ebay loser

Submit your bid by hand or software with 3-5 seconds remaining and not only your chances will go up but will also stop you from making rushed decisions you may come to regret.
 
So is this about prices being inflated on eBay or the fact that you keep missing out on things because you're being outbid?
 
Your sensible price is below the market rate, unfortunately. That winning bid is still well below the dealer price (e.g. £160-£170 at Aperture in recent sales).
 
Outbid ... and I agree that it was below a sales price. There seems to be a number of bidders that crop up quite a few times.
 
mossienet said:
Outbid ... and I agree that it was below a sales price. There seems to be a number of bidders that crop up quite a few times.
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Aren't bidders' identities hidden these days? If so, how do you know they are the same bidders?

Aside from the technical stuff, I believe that bargains can still be had on internet auction sites, but sod's law dictates that they will probably crop up when you are too busy to check the listings regularly, or when you are least financially flush.

For instance, I've been after a certain make and model of film camera for a year or so now, but there wasn't a reasonably priced one to be had. Now there's a small rash of nice-looking ones listed at or below the going rate.

Why? I'm convinced that this is because my car needs a service and MOT this week, and several other household bills are due for payment; hence me not pressing the 'buy' button!

So if you want to see some real bargains for sale on the internet, then just immediately send me all your available spending money, then shortly afterwards I'm sure you'll see loads of suitable lenses that sell for an absolute song, or fail to even sell at all. However, you'll be able to count your lucky stars, as I'll have saved you the frustration and bitter disappointment of getting pipped at the post by a late bid, because you won't have been able to bid in the first place! So there you go, what's not to like about that? I know, I'm generous to a fault, even to complete strangers. :) ;)
 
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Just bid what you are willing to pay and leave it run. If you win great, if you loose then it went for more than you were willing to pay so no regrets.

I have bought quite a bit of photo gear from E Bay this way. 400 F2.8 L (very cheap), 300 F2.8 L IS (reasonably cheap), 800 F5.6 L IS (bargain!), Gitzo G1550T (almost a gift), 24-70 F2.8 L Mk2 (#300 below normal), 7D Mk2, 1DX, lots of Gitzo accessories - I could go on but you get the picture. If something has a value to you then bid what it is worth to you and NO MORE! Remember, normally, the winner of an auction is the one that has paid too much.
 
Thanks for everyone's input on this. I need to step up to the mark when bidding on line and post a more sensible highest bid.
 
@Cagey75 Nice to know someone else finds it difficult. Feel more secure buying from Talkphotography. There seem to be a number of sellers who have quite a range of gear, not trade either. Wonder if they buy on line and then sell for a profit … hopefully.
 
The problem with bidding what you are prepared to pay is that your bid is automatically placed after someone else bids, and this can lead to a bidding war, increasing the price unnecessarily, unless someone else also puts in a bid they are prepared for and you are immediately at the highest of those two bids. Sniping, either manually or with software, can get you a lower price, as you shove in higher bids right at the end of the auction, as LLPhotograhpy said.
 
I have noticed a few items being sold cheap turn up again with a different seller at a higher price, that seller will have a number of items. It's dealers buying the stuff to resell.
 
I sold a job lot on ebay in December... an immaculate parallelogram boom stand, a product table, three manfrotto autopoles, a wall mount boom arm and a load of paper background rolls... Bidding for all this finished at the princely sum of £1.29... I'd say there are still some bargains around :oops: :$:ROFLMAO:
 
I put an old 4 stroke outboard engine on there starting at 1p, would have happily sold for that just to get it taken away.
Ended up getting nigh on 200 quid for it and chap collected two days later, well pleased.
 
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I almost always use Gixen.com.
Decide what you think it's worth to you and let them bid in last three seconds.
There will usually be another one soon enough if it fails.
 
Cagey75 said:
I've experienced same, now I only ever look up 'buy it now' options on there. Just never could get the hang of bidding
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It's easy enough. Look at the last five times the item has sold and average the winning bid price. Work how much you want to pay based on that and submit your bid in the last few seconds. If you don't win, try again on another listing.
 
Agree with others. To have any chance of a genuine bargain, you have to bid very late in the process in order to not give other bidders a chance to respond and up their bids. Putting in an early bid is a near guaranteed way to either lose the auction to someone who will win it for a couple of quid more or to pay more than you needed to in the first place. The only time I ever submit early bids is if I'm not going to be around to bid at the end of the auction or if I just want to get a low bid in just in case I'm the only bidder. I used to be a bit obsessive about finding bargains on ebay. Had all sorts of alerts set up for common misspellings of items or for stuff that would finish at times where competition would be minimal. Can never be bothered these days but did grab the odd bargain.
 
