What's your buying strategy on eBay?

[ourbabygirl]

I'm watching something that's currently at $75 (with about 6 days left to bid), but has a buy-it-now price of $120. Not sure if I should buy it now, bid now, or take my chances and wait on it for a few days. I don't absolutely need it right now, but part of me would like to just avoid the bidding thing and buy it, and the other part of me would rather try to get it for cheaper. There aren't any bids on the item right now, but I'm not sure if there will be a lot later.

I'm obviously new to the eBay thing; the only thing I've bought on it before was a Halloween costume for DS last year (and DH was the one who bid on it & bought it for me, though he really dislikes eBay). :)

Any tips from those of you who do this often?
Thanks!

[iaam]

My strategy is usually the following for items with a few or no bids: I wait until the very last minute (when there are maybe 25 seconds remaining for the auction to end) and then bid once. I bid the maximum amount I would be willing to pay for the item. If it's an item that has lots of bids, I still wait until the last minute but leave myself enough to bid a second time in case my first bid is 'topped' by someone else's (usually their auto-bid). That way, I won't loose the item by a margin of 50 cents, for example. However, I still won't go much higher than my predetermined max price.

[elbenn]

You can check completed listings for the item or similar items to see what they have sold for. This gives you an idea if the buy it now price is close to what it usually sells for. As for bidding, you can use bidnapper where they put your bid in for you at the very end of the bidding process. I haven't used bidnapper for awhile so I don't know if it's still available, but if it is, it's very convenient.

[larig]

I snipe using jbidwatcher, 15 seconds before end of auction.

[codex57]

I snipe.

I tend to bid on popular items. So, I now snipe at about 2 seconds. Here's a nutshell of my overall strategy.

First, I do a search on "completed items". That tells me what the usual closing price is for the item lately. I usually only look at the past week or so.

If there is more than one of the item closing around the same time, bid more aggressively at the first one. That's cuz what usually happens is the losers of the first item bid higher on the second.

When I've narrowed down the actual auction, I open it up in two different windows. I log in first, but then I open that auction up twice. The first window/tab, I use to click refresh and keep an eye on the price. The second, I prefill in my bid. I always put in the highest I'm willing to go. Oftentimes, it's higher than the lowest winning bid I've seen in my earlier search. What I'm really willing to pay, especially if I really want the item. Ebay now has a two step bidding process. First step is enter in your price. I hit enter and leave it at the page that says "Click if you're sure you want to submit" or something similar.

I go back to the first page and refresh. At about a minute or two, I start counting down in my head to get the timing right. A couple minutes should give you enough practice so you can get the timing right. Then, at about 20 seconds, I refresh about once every 5 seconds. At about 7-10 seconds, I leave it alone and count in my head. At the same time, I switch the second page. At roughly 2-3 seconds, I click to submit my bid if I still want it.

Usually, if the price changes at 10 seconds, I may have enough time to switch pages, hit back and enter a new bid, with enough time to submit it.

I NEVER bid early. It lets people bidding know there's more interest out there. At most, just "watch" it so it shows up in your myeBay page.

With so many people using sniping programs, I have to manually bid within 10 seconds or so to even have a shot. I've been in a few auctions where about 5 of us bid within the last 10 seconds.

[mom2binsd]

I snipe using auction Stealer its free up to three auctions per month and I've never missed out ok something I wanted


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[Snow mom]

As others mentioned check completed auctions to see what a typical closing price is. Also, don't forget that you need to determine what something is worth to you and bid or BIN accordingly. Something to be aware of that no one has mentioned is that the BIN may disappear when a bid is placed. Depending on the category it is listed in the bid amount may only need to reach 50% of the BIN (in this case that would be the opening bid) for the BIN option to no longer be available. If I want something that isn't widely listed and I don't want to pay the BIN I sometimes will put in the opening bid just to remove the option of someone else using the BIN. Like I said though, that is category specific.

[wellyes]

You have to bid at the last second, or use software that does it for you, most of the time.

[♥ms.pacman♥]

My strategy is usually the following for items with a few or no bids: I wait until the very last minute (when there are maybe 25 seconds remaining for the auction to end) and then bid once. I bid the maximum amount I would be willing to pay for the item. If it's an item that has lots of bids, I still wait until the last minute but leave myself enough to bid a second time in case my first bid is 'topped' by someone else's (usually their auto-bid). That way, I won't loose the item by a margin of 50 cents, for example. However, I still won't go much higher than my predetermined max price.

this is exactly what i do. when i was bidding on high-end items (e.g. $200+), i would even use a sniping service (esnipe) to put in bids at the last 5 seconds. i won a lot of auctions this way!

past few months i've been doing a ton of ebaying, both selling (DD's outgrown hannas, mostly) and buying bc i'm trying to find Hanna stuff for cheaper, and also to find stuff that's been discontinued. in August/Sept i got Halloween stuff and now i've been getting lots of Christmas stuff bc it's still early enough that it's the demand is not as high and prices will end up being lower.

i do think that sniping helps. andif there are multiple items or ones that are very similar, go for the ones that are less viewed, have fewer watchers (you can see that info, you couldn't before)..usually ones with spelling errors or not as much info in the title, or not-so-great pictures. in the past month or so i have gotten a Hanna striped Christmas playdress for DD for $5.99, for example... a HA Christmas dress with matching tights for $5.99...HA LJs in orange/black (halloween) for DS for $11, and other things.