eBay Bidding Strategy

[slantman]

I have been following bidding on a Ming Shi razor which came with 50 Derbys. The starting bid was .01 cent. I think the seller was doing this because it was his last Ming Shi and seems to have switched to another Chinese made razor. Anyway after 5 days someone increased the bid to .99 and so on until this morning it hit $11.00. So down to the last 5 minutes I bid $11.50 and a maximum bid of $22.00 (which I prayed it would never get to).

So here is the good part I must have scared the other bidders away with my high bid. Bottom line I got the razor with the blades for $11.50 including delivery.
If you ever bid on eBay wait for the last minute and have a high bid which might be out of reach for other people. Of course the whole thing can backfire if someone wants to start bidding against you.

 

[Capaldo]

So here is the good part I must have scared the other bidders away with my high bid.

Only you see your max bid. You simply had the high bid. You got it for less than you were willing to pay, so you got a good deal.

 

[luvmysuper]

I have been following bidding on a Ming Shi razor which came with 50 Derbys. The starting bid was .01 cent. I think the seller was doing this because it was his last Ming Shi and seems to have switched to another Chinese made razor. Anyway after 5 days someone increased the bid to .99 and so on until this morning it hit $11.00. So down to the last 5 minutes I bid $11.50 and a maximum bid of $22.00 (which I prayed it would never get to).

So here is the good part I must have scared the other bidders away with my high bid. Bottom line I got the razor with the blades for $11.50 including delivery.
If you ever bid on eBay wait for the last minute and have a high bid which might be out of reach for other people. Of course the whole thing can backfire if someone wants to start bidding against you.

As other bidders can't see your max bid, how could that scare them away?

 

[DunEdinRanger]

Hey, that works out to about $3 for the razor, considering the cost of blades.

 

[Stubblefield]

Personally, I prefer sniping, but I have used your strategy with good success.

 

[razor_n_blade]

I just put a $500 max proxy bid on anything I want. If that doesn't scare everybody away, nothing will.

 

[ozzy_scl]

I just put a $500 max proxy bid on anything I want. If that doesn't scare everybody away, nothing will.

he he! I think that strategy was using that guy that bought that President for U$327 !

 

[slantman]

Ya it doesn't always work and I didn't know I am the only one who sees my maximum bid. I guess I was just lucky.

 

[DSB]

Personally, I prefer sniping, but I have used your strategy with good success.

I'm a little confused. Isn't the strategy Slantman used (waiting to bid until the last few minutes of the auction) the same as "sniping." Maybe I'm not understanding the vocabulary.

 

[Stubblefield]

I just put a $500 max proxy bid on anything I want. If that doesn't scare everybody away, nothing will.

Hey, I have the same strategy; I hope we never bid on the same item.

 

[mdunn]

sounds like sniping to me.

i snipe the most im willing to pay. if i get it, awesome. if i dont, oh well.

 

[wimbouman]

Hey, that works out to about $3 for the razor, considering the cost of blades.

Yes, and I have also seen packs of Derby's with the razor for free.
Do we spot a new trend here?

Or... Wasn't there some famous brand that also makes the most money on the blades and very little on the razors

 

[slantman]

I am going to make a guess what happened in this case with the Ming Shi and the 50 free Derbys and "free Shipping" This is a very legitimate eBay seller but he had only one Ming Shi left because he switched to this new Chinese brand or its a re-branded Vincent called Nanjie. There was another discussion about this razor and nobody ever heard of it. Anyway I bid at the near end(as I always do) and won at $11.50

Some guys bid 10 days before the end of the auction and usually lose interest after awhile. But I book marked the item and just waited until 5 minutes before the end. You can be sure if the razor was a mint Gillette I would have been long gone.

 

[ozzy_scl]

I do the same... I do my own sniping right until like 10 secs. before it ends (I have to windows open) and since now ebay tell you how many secods are left... is much easier!

It did work the other day when I was sniping this bostonian box (missing some parts), anyway I placed my bid 7 secs. before it ended, just to realise the seller had put a ban on overseas bidders! (even though I told him I was going to ship it to Portland, OR.)

 

[thirdeye]

Set it and forget it....Place your max bid and wait til it's over.

 

[SiBurning]

Sniping is bidding at the last minute or two to prevent other people from having time to rethink their original bids and raise them. Some people do this by bidding up by the smallest increments. If you know what you're willing to pay, this is a waste of time since you're going to end up paying the same either way, unless you're sniping against another sniper. It's only useful if you're already bidding more than you want. Doing the small increment thing earlier is different, and I don't know how well it works. I do think the more bids something has, the more attractive it becomes to others, so I think this may be counterproductive. It's all too much effort for me. I usually pick a price and walk away. Not always, though.

I've been trying to get a specific power supply module for probably two years. I've been outbid over a dozen times with final bids between $55 and $110, and finally got one a month ago for $66 along with a case and another module. Point is, the final price depends on a lot of things: who else is bidding, time of week or year, how the seller presents things, which category they put things in. I've picked up things for a song because they were in the wrong category and few other people saw the listing.

My experience is mostly with vintage test equipment. I have no idea how close the vintage razor market is like that one, but it could be similar. It seems like people shy away from certain non-mainstream or relatively unknown things that have no bids. In that case, it makes sense not to bid too early. If unsure people see other people bidding, it gives them confidence that it might be worth something.

Another case is when there's two similar items offerred at the same time. The bids on one can affect the bids on the other. Bid up one too quick, and people move to the other one. There were recently two microscopes for sale with lights. I only wanted the light on the cheaper scope. I kept bidding on the better one, while purposely staying away from the lesser one. Whoever got the better scope got an amazing deal, but I kept bidding the price up against 3 different bidders, 2 of whom walked away, until the price got to above 50% of its realistic value--didn't want to get stuck with it for real. I ended up getting the cheaper scope, stand, and light for about what the light should have cost. I think if I'd just bid for the cheaper scope straight off, it would have ended differently, because I've seen similar behavior before. But I think noone bothered with the other because it had no bids until the last day. This easily could have gone diffferent because the final price depends on a lot of things.

 

[ouch]

Yeah, that extra fifty cents you bid sent them heading for the hills.

 

[gaseousclay]

I always bid this way. I wait til the last 5 seconds of a given auction and bid the max i'm willing to spend. in most cases it works and I win the auction.

 

[ozzy_scl]

I always bid this way. I wait til the last 5 seconds of a given auction and bid the max i'm willing to spend. in most cases it works and I win the auction.

Same here, I think is the best strategy

 

[Unknownsoldier]

I snipe using a program that bids for me, I usually have the snipe set for 2 seconds before the item ends ,I set my snipe and leave it BTW if you bid on your own a few seconds from the end, it's bidding, if you use a program to do it for you, it's sniping ;-)

Tom