eBay - online auction and shopping website

I love eBay - got some great bargains, I never bid before the last two mins, then dive in for the kill, i win everytime its great fun.

Things kinda slow in Ludwigsburg today huh?

Just finished my job at the local kindergarden and was checking my e.bay. Do you think its a boring subject?

o no ur one of those..i hate when no one outbids me for like 2 days and then in the last 2 minutes the price like doubles!

You should never bid during the auction ,store in "my ebay" then decide on how much you want to pay and dont go over you limit.

I am new to Ebay and bought my first item on Tuesday. I was sooo excited when I won because I was expecting a last minute bidding war but in the end no one was on it but me . Let's see if I get the item or not, it was sent to me yesterday from Belgium.

My daughter has also sold a lot stuff, her skater gear sells well, she made good money, then spent it right away buying new stuff on E.bay!!

The last minute bidding on ebay (or sniping as it is also called) is a very interesting subject/phenomenon.

When bidding, you can enter a maximum price you are willing to pay. Of course the auction won't go up to this price, but only goes up until you are the leading bidder.

Now if everybody utilized this field then there would never be the need for the sniping at the end since everybody would have entered the maximum they want to pay and are happy. So if they got "sniped" then they wouldn't care because the item went for more then they are willing to pay.

The fact is though, many people will only up their bid after they have SEEN that they are outbid (so they log in and enter a new bid). The fact that people do this means you can take advantage of this by placing last minute bids and not allowing others to SEE that they have been outbid in time. Thus, you acquire the item at a lower price then you might've otherwise.

Make sense? Maybe not since I'm not sure how well I explained it. The gist of it is: ebay has a design in place to not reward the sniping/last minute bidding. But since everyone doesn't use the design, sniping is still rewarded.

Btw, there is plenty of great ebay sniping software out there if you want to take advantage of this and not have to be present at the end of an auction.

I usually just stick to the 'sofort kaufen' section if I can...makes life easier and there is no dissapointment when I find out I didn't win the bid.

I always place a max bid , the best way that works for me is to bid an unusal amount say €17.89...that way i always win. its gret fun.

Yes exactly, but to be honest, the best way to snipe would be to truely place the maximum amount you are willing pay. I'd hate to see you lose to someone who bid 18.00 when you were willing to go to 18.01 (or perhaps 17.89 was the maximum you wanted to go)

All my little theory above concludes is that you should always place the maximum amount you are willing to pay, and if you can do so towards the end of the auction you might just get the item cheaper than if you placed the bid earlier.

YES that would be the max bid. items i have bought.. Deos, tent pins, coffee, skirts, shorts ,sandles .A photo handy, my daughter buys all her Volcom and Billabong gear its much cheaper than the shops.

deos? how much can u really save on that?

Exactly. That is the way I do it. Sitting around and watching people outbid you is pretty boring me thinks. Place your bid and go to the beer garden already.

I dont like German deos and buy imported US, Secret which used to be availble in the shops here, it works out the same price as the local deos...

I just tried putting €17.89 on a 2GB memory stick and didn't win

That was just an example!!

if you "always" win katz then you must be setting your max bid too high and therefore be paying too much. You can say you are paying about the right amount when you win say half the time.

Yup, me too. If I am up for it then I'll place the max bid later in the auction if possible. Otherwise, just place the bid and off to the beer garden.

Didnt mean to sound like i was bragging! but i am realy a big bargin hunter , if you know the prices in the shops then you can always get it cheaper on Ebay.

What are you buying then? Used underwear or something?

Excuse me , i would only ever buy new stuff, maybe you should come shopping with me you could save money.

I just tried a different number on a memory stick and won!

Good for you...Johnny English i am now going to my 2nd job doing peoples hair so thinks are not too boring near Ludwigsburg.

Depends on what you are bidding for in the first place. If you know what it's worth, put in your max which is only to the value you think it's worth and always win, then you aren't paying too much. If you make a random guess at the value and always win, then likely you are paying over the odds sometimes.

I just sold some stuff on eBay so far, but I remember the end of my first sale quite good. Bought the thing for 25,00 (!) jojos 10 years ago and sold it on eBay for more than 700,00(!!!) jojos.
Man, I tell you, that was pure adrenaline !!!

But I´m not an eBay buyer as I love to go shopping way too much.

just out of curiosity RD, what is this "thing" you are talking about that gained 28 times value in the last 10 years?

I might invest the money I have on the side on it..

My Daughter bought a skirt from the Volcom outlet for €1 and sold it for €45 ...now if only we could do that everyday, then it would be realy fun.

I love eBay too. My private eBay account now has 585 stars, beat that. I only ever received one bad feedback point. It was a jigsaw puzzle which I bought for EUR3,- back in 2003 and forgot to pay for for 4 weeks. Over the last couple of weeks I bought:

- 6,5 metres of prime IKEA wardobe
- An amplifier
- A support to fix a TV to a wall
- A DVB-T Tuner
- A sofa
- Some lights for the kitchen work surface

And I sold (or am selling):

- 4 metres of prime IKEA wardobe
- A laser projector
- A sofa (not the same one as I bought, thankfully)

On the surface I still appear to be a normal, functioning member of society.
As to bidding, I haven't actually directly bid through eBay for a long time, I use snip instead. Does that make me a bad person?

I'm quite the Ebay addict as well. It was a shame to have to put my two hundred and something feedbacks behind me when I moved back to the States. I found that I was unable to use my German account to bid for some items in the US, where they'd blocked international accounts from bidding, and I had to create a new one.

If you really, really want something ALWAYS get the snipe. I remember a long time ago when I was unable to be around for the end of an action and didn't know about sniping software, I placed a max bid on a very nice raincoat of $45, taking it away from a newbie who originally had it at $17 and had placed a max bid of $18. So it went to me at $19. I came back later to find that I'd won it at $42 and that the only other person to bid was that same newbie, who came back and made several bids of $20, $23, $27, $32, $35 and $41, or something like that. What's really annoying is that if I'd have sniped it, I might have had it at $19!

Oh no! You're one of those people! Yes, the people who place their bids early and drive up the price like crazy!

Listen people, if you know what you're doing on eBay you bid in the last seconds of the auction at the maximum price you are willing to pay. This makes sure that no one has a second chance to increase their maximum bid. thejarvii explains it quite well.

There is nothing more annoying than seeing some fool start bidding like crazy 3 days before the auction ends to stay "on top". They never ever win, but they do suceed in making the winner pay more.

Exactly! See my post above for an example.

I admit I sometimes do this on purpose. It's gone beyond what I'm willing to truly pay for it, but I'll push it up another 10% just to make whoever else outbid me really pay for it, and not just get it for 50 cents more than what I wanted to pay. If I won it, I'd be okay with that, but most times it just raises the price for some other poor slob.

Tsk, tsk, tsk.

Yes, well, I have to get rid of my dark side tendancies somehow.

Don't do it - use the force!

Yes, exactly this. Decide on your maximum price in advance and bid in the last few seconds. About 9 times out of 10 you'll win the auction if you had reasonable expectations as to the final price. Basta.

Pizza Royale 007
Those crazy Scotts.


eBay link

This is a site that gives you a listing of all the auctions on ebay that end in 2-5 minutes de,uk,oz and us Quite fun!

[url=www.lastminute-auction.com]

Is there a way to go to the german ebay site but to have it in english language instead of german?
thanks

I doubt it very much, as far as item descriptions go.

How much English to you want? If you go to the US or UK site and use the advanced search, specifying you want to search only in Germany you'll get an English language wrapper around the German product description. Clearly, you can't get the description in English unless you run it through a translation service...

Must resist urge to make a comment