Anyone with ebay bidding experience?

[DreadBelch]

I found an old joystick on ebay I'd like to bid on, but noticed two other people also bid a couple days ago. The auction ends in 20 hrs.

Should I wait until the last second and then outbid the other two? Or what's the best way to win an auction? Thanks.

 

[FleshLight]

Welcome to internet

 

[nickbits]

Most of the action happens in thw last hour or few seconds even. Put your max bud in with 5 secinds to go woukd be my recommendation.

 

[FelixDeCat]

I would just put my best price in. If you get outbid then find another one. Otherwise check back at the last second and make a final bid if its not outrageous by then.

 

[inspiron]

Yes the best way is to have a fast computer or iphone, and bid at the last like 4 secs if you are fast enough. That is a great way to get LOTS for less.

I got god of war II when it first came out for $12.99 no shipping... I love ebay, but be careful ebay will make you buy things that you wouldn't have thought otherwise...

 

[lxskllr]

Most of the action happens in thw last hour or few seconds even. Put your max bud in with 5 secinds to go woukd be my recommendation.

^^^

That's the only way to win. Bidding early unnecessarily drives up the price.

Edit:
Don't forget to login before bidding. An awesome 5 second snipe turns to failure if you forgot to login first :^D

 

[DreadBelch]

Thanks, people. I'll give it a try.

I've bought lots of things from ebay before but never actually bid on anything. I'm always impatient and choose that Buy Now option.

 

[DrPizza]

Just one thing though - if you're bidding in the last few seconds, make sure you put in the maximum amount you're willing to pay. i.e. if the current price is at $5, bidding $6 at the last instant isn't going to guarantee that you will win. The $5 bidder may have put in a proxy bid of $15. Thus, if you put in a bid of $14, you'll lose. If you put in a bid of $14.95, you'll lose. If you put in a bid of $15.01, you'll win.

Sometimes bidders try to guess what the other bidder's proxy bid is & add a few cents on. That results in some weird prices at times, when an item is going for 100's of dollars, yet the winning bid (at the moment) might be something like $700.26

 

[daw123]

You could automatically snipe the auction in the last few seconds using a sniping website such as this:
www.myibay.com

 

[robphelan]

if i'm bidding in the last few seconds, i normally have multiple windows open in firefox with increasing amounts.. that way, if the first bid is lower than someone else's max, I go to the next window with the next highest bid waiting for me to hit submit.

 

[Jeraden]

if i'm bidding in the last few seconds, i normally have multiple windows open in firefox with increasing amounts.. that way, if the first bid is lower than someone else's max, I go to the next window with the next highest bid waiting for me to hit submit.

If you've already established what your max bid is by opening multiple windows up, why not just submit that max bid the very first time?