People bidding on eBay when there are still days left???

When I first signed up on eBay, I found an item I wanted, and had a "bidding" war and eventually one the auction. But as I've been on eBay for roughly 10 years now, I've learned to "watch" items, and only bid in the last few minutes.

I guess people might be like me in the beginning and think their high bid with 4 days left might be the high bid, but doesn't it seem silly to bid on an item with days left to only continue to raise the price?

I've watching the lenses on ebay and they have days left and the prices have gone up a few hundred dollars already.

Im the same...but have started to use an auction sniper.....seem to work well...set the price your willing to pay and it will bid up to that price secounds before the auction finishes....won a few like that...especially when im at work and cant access the net.

Sometimes it is more exciting to bid a little up front and then swoop in and steal it in the last second. Occassionally I bid if they have a good buy it now price, just to make it go away I noticed a lot of people who bid on 20 items that are the same and if they get one then good, they never bid very much but bid a lot.

I bid on a 18-55 IS lens with 15 seconds left. I bid what I was willing to pay and still got it for less than $100 shipped. I never bid on anything until the last minute.

i add a bunch of stuffs in my ebay, check them regularly and only bid if it's really low near the end
there are some hours, i dont know, that some specific items end up really cheap, it's like nobody wants it.

for example, i won a blackberry 8830 for 30 bucks - like new in box with everything while more than 5 other auctions ended at ~150 to 175

i think an early big hit is the best, for psychological reasons.

if you see something, and it has a bid on it, the other person now considers it theirs. you bid a bit more, and take over, and now you consider it yours. the other bidder wants their item back, so bids higher. you are now loosing the item you were winning, so you bid more, and so on.

but if you see an item has one bid, and it's still 99p, and you bid £10 and don't get it, you may try £20 an then give up. you never get to the point where you consider it yours, and equally important you don't get a feel for how much the other person was bidding.

but that's just in my experience

GrahamS wrote in post #7436977
i think an early big hit is the best, for psychological reasons.

if you see something, and it has a bid on it, the other person now considers it theirs. you bid a bit more, and take over, and now you consider it yours. the other bidder wants their item back, so bids higher. you are now loosing the item you were winning, so you bid more, and so on.

but if you see an item has one bid, and it's still 99p, and you bid £10 and don't get it, you may try £20 an then give up. you never get to the point where you consider it yours, and equally important you don't get a feel for how much the other person was bidding.

but that's just in my experience

Same logic here, and so far I have done a lot better then the average sale price of other auctions.

I always bid in the last few seconds now as I've been beaten quite a few times in the last few seconds.

I will bid early when I don't need the item, but think I can get it for a decent price. Just bid the max I will pay and forget it till it ends. I have won several things that way. Sure they were not the hot and trendy items, but stuff I wanted none the less. One example was EL gauge faces for my car. They retail for about $60. I don't have to have them, so I bid $20 max. A week later I won them for $18.

Other times it worked because there was 75 of the same thing listed but only 35 bidders. Bid the minimum and wait.

Also expensive items that draw few bidders do not need to be rushed at the end. I just sold my PRS guitar last month on ebay. The winning bidder set his price 4 days to the end. But at $1600 I didnt expect more than 1-2 bids.

There are times you need to snipe to get the item. And times I have seen people pay OVER retail by getting caught up in a bid war.

There is no one technique to bidding. The situation around each item is allways different.

blackjacknz wrote in post #7435277
Im the same...but have started to use an auction sniper.....seem to work well...set the price your willing to pay and it will bid up to that price secounds before the auction finishes....won a few like that...especially when im at work and cant access the net.

Ditto. I use esnipe, which lets you set up bid groups, so it automatically cancels bids on subsequent auctions if you win one of them.

I am upping the bid $24.75..........

stathunter wrote in post #7437910
I am upping the bid $24.75..........

Haha...you and all the others I'm fighting for the item

Sometimes I like to throw a bid up early just to kind of secure a position, because I don't always get to check my eBay account. I even got lucky on maybe a couple occasions where my bid was the only bid and I ended up winning the item for dirt cheap. However, I usually like to wait till the end of the auction to see where the price ends up at, and whether or not I should even bite. It also depends on the availability of the item. If the price has gotten a bit high and there's many more listings of the same item, I'll just move on to another listing.

Big O wrote in post #7435312
Occassionally I bid if they have a good buy it now price, just to make it go away

I don't understand the logic here. What am I missing?

-F

It keeps others from purchasing the item at the Buy It Now Price and turns it into a regular auction.

From ebay:
Why did the Buy It Now option disappear after the first bid?
Buy It Now gives you the chance to purchase an item immediately, before bidding begins. But you have to act fast. Once someone bids, the Buy It Now option disappears. The listing then proceeds as a regular auction-style listing, with the item going to the highest bidder.
Special situations

• In a listing with a Reserve Price, Buy It Now disappears as soon as the reserve price has been met.
  
  
• In a few categories, the Buy It Now option may continue to be available after the first bid, but only for a limited time. Learn more.