OT-how to buy things on E-bay

Is there a strategy to bidding on E-bay or is it as cut and dried as simply bidding the most you are willing to pay and winning when that is more than anyone else is willing to pay, and not winning when it isn't?

I feel regretful when an item goes for $1 more than my maximum bid, particularly, for some reason, when mine was the highest bid at some much lower price until just before the close of bidding. I can't help thinking, "well shoot, I would've gone a couple bucks higher." But that's just ignorant, isn't it? I wouldn't have gotten it for a couple of bucks more unless the winning bidder's max bid happened to be just $1 above my (apparently not quite max) bid.

Well, since I put it like that, I can see that I'm just ranting. But please feel free to respond if you have anything to add, or if you just want to blow off, too. The feedback on this forum almost always makes me feel better, regardless of the subject. It gives me a wonderful sense of relief to come here and be reminded that wisdom, ingenuity, courtesy, teasing, and common sense have not been completely abolished in North America.

Stan

Stan

I watched biscuit joiners for three weeks from one company, and the price for the offering rose from $85 to $95 CDN. On the 24th of May weekend I got mine for $54. Prices shot back up right after.

If you are selling a large item, don't time it to close during the Super Bowl or Christmas dinner.

I give up. Why?

All the best, Stan

Take a look at the bidding history of this item '7529886552' you will see a bid of 2,000.01 which 'chealey' had won the bid until the 2500.00 bid by myronvenise. Winning bid is the highest bid even if by one cent. Take a look at bidding history of several items you will see all kinds of values check this one '7508149520' bidding history. If you bid 2000.00 and I have the max bid of 2000.01. I will still have the bid at 2000.00 not you. You will see that 2000.00 has been out bid not my max bid. You will then need to increment your bid maybe 50.00 to see if I had bid 2000.01. A game of my auto bidder bets your auto bidder. Hope this helps.

Proxy bidding is having ebay know how much you're willing to bid, and letting their computer do it's thing. It will always beat a snipper, *IF* your proxy bid is more than the snipe.

Remember, if you have the winning bid, you've offered to pay more than everyone else who saw it considered it to be worth. Though this past month things have been very cheap on e-bay for some reason.

The idea is to not let others know what you are willing to bid. Many Ebay items sell for over their value because of "bidding wars" between a couple of guys, who as Big Jim suggests, get caught up in the auction. Personally I find this quite often true with tools in general and chainsaws in particular.

Another way to assess the value of an item you wish to bid on is to do a search on Ebay for completed auctions only. This is an option in the search criteria. Again, this might not reflect what the item might be worth to you or I, but is a pretty good predictor of what the item is likely to go for.

Michael

Would you mind telling me the exact steps to take to find the "completed auction" option. Even following the steps listed in ebay help I get to where that is supposed to be one of the options (from the drop down menu, I assume) only it isn't there.

I would rate my knowledge of Windows and Internet conventions to be above average, and my problem solving ability as good. But there comes a time when you just have to stop and ask directions, and for me, that time is now.

Thanks, Stan

Don't know if this is the only way, but if you start a regular search for an item you are interested in, Ebay will display whatever is currently available. On the left side of the page you will see "Matching Categories" and underneath that a similar bold heading "Search Options". A subheading under that category is "Show only:". Under that is "Completed listings". Just click on the box and hit "Show items".

As an example, I just did a search on "kubota backhoe". Ebay turns up 9 items. I did what I have just described and Ebay shows me 21 completed listings.

Something you can do to improve the quality of your completed items list is narrow your original search. In my example, sometimes there will be some misc. stuff that I'm not interested in, such as diecast toys. If I click on the category "Business &Industrial" and then click on "Show items", Ebay will sort the search results and only show me real backhoe stuff. This will carry over in the "Completed listings" list. Can you tell I've been looking for a kubota backhoe?

The worst case of the above that I've run into is doing a search for chainsaw, where the initial results will include a gazillion items of Chainsaw Massacre memorabilia.

If you use Mozilla or Firefox, you can open things in tabs, and it's much easier to keep track of what you've done and to get back to where you started.

Michael