Any advice on winning a bid on ebay?

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brannsiu

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Apr 20, 2013
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In fact I am not a frequent buyer on ebay and I only purchased once or twice in the past decades but recently I found an item that I am interested in and it requires auction. 2 days left, nobody is watching, but 1 bid is done. I looked at the profile of the bidder, on 30-Day Bid History he has bid a of items, probably an experienced buyer.
Any advice, tips or strategy on winning a bid on ebay? This is an item I badly want. Should I only place my first bid and set the max. auto price before 10 or 5 minutes before the auction ends?? Any more tricky way? I bad want this item.
 
The best advice that always worked for me is find out the max amount of money you are willing to bid on the particular item and wait until the very last second to bid. That's the only way I won at bidding on eBay. Also keep in mind because you are the highest bidder doesn't mean that your bid is amount you are going to pay the seller. I was pleasantly surprised that I only had to pay the bidder's price below me for the item.
 
SgtScream said:
The best advice that always worked for me is find out the max amount of money you are willing to bid on the particular item and wait until the very last second to bid. That's the only way I won at bidding on eBay. Also keep in mind because you are the highest bidder doesn't mean that your bid is amount you are going to pay the seller. I was pleasantly surprised that I only had to pay the bidder's price below me for the item.
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Thus is good advice. I've been buying and selling on eBay for 20 years. You need to decide whether or not you want a good deal, or want the item so bad you don't care what the cost is. Then, either place a bid now at your MAX price you'd be willing to pay, or even better wait until the last minute to do it so you can avoid people testing your max.
 
SgtScream said:
The best advice that always worked for me is find out the max amount of money you are willing to bid on the particular item and wait until the very last second to bid. That's the only way I won at bidding on eBay. Also keep in mind because you are the highest bidder doesn't mean that your bid is amount you are going to pay the seller. I was pleasantly surprised that I only had to pay the bidder's price below me for the item.
Click to expand...

Did you mean I should only attempt to place my first bid at the very last second??
to avoid competitors??
 
brannsiu said:
Did you mean I should only attempt to place my first bid at the very last second??
to avoid competitors??
Click to expand...
That is one bidding philosohpy. Referred to as "sniping" . There is software and there are websites that will automate that type of bidding. The other option is determine your max price, no-matter-what, and bid that early. Known as "fire and forget". Both methods can win. If $54 is the absolute max you will pay for something then bid that and let people outbid you. Unless the item is exceptionally rare, then another one will come up for bid in a few days. Sniping your $54 bid limits the time people can react to your bid. But many people operate with automated bidding software so you can still be outbid OR you can be outbid by a "fire and forget" of $100 that somebody put in on day 1.
If you want something that is rare, then you better be prepared to bid high and late.
 
Yeah, I wouldn't say to necessarily wait for the last "second", since you might miss out if there is some delay, but within the last minute might be a good idea. It's possible you will still get outbid if the initial bidder set a higher maximum, or by someone else doing the same thing you are doing, but it improves your chances at least. Just make certain you are logged in and everything first. : P
 
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Hi all I finally won the bid last week for 100 dollars but the situation was so strange, the price was still around 50 dollars in the last 30 seconds, in the last 10 seconds I placed my first bet for 100 because it's the maximum amount I am willing to pay for this item, I hoped I would win for less but I finally won it for 100 and I checked the history, someone placed the bid for 99.99 at the last second so I luckily won him for 0.01

But I think it was so strange, why he didn't place 100 or 100.1? It's more likely to win.
Was it possible that he is another ebay account of the seller who tried to avoid the buyer
to win at around $50 and push the winning price higher??
 
brannsiu said:
Hi all I finally won the bid last week for 100 dollars but the situation was so strange, the price was still around 50 dollars in the last 30 seconds, in the last 10 seconds I placed my first bet for 100 because it's the maximum amount I am willing to pay for this item, I hoped I would win for less but I finally won it for 100 and I checked the history, someone placed the bid for 99.99 at the last second so I luckily won him for 0.01

But I think it was so strange, why he didn't place 100 or 100.1? It's more likely to win.
Was it possible that he is another ebay account of the seller who tried to avoid the buyer
to win at around $50 and push the winning price higher??
Click to expand...
It is possible. He'd have to have second account and i'm pretty sure that's against eBay policy.
 
