Ebay woes - blue 86

A good trick is to put in your highest bid right at the start. The bid will still increment at whatever value the auction is running at, and if you do finally end up being outbid it will be at a price higher than you were willing to pay so of no consequence.

Pete

someone i was talking to last week told me of some software you can get which employs a technique of sniping

basically you point it at the auction you are interested in and how much you are willing to go to. it remembers the closing time and goes and looks at the auction shortly before the end.

If the bids are less than your max it goes dormant until 2 mins before otherwise it asks if you want to raise your max price

2 mins before end it puts a bid in for you, auto bidding until you win or reach maximum

the point about this is that if you put a bid in say 3 days before end the previous leader may well respond and re bid whereas if you put a higher bid in 2 mins before end they will be unlikley to be able to respond in time thereby you can win the auction at a lower price.

I don't use it but certainly have lost auctions to bids put in at the last minute so some people use it

yep, but some of that sniping software is also spyware and keeps track of the kind of things you are buying with adverts from related websites being tuned to your perceived interests along with harvesting your email addy. Use with caution.

Pete

That's what happened last night - got outbid in the last minute and couldn't get another bid made in time- broadband would have helped!

Adrian

Ta. I'll give it a miss for now.

Adrian

"Adrian" wrote

Broadband would have only helped at the margins, I've got it and have lost out on the odd item at the last minute. It's the eBay system that cannot cope with last minute bids.

What others have said makes sense - make your maximum bid right off, then if you miss out, it was too expensive anyway.

John.

Why not wait for the new blue liveried Hornby Model of an '86'? You can always re-number it back to an 'E'number! That might be why so many are coming up on Ebay, so they can get shot of the old models before everybody finds out about the new Hornby one. Regards, Paul.

Is there a new one? If so, when?

I don't want an E number anyway - I get too many in my Pot Noodles ;-)

What I usually do is judge how much an item is worth to me, in other words how much I'd be willing to pay - maximum - then enter that as a bid amount. Did that with a Mk4 buffet coach last night - value to me, £16 considering it was in very good condition. Got it for £10.10 :)

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*** *** Updating regularly throughout 2004 Rich Mackin (rich-at-richmackin.co.uk)

"old git" wrote

And how's that work if there's more than one person using it?

John.

In message , John Turner writes

It keeps outbidding itself until the (pre set) upper limit of one of the bidders is reached :-)

I rely on last minute bids the old fashioned way, which means I've missed a few, but at least I'm responsible for the outcome.

I can recommend Auction Sentry (from

)

I've got no connection other than as a satisfied customer (it costs $10) theres definitely no spyware adverts etc.

I neatly won an auction by 17 seconds last year. It was quite funny. I'd previously bid, then about an hour before the end, I was outbid.

So I left it till 2 minutes before the end before bidding again. The person who outbid me had also been outbid by someone else.

But I put my final bid in anyway. And coincidentally, 17 seconds later, the other chap put in his final bid. The auction then ended, and I won by virtue that we'd bother enter the same amount, but earlier bids of the same value win :)

Ronnie

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Due to recent viruspams, any email containing the word "Microsoft" will not be received.

Go to :

Is that what you want? No pot noodles there!! All the best, Paul

I recently sold a load of Model Railway stuff on Ebay and all the auctions were quite "normal". At the same time I sold off some rare music advertising displays etc. There was a normal last minute bidding war on just about every item but 90% went to one bidder who only bid once, and then was the winner on each item !. It ended up being a Japanese company who have a ready made market with big pockets for what I sold. When I asked about the coincidence they readily admitted that they employed software to do so and confirmed the software they have makes only one bid at the last minute with a 99% success rate !.

I did not complain as the bidding war by normal people was enough to secure good prices !. I tend to employ the method of biding a day or so before the end with my own maximum bid and have been very happy with the results, I have been outbis once, had to pay the full whack

10 times (which I was prepared to pay anyway) and paid much less on numerous occasions.

Fat Richard

Ah...no. Not really what I'm after. I'm looking for the BR corporate blue TOPS one....Not "electric" blue pre-TOPS.

Thanks anyway. Adrian

Thta's the point about sniping, what you think an item is worth may be less than someone else, but it is easy to get swept into a bidding war.

Also I've noticed that some items seem to 'reappear' back on sale again the next week with a really unrealistic reserve price but because a collector missed the first time they 'must' have the item the next time.

e.g. just before christmas a lot of APT sets were sold at some very silly prices, but what is silly to me may be reasonable to a collector so if i'm an ebay 'trader' (I'm not) then i'd buy some and put them straight back on sale. i've noticed this in other auction areas as well.

My friend who told me about the software is a fanatical fan of a 60/70s group and if a rare item comes up he will bid a large amount for this one item. If he comes up against another collector then the bidding war can get really silly so he tries to avoid it. He told me he paid £15 for a 70's electronic device which he sold on ebay for £500.

As I said it all comes down to how much you want something and are willing to pay.

Stu

Absolutely. ebay prices sometimes seem to bear no resemblance to market value at all. I've had some real success selling things that I personally think are worthless.

It seems to me that the items that go for the best prices are the ones with accurate, detailed descriptions and prices. If you know what you want, and come across someone who doesn't know what it is, or lists in the wrong category, or describes it poorly, it is likely to go for peanuts.

Lee

2 mins ??

- I try to bid in the last 10 seconds. Its too late for anyone to type anything then.

Of course you may not get it if you dont exceed someone else max, but often people will come back with one more bid. Dont give them that chance.