Posted: 11/19/2008 8:33:04 AM EDT
| When you have an item for sale, what does it mean that you have 8 bidders "watching" the auction? |
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Is this what causes the flurry of bids at the closing moments of an ebay auction? Yep No wonder I could never win anything on ebay......always at the last second comes a bid out of nowhere.... My bad. Auction ends in 5...4...3...2... BID!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
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OK thanks all-I have an item I thought was reserved price quite fairly, but no bids. I have 8 watching it. Is this what causes the flurry of bids at the closing moments of an ebay auction? It depends. Usually my stuff with multiple watchers gets bid on in the first few days. It does tend to go crazy at the last minute, but with 8 watchers I bet you'll get bids before then. I have 5 things I'm "watching" now, similar items, just seeing what prices go up on each one. One's at I think $.99, one at $26, but I think 3 days left on both. |
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OK thanks all-I have an item I thought was reserved price quite fairly, but no bids. I have 8 watching it. Is this what causes the flurry of bids at the closing moments of an ebay auction? It depends. Usually my stuff with multiple watchers gets bid on in the first few days. It does tend to go crazy at the last minute, but with 8 watchers I bet you'll get bids before then. I have 5 things I'm "watching" now, similar items, just seeing what prices go up on each one. One's at I think $.99, one at $26, but I think 3 days left on both. I never realized there was a whole strategy to Ebay. |
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I have over 100 sells on ebay and around 40 buys. Everytime I've had more than 6 or 7 watchers I've had massive last second and snipe bidding, especially on mid to large ticket.
I do the same thing If I'm buying sports tickets, I have T1 so I can get a bid down to the second. I usually make a bid around a minute to see what the bid ceiling is, if my bid doesn't get to the top, I watch and make my best offer at around 12 seconds. Very few people unless they are using an automated system can formulate a bid and send it in that time frame. |
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I have over 100 sells on ebay and around 40 buys. Everytime I've had more than 6 or 7 watchers I've had massive last second and snipe bidding, especially on mid to large ticket. I do the same thing If I'm buying sports tickets, I have T1 so I can get a bid down to the second. I usually make a bid around a minute to see what the bid ceiling is, if my bid doesn't get to the top, I watch and make my best offer at around 12 seconds. Very few people unless they are using an automated system can formulate a bid and send it in that time frame. I was so sure I had a Japanese helmet won once, about 30 seconds away from closing time I walked away from my computer to get a beer, taking comfort in the knowledge that I had won a Japanese helmet at a high, but fair, price. When I came back to the computer I saw that I had lost the bid, and was out bid by $75! |
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As a seller, the last second snipers are great for really bidding up the price. I like to see a high number of watchers.
As a buyer, I've been beaten by the snipers before, but as long as you are satisfied that you have your maximum buy price set appropriately for you, you might as well ignor them. It's just the market finding the fair market value of the item. |
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OK thanks all-I have an item I thought was reserved price quite fairly, but no bids. I have 8 watching it. Is this what causes the flurry of bids at the closing moments of an ebay auction? It depends. Usually my stuff with multiple watchers gets bid on in the first few days. It does tend to go crazy at the last minute, but with 8 watchers I bet you'll get bids before then. I have 5 things I'm "watching" now, similar items, just seeing what prices go up on each one. One's at I think $.99, one at $26, but I think 3 days left on both. I never realized there was a whole strategy to Ebay. Yeah, actually there is. I'm not an expert by any means, but I've been selling on there for a while. The main thing I always try to do is use extra/redundant words in the auction title. Like before they got all uptight about gun stuff, I had sold some M14 stocks on there, and I listed them like "USGI M14 Stocks Stock M1A Springfield Armory". That can help you get more views, you'll get hits for both the guy searching "M14 stocks" and "M1A stock". I sold an Ibanez Tube Screamer guitar effect pedal, which I listed as "Ibanez TubeScreamer Tube Screamer" to get people who would spell it either way. Descriptions with more details and good pics get better results than short/incomplete descriptions and blurry pics. I'll only bid on 1 of the items I'm watching right now, but not if they go over more than $20 or so. It's not stuff I have my heart set on, so I'm not going to rush into anything. I just want to get a feel for what they're ending at to decide if I really want one. Also shipping internationally is expensive and a pain in the ass, but the few times I've done it, international buyers paid a lot more. For the most part, CD's, DVD's, books etc are a waste of time, since people download that stuff so much. Unless you have something rare or collectible. I had a somewhat (but not super) rare Jimi Hendrix CD box set that I got about $40 for 4 disks. Rare or collecible books bring a lot of money, but if it's just some recent paperback you bought, read, and didn't like, that stuff is hard to make money on after paying auction fees, PayPal fees, etc. |
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OK thanks all-I have an item I thought was reserved price quite fairly, but no bids. I have 8 watching it. Is this what causes the flurry of bids at the closing moments of an ebay auction? It depends. Usually my stuff with multiple watchers gets bid on in the first few days. It does tend to go crazy at the last minute, but with 8 watchers I bet you'll get bids before then. I have 5 things I'm "watching" now, similar items, just seeing what prices go up on each one. One's at I think $.99, one at $26, but I think 3 days left on both. I never realized there was a whole strategy to Ebay. Yeah, actually there is. I'm not an expert by any means, but I've been selling on there for a while. The main thing I always try to do is use extra/redundant words in the auction title. Like before they got all uptight about gun stuff, I had sold some M14 stocks on there, and I listed them like "USGI M14 Stocks Stock M1A Springfield Armory". That can help you get more views, you'll get hits for both the guy searching "M14 stocks" and "M1A stock". I sold an Ibanez Tube Screamer guitar effect pedal, which I listed as "Ibanez TubeScreamer Tube Screamer" to get people who would spell it either way. Descriptions with more details and good pics get better results than short/incomplete descriptions and blurry pics. I'll only bid on 1 of the items I'm watching right now, but not if they go over more than $20 or so. It's not stuff I have my heart set on, so I'm not going to rush into anything. I just want to get a feel for what they're ending at to decide if I really want one. Also shipping internationally is expensive and a pain in the ass, but the few times I've done it, international buyers paid a lot more. For the most part, CD's, DVD's, books etc are a waste of time, since people download that stuff so much. Unless you have something rare or collectible. I had a somewhat (but not super) rare Jimi Hendrix CD box set that I got about $40 for 4 disks. Rare or collecible books bring a lot of money, but if it's just some recent paperback you bought, read, and didn't like, that stuff is hard to make money on after paying auction fees, PayPal fees, etc. interesting.....thanks! |