That is very strange. You can open a case with eBay to investigate, as it wouldn't cost you anything. I would do a little digging first, like is the person that pushing you up brand new on the scene? Or does their history show a lot of history with the seller (such as a friend or family member)?
 
Ketchup79 said:
That is very strange. You can open a case with eBay to investigate, as it wouldn't cost you anything. I would do a little digging first, like is the person that pushing you up brand new on the scene? Or does their history show a lot of history with the seller (such as a friend or family member)?
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Excuse me, what did you mean by "pushing you up brand new on the scene” ?

How can I check if a buyer has a lot of history with a seller? From what I can find, I can only find his 30-day bid history and the length of time before the end of the auction.
(I'm new to ebay)

So far I once sent a message to the seller asking about the condition of his product only and it was the only message I sent to him and I did not tell him about the price I am willing to pay.

If I report to ebay in hope of investigation, what would be my reason to do that??
 
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Sorry. A bit slangy I suppose. Does the person who pushed up your bid have buying history, or do they show a Zero for feedback? You can click on their name and check out their profile. Click on the seller of the item you bought, look at their previous sales, look at the bidding history on those items (not sure if you can still do that, I have been away from eBay for a while) and see if the person that bid you up in present in any of those. Would make a stronger eBay case for you if they were. Doesn't have to be that way, but it would help. Remember that eBay has access to information that is private from other buyers and sellers, so they would more easily be able to see a link unless this person was just sloppy - which is what we are hoping for, right?

And I am only suggesting because you stated:
:Was it possible that he is another ebay account of the seller who tried to avoid the buyer to win at around $50 and push"the winning price higher?? "
so your reason would be "FRAUD".
 
Ketchup79 said:
Sorry. A bit slangy I suppose. Does the person who pushed up your bid have buying history, or do they show a Zero for feedback? You can click on their name and check out their profile. Click on the seller of the item you bought, look at their previous sales, look at the bidding history on those items (not sure if you can still do that, I have been away from eBay for a while) and see if the person that bid you up in present in any of those. Would make a stronger eBay case for you if they were. Doesn't have to be that way, but it would help. Remember that eBay has access to information that is private from other buyers and sellers, so they would more easily be able to see a link unless this person was just sloppy - which is what we are hoping for, right?

And I am only suggesting because you stated:
:Was it possible that he is another ebay account of the seller who tried to avoid the buyer to win at around $50 and push"the winning price higher?? "
so your reason would be "FRAUD".
Click to expand...

Yes, the buyer has feedback of 700 something, but his full ID is hidden by ebay, and his 30-Day Summary is that he had 5 bids on 5 items and No. of bids were all 1 and only placed his last bid <1h i.e. less than one hour.

Does he looks suspicious?
 
I bought something from another seller on Oct but they still not yet ship out the item now, 17 Nov 2019. He accepted my offer and I've paid but the price is 40% lower than other average seller for the same item. He has lost connection with me. Does he regret and don't want to ship it out but worried that I will leave negative feedback so he turns a blind eye to my message, pretending to be busy and away?? How long can I still refund if he hasn't shipped the item?? I paid directly with credit card and NOT paypal.
 
Hi I'd like to take this chance here to ask a further question about eBay, without starting a new thread.
In this month I've purchased more than 10 items from 10 different local sellers, but it's my first time ever buying on eBay.
Why most of the sellers just ship their items with non-tracking regular plain mail??
Only few of them shipped with tracking.
How could they prove that they've shipped out something, in case I was a scammer and starting a case with eBay that I did not receive it? ( I definitely won't do this, but I just wish to learn because maybe I will sell something on eBay one day) Did they just put themselves at risk? And more importantly, I don't have a lot of feedback and I am a "new" member
 
Maybe it is a value thing. If tracking would add 10% to the total it might discourage people to buy. E-Bay is very total price sensitive. Lowering shipping costs or offering free shipping is an incentive to buy from a specific seller. Most items on E-Bay have 20 or 100 other listings of exactly the same thing. What can a seller use to differentiate themselves? Free shipping is one option. The seller then wants to keep their costs as low as possible. Tracking costs money.
I don't know what country you are in, but most orders in the US do have some rudimentary tracking. So it could also be a country difference.
 
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