eBay - Bidding against sellers bid ???

[blinky88]

I absolutely convinced when bidding on eBay, in a majority of auctions I am bidding against the seller, who is jacking up the price .... interested to know the truth, am I right because it's really beginning to give me the s---s ???

[bendixG15]

No, you are not bidding against the seller. You are bidding against other people who bid too early, like you.
The only way to bid on ebay is to place your bid at the last second.
Good Luck

[rallynavvie]

The only way to bid on ebay is to place your bid at the last second.

Alternatively you can just proxy bid as it was designed to be used

I love "bid snipers". It works sometimes but not against the people who properly use the proxy bidding system. The idea is to bid the absolute most you would ever be willing to pay for that item and let it be. Bid snipers are usually trying to minimize their risk by putting in bids at the last second hoping to come out over the other bidders who were low-balling their bids thus not allowing them time to change their minds. The downside is it sometimes doesn't give the sniper the opportunity to increase their low-ball bids to beat a proper proxy bid. Those are the ones you see frantically increasing their bids by small increments right near the end of the auction. Sniping is a good way to minimize what you pay on auctions that have little to no views and bids. You're mostly competing against other snipers at that point.

Last eBay item I won I saw the snipers pinging away at the auction at the last second. It was for a new SAS drive to replace a dead one in a server. I knew the item's worth and put in a proxy bid 6 days early at the most I was willing to pay for the drive, none of this hamming/hawing about "oh maybe I'd get it if it were just a few bucks more". I set the bid and left it alone. A day before the end I saw a few other bids posted that had gone up to 50% of my proxy bid, obviously opportunists hoping for a cheap drive. Then I slept through the late night close of the auction and woke up to see my win at 80% of the bid I placed, but triple the bids there were from the night before. There was no way snipers were going to increment up the bid to my proxy in the time they allotted. You will never see me bid twice on an item on eBay ever.

And now the response from all the bid snipers that think their method is absolutely fool-proof:

[drjtech]

Alternatively you can just proxy bid as it was designed to be used

I agree. If the absolute most I am willing to pay is $5.75 and someone else bids $6.00 then they beat me no matter when they bid. On the other hand, if I proxy bid $5.75 early on and then a sniper bids $5.75 at the last second, I win.

-drjtech

[Xylob the Destroyer]

Or just hit the "Buy it now" button. Of course this totally depends on what type of item you're trying to get. "Buy it now" can be a rip-off for some things.