EBAY help - how do you bid big-time?

I'm trying to obliterate competition on E-Bay.

The item I am bidding on has the usual suspects bidding in increments of .50, etc.

I've only joined E-Bay today and this incremental bidding is not my style - so I thought, I'd just take the current highest bid and simply double it.

However, when I tried to bid - it entered my bid as .50 over the previous bid and then told me my maximum bid was the amount I had entered.

I don't want to bid incrementally - I want to wade in and place a massive bid. How do you bid big-time on E-Bay?

I'm not interested in this 'Auction' style of bidding. I've seen something I want and I will stop at nothing to get it - I can bid 100x anyone. How do I bid what I want instead of E-Bays incremental bids?

Didn't think it worked like that.
If the biggest bid is 10.00 and you bid is 15.00 then your 'winning' bid will be 10.50.
If somebody then bids 17.00 the 'winning' bid will become 15.50
That's how it used to be.

You can't. What i do is wait until theres about 30 seconds left on the Auction and then sneak in my maximum bid. So if you time it for your amaximum bid to be entered 5 to 8 seconds before the auction ends you are guaranteed to win, unless, someone sets a maximum bid higher than yours.

Example:

I was bidding in an auction for Secret of Mana Snes game. The bids were going up 50p a time. I waited till the last possible moment and entered a max bid of £35.

There was about 5 seconds left and I had become the highest bidder. Within a few seconds of placing this maximum bid, the other bidders saw it and tried to beat it by entering new bids. This failed because their maximum bids were lower than mine and by the time the realised this the auction was over and I was the winner.

:)

I don't follow. Why would you want to pay £50 if you can get away with only paying £10.50 for it?

If you're that impatient, just filter the "Buy It Now" items.

Yeah you can't do that, Puki. Amon's method is the best. They call it 'sniping'.

Well, from what "Amon" says, surely it favours the people who are sitting and watching the bid. I don't know where I will be when the bidding comes to an end.

How do I cheat?

I mean, can I not just edit my profile or something and put a message in for the seller to just contact me direct?

How do I get the seller's email?

I want E-Bay to work my way. People make pussy bids - I bid big - people then either better that bid or withdraw from the process.

If you put in a stupidly high bid, then you'll win.

I honestly don't see what the issue is here... unless you're just willy-waving about how much money you've got. Again.

My problem is I am having to rely on E-Bay to automatically incrementally increase my bid. What if it breaks?

I'm wondering if you can have more than one account? Then just bid alternatively from each account to just push the bid up, thus pushing the competition out the door.

Just ask a friend with an ebay account to place a bid that is a just under your own maximum bid. You're just throwing away money though.

> I'm wondering if you can have more than one account? Then just bid alternatively from each account to just push the bid up, thus pushing the competition out the door.

That is not allowed and can get you in trouble. The reason is so that the person selling the goods can't run up the price from another account.

> What if it breaks?


One thing you can pretty much rely on is that Ebay will make sure this works, the higher the ending bid the more money Ebay gets.

Have I snookered myself by entering my highest bid way beyond the price of the item?

I mean, what if the seller just keeps getting a friend to re-bid - surely E-Bay will just keep re-submitting a new bid from me?

Yeah, they will. But there's a simple enough solution.

Don't enter a maximum bid that you are not willing to pay.

I don't like E-Bay.

Also, don't be too quick to place a very high bid on this item.

Over the years I've found that certain items reach a price point when Auctioned. What you've got to do is scout the BIN and I can guarantee you that every now and then a person comes along selling an item and they don't realise it's full value. They have it as a BIN and you can swoop it up and make good savings.

I remember 2 Auctions selling Sealed - Boxed C64 music systems. These were ultra rare. They were both going for £120 odd BIN.

While browsing the section to try and find an alternative, some Bod listed one of these rare C64 Systems on a BIN for £15 + £12 postage. As soon as I saw it I went in to lighting strike mode to purchase it. It was the fastest purchase I've ever made on ebay.

Another example is the SNES Mario Land 2 - Yoshis Island. Theere were plent available on ebay all going for £25 and above. After 2 days on my watch list and browsing for any deals I spotted the game on a buy it now for £9.

Amon is right on all counts. And I've never had problems with ebay screwing up my bids. I usualy wait till the last 3 hours of an auction to see how things are developing. Its usualy in this time that people really start to bid on items.

