When I monitor Ebay auctions I like to try and guess who the bidders are -- and I always wonder how one would recognize individual collectors from traders. Right now, I'm looking at what might be a borderline case -- the person has 187 recorded transactions, and has placed 23 bids on 13 watch related items over the past 9 days.... 15 retracted bids over 6 months (that seems like a lot). Any thoughts...?
For the life of me I cannot understand why anybody would bid on an eBay auction until the last minute. Wait, let me correct that: the last possible second.
I tend to do it to see what the competition is like... when the price is still low, on stuff that I know realistically will climb no matter what.
So true. Nothing infuriates me more than those people who put in early bids, get outbid near the end, then put in a bunch of incremental bids (I've seen upwards of a dozen) to get $0.01 over the highest. Like that provides any sort of protection against a last-second bidder. And it seems like there's always at least one of those type in every auction-style listing.
Sniping is a viable strategy for a few reasons: 1. It masks interest in the watch. Not only do auctions that have a lot of bids naturally attract attention (especially in the case of badly photographed or described watches), high bid counts elevate its placement in the list of "popular" auctions, increasing the number of eyes on it. One astute member here once even suggested not subscribing to an item, to mask general interest. 2. It masks the amount of money you're willing to spend on the watch. If you tell the world what it is - they are more willing to think on it and possibly decide they want to spend more. If you bid at the last second, they have no time to consider this. IMO, increasing the number of unknown variables is a good thing.
There is an argument that high early bids reduce the risk of the seller ending the auction early when they get a good offer. The only other reason is........shill bidding!
Very good points all, to which I'll add that bidding at the last moment doesn't allow others to look at your offer, then offer a simple $25 or $50 more!
Same here, I have a price in mind and by bidding early I am trying to see if others are interested. I am not sure it is a worthwhile tactic because the real activity starts when the auction is close to ending. I have been successful sometimes because I put my max bid in first and others bid the same but after me. More often than not I get outbid but that is ok because I was not really willing to pay more than my max bid anyway.
I like to have fun on ebay, bid early and often to drive the price up on pieces that I would like to own, but do not necessarily have to own. Meaning that it a watch is at No Reserve, and my gut tells me that it will sell for $3k+, I will have fun up to about $2k or so, knowing that if for some unknown reason I win, I am fine. For pieces that I want, I always email the seller to see if they will end it early just to check. If they say no, then I thank them, and usually go in with the number that I am comfortable with plus 5-10%. This way, if I win, I will pay the maximum I am willing to pay--I don't like watching, and watching, setting my number, only to blow it out at the end by sniping. Then sometimes I snipe. Just depends on the piece and the weather. I rarely buy pure auctions, and focus solely on undervalued BIN offerings. Out of 30 watches on ebay in the last year, I think only 3-5 were auctions.
I prefer the way bringatrailer.com does it. Timer resets for 5 minutes after the last bid. I wish eBay would move to that scheme.
So I'm currently watching this item on ebay and there is still almost a day to go. There's these two jerks putting in these max bids in $10 increments, feeling each other out at $3 and $4 bumps. I can't figure out if they are playing hot potato or really want the thing. It's not near what I'll pay for the thing yet but it just pisses me off watching these two doofusses play stupid.
If you email the seller to ask if they will remove the auction, they have likely received several requests, this tends to ensure that they don't end it, and if they do...