get in stores or that would otherwise be difficult to get. At $30 shipped to my door, I used eBay to get an instrument cluster for my Cavalier. Saved me the trouble of driving to the junkyard, pulling the part, not knowing if it works or not, and probably paying close to the same amount.
 
Me and a roomate in college used to go to Government auctions. We did things like speculate on milsurplus especialy in tubines,APU's,Generators,medical supplies,and computer equipment. It never made sense to use that people would get into a bidding war on a surplus vechile,boat or plane that was in less then mint shape and often had obvious mechanical issues. In many case's they could have gone to a dealership and purchased that same vechile but with less miles and in good mechanical condition for less then what they paid at the auction. It was a shame really since most of these people were bored retire's with more money then brains. It just made it harder for those that did this day in and day out for a liveing. It truly was a lose lose situation.
 
In response to what I just said, I went out and installed said instrument cluster and half the lights are burned out and the odometer doesn't work
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.
 
To me it's the fun of finding something vintage. I'm bidding on a model kit from the 1950s and a paperback book from a series I collect. Can't find those anywhere else.
 
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