Often the price will go higher than I'm willing to pay well in advance of the auction closing, but when it looks like im in with a chance, I bid the maximum price I'm happy with a few seconds before it closes.

Sometimes you get lucky, the secret to happy ebaying is to not get carries away and know your limit. It amazes me how many people pay top dollar for items, even over retail after you count in the shipping!!

But Ebay is a great place to get deals, gotten good used parts for my car, and accessories for my cameras, GPS and other gadgets that cost a fortune retail.

Bidding on eBay is very simple. Find an item. Decide on a maximum price you are willing to pay. Bid.

Techniques like sniping can definitely help win an item by avoiding others from raising their bids, but never bid more than you're willing to pay, as Gfk said.


That's true - in fact a few years ago I bought a working GeForce 6800 for $15, because the seller didn't know what it was.

> It amazes me how many people pay top dollar for items, even over retail after you count in the shipping!!


Yeah - seeing things like that makes me wonder.

I ebay snipe, it works most of the time... Usually, I set myself a price of what I'm willing to pay, then I watch it, and other similar items... If things are looking good for a specific item, and there doesnt seem much interest, I will go for it, so when it gets to the last dying seconds, I enter the amount I am willing to pay as a maximum bid

I also only buy stuff that has an auction ending after 11pm (sun-thur), this usually cancels a lot of the playing field out as they are probably tucked up in bed.

I have had some real bargains, £40 for XP Pro, £25 for a TFT monitor, speakers, even a Geforce FX 5600 128mb RAM for just under 50 notes!

The thing with ebay is that its a game... you just have to play cautiously, watch what your doing and what your bidding for.

And most importantly, dont bid daft amounts that you'll regret!

Dabz

I usually buy BIN items. But on the odd occasion when I do have to bid for something, I always enter my highest bid as something like £20.11.

Most people would make their bid a multiple of £5, i.e. £20. But for the sake of an extra 11p...

Recently won an Athlon XP1700+ CPU for £9.51 by doing this. There was only a 99p bid on it with only minutes left. So I put in a £10.20p bid, and I was the winning bidder at £6. In the last seconds, the other bidder put down a higher bid but it still wasn't quite enough to beat mine.

Said CPU is currently blatting away in my test PC.

You don't just have to outbid people on eBay, you have to out-think them.

Think it as a woman... just follow few simple rules and don't try any shortcuts - and cheating will get you in trouble for sure. It's not that hard, really.

...and don't be surprised when you get stabbed in the back.

Well, I just bought my first load of stuff on E-Bay.

The seller was so overcome with excitement that they are going to chuck in more stuff free.

They think they got lucky - but I am paying in USD so I'm only really paying half of what they think I am.


Self-touch.

Are there Ebay rankings?

I've clocked up 8 straight kills (all of those kills were on 22/6). I am going for my 9th kill which is 1hr 15min away.

Are there rankings for things like most kills in a day - longest run of uninteruppted kills, highest kill, fastest kill, most kills, etc?

Also, something I found out by poking about is you can actually threaten people off your prey. I noted quite early that you can contact a seller - but then I noticed you could do the same thing with the people in the bid list. I've already warned a few off saying that I cannot be beaten and that they cannot match me and stuff.

It's like a whole new stalking ground for me - I'm like a ferocious, sabre-tooth, slug - stalking his way through a vast savanah of prey.

Stalking certainly seems like a fitting word.

This is why censoring media like ManHunt 2 is a must. :)

Share your Ebay ID's. :)

This is mine http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/amonuk/

What's your one puki?

Wow, you can get into a lot of info. This thing links to your PayPal account.

You have another email - panicos@...

You live in Oakwood, London.

I got your telephone number - 0208 xxx8030

I'll see what I can transfer out of your PayPal account - just to see if it is possible.

I don't live in Oakwood anymore. The flat in Oakwood was supportive housing for people who have just come out of Hospital. I'm in my own council flat now in Palmers Green. :)

My new address is listed on my domain name. 125 Farndale Avenue. :)

The telephone number is old aswell. I think that was my old BT one I had at the old flat. You can get my new telephone number by doing a who is on my domain.

Drop us a call sometime. :)

I love you.

O Oh! :)

Hey Amon, I used to live in Palmers Green. Can't remember the address anymore, I was only there for a year (student). We used to drink in The Fox, I think it was? Moved to Enfield, then Southgate after that.