Anyone have any tips for bidding on ebay ?
I am after a car part - the bid runs out at 9.00pm tonight & I am currently the highest bidder although 1 other guy keeps bidding higher. Its just between us 2 (only bidders in 7 days) though someone else might bid at the last second....

Wait until 8.59 then bid ?

This could very well become a good friend.

http://www.auctionsniper.com

I always leave it till the very last minute to bid, works the majority of the time unless the first bidder has put in a very high amount.
Good Luck

In my experience, the only result of bidding more than 8 (*) seconds before the auction ends is that you end up paying more than you could do;)

...so, decide the max price you would pay and make the bid 8 (*) seconds before the end - you will either lose (but there again, you had already decided that that was the max you would pay) or you win it at the next highest increment above the other highest bidder

...but I think that's what auctionsniper does for you, but I prefer the manual method (oo-er)

(*) 8 seconds is OK IMHO if:
- you're on a reliable broadband connection
- you have a synchromised time source so that you know when it is 8 seconds to go on eBay's clock (ie not your PC time OR actual UTC time - although eBay seems to be fairly close to the latter)

All usual disclaimers apply...;)

Have a couple of screens open with bids ready so you can hit the bid button on the required screen when needed.

As mentioned about, leave it late but do not be suprised to find out that someone else is leaving it late also. I've seen auctions double in price in the last minute or so. Or, stick in a stupidly high price to begin with.

The advice to set your highest amount beforehand is one I try and stick to. If you loose, then 99% of the time the same thing is in ebay within a few weeks anyway, and then you have no-one else bidding against you.

in fact...why would anyone ever bid for an item before the last moments? mad idea!

also- selling tip- dont stick stuff on that will end at 1am...no last second bidders are awake!

same as working- get the auction to end at 8pm in the eve prime time!

I don't see the point in bid sniping at all (of course, I do have my own scripts to counter bid snipers), but I really don't understand why people don't just bid the maximum they're prepaired to pay and leave it at that. If you win you win, if not then try again next time. I've bid against people that do this kind of thing and it's annoying, and they usually end up paying over the odds anyway.

If you leave it until the last minute to bid and the person that's currently winning the auction has bid say, 50 quid, and the auction is only at 18 quid, you bid 19 or 20 at the last minute and you _still_ lose. There is no way to "win" against other people other than bidding higher than them, and you have no idea how much they've bid by proxy. Bid your max and leave it at that.

just bid the maximum they're prepaired to pay and leave it at that. If you win you win, if not then try again next time

Exactly. Saves all that messing about. Let Ebay do your bidding for you. A good tip is to always make your maximum bid an odd figure as people tend to bid in round numbers. This can avoid you losing an auction by 1p. That really *is* annoying.[img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]

UB;)

I do the last minute bid thing, say at 20 seconds as I find that my ADSL connection and the various servers en-route to ebay take about 10-12 seconds update before I see my bid has been accepted.
If the highest bid is say £10 and you want to pay £20 as maximum I would leave it until last minute to do it, this gives the other person less time to empty their piggy bank and find a few extra pounds to outbid you.

This method does involve remembering that the auction is finishing, when I cant watch the last few minutes and then resort to the auto bidding methos, but have lost more auctions in this way than leaving my bid to last 20 seconds.

There's also a little bit of cheating going on. One person will put an item up for auction. After getting a bid on it,he'll get a friend or another user name to bump up the price a bit. I've seen it done on items I've bidded for. So if you're in competition with only one other bidder, I'd leave it until the last few seconds and bid the highest price is that you'd be willing to pay, not forgetting the shipping charge.

But it's all a waste of time :) If someone is prepared to pay more for something than you are then you are going to lose, whether you bid at the last minute or not. Sniping only works if everyone else is sniping the same way, and if people only bid an extra pound on the total at the end that's a sure fire way of losing an auction.

If you bid your max at the start of an auction and other people bid a pound on top of you because they're newbies you will outbid them instantly. If this happens enough times and you're still on top (look at the bid history, very useful info there) people will realise you've bid high straight away and early, and it may well put them off sniping at the end since they don't know how high you've bid. Snipers usually only bid a small amount higher than the total. If someone comes along at the end and bids stupidly high because they really want it then let them have it - they are prepared to pay more for it than you.

I followed an item for three days and there was zero interest.I was really getting my hopes up until 2 minutes brfore closure when three other people entered and the bidding went crazy.Basically i ended up bidding with seconds to go more than i really wanted to pay,but still ended up losing.

Never again,from now on i just place my max bid and leave it.If i lose i lose.A better deal is always around the corner.

I'm with andrewdelvard on this. Use Auctionsniper - well worth it!http://www.computerpannen.com/cwm/contrib/ed/wink2.gif

i might have a look at this sniper thing, i have been out bid by 1p 4p this week, cheers

I reckon sniping is the way to go. Showing your interest in an item early on only lets others know there is someone else interested and gets a bit of a bidding frenzy going. Sniping has won me pretty much every item Ive wanted bar the occasional one where somoene has already bid an amount over what I want to pay.

My latest snipe was 1sec lol - using one screen to time the auction and another with the max bid amount already entered. Its a risky game so I would bid earlier if it was something I really wanted i.e. rare.

Simon.