Ste_S said:
It's easy enough. Look at the last five times the item has sold and average the winning bid price. Work how much you want to pay based on that and submit your bid in the last few seconds. If you don't win, try again on another listing.
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The other factors are my lack of patience and whenever I do find something I want there's always 6D+ left to go and I'll forget to check back. When they're finished often the end price isn't far off the buy it now ones. I have no idea how others get the real good bargains.
 
Cagey75 said:
The other factors are my lack of patience and whenever I do find something I want there's always 6D+ left to go and I'll forget to check back. When they're finished often the end price isn't far off the buy it now ones. I have no idea how others get the real good bargains.
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If you have the ebay app on your phone, if you add an item to your watch list, you'll get an alert when there is 15 mins left and another when there is 5 mins left. If it's something I really want, I'll sometimes set a proper phone alarm for about 3 minutes before the end time.
 
gad-westy said:
If you have the ebay app on your phone, if you add an item to your watch list, you'll get an alert when there is 15 mins left and another when there is 5 mins left. If it's something I really want, I'll sometimes set a proper phone alarm for about 3 minutes before the end time.
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The App is only there to make you spend more. As the time counts down it is FAR too tempting to bump up your bid a bit!
Just bid what it is worth to you and forget about it until the end of the auction. My E Bay bids fail probably around 90%+ of the time - who cares? The items went for more than they were worth to me. Bidding higher at the last minute may have secured me some purchases but I would have overpaid for them, in other words lost the auction!
 
johnf3f said:
The App is only there to make you spend more. As the time counts down it is FAR too tempting to bump up your bid a bit!
Just bid what it is worth to you and forget about it until the end of the auction. My E Bay bids fail probably around 90%+ of the time - who cares? The items went for more than they were worth to me. Bidding higher at the last minute may have secured me some purchases but I would have overpaid for them, in other words lost the auction!
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You misunderstood my post. I wasn't saying you bid higher, I'm saying you bid the same amount as you were always going to, but leave it until literally the last few seconds. This stops others being given the chance to respond to your bid.
 
Cagey75 said:
I have no idea how others get the real good bargains.
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Patience! Keep looking and bidding. Eventually, the camera you want will be on offer at a time when no one else is interested. My technique is to place a low bid and expect to lose. Eventually I will get a very nice camera for £5.00.
 
eBay won't put the price up for the sake of it. The max bid will be just higher than the last max bid, regardless of how much you were prepared to go to.

Also, if two of you bid to the same amount, the earlier bidder gets it.

With these two rules in mind, decide how much you'd pay MAX, bid it early, and if you don't get it walk away firm with your max bid. eBay will battle the last second snipers for you; remember, they have max bids too.

If it all seems to happen in the last seconds, it's because someone put in a higher bid at the last minute. But when they bid is irrelevant if you were prepared to go more.
 
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gad-westy said:
You misunderstood my post. I wasn't saying you bid higher, I'm saying you bid the same amount as you were always going to, but leave it until literally the last few seconds. This stops others being given the chance to respond to your bid.
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No it doesn't - there automated software available that bids in fractions of a second, far too quick for my pinkies!
I get your point though.
 
john.margetts said:
Patience! Keep looking and bidding. Eventually, the camera you want will be on offer at a time when no one else is interested. My technique is to place a low bid and expect to lose. Eventually I will get a very nice camera for £5.00.
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Never got a camera that way, but I did get a nice Gitzo Traveller tripod that way. Then, of course, there was my Canon 800 F5.6 L IS..............
I like your technique, probably because I do the same!
 
Given if there are two bids of the same amount the earlier one wins, don’t put in bids of round pounds. Shove some pennies in too.
 
Was winning a bid on a used 7D overnight, woke up this morning to see that the my bid had been cancelled..

Think someone didn't get the price they wanted!
 
Pound Coin said:
Given if there are two bids of the same amount the earlier one wins, don’t put in bids of round pounds. Shove some pennies in too.
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I always end my bids with 51p. Not infrequently I will will an auction by 1p.
 
keef32 said:
Was winning a bid on a used 7D overnight, woke up this morning to see that the my bid had been cancelled..

Think someone didn't get the price they wanted!
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People also attempt to sell the same item in different places at the same time. If the Etsy sale completes before the Ebay one, they will cancel the Ebay auction.
 
gad-westy said:
I used to be a bit obsessive about finding bargains on ebay. Had all sorts of alerts set up for common misspellings of items or for stuff that would finish at times where competition would be minimal.
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That's the way to find real bargains. Try to find items that won't come up in most people's search queries, because then there will be less competition.
 
The Ebay search algorithm copes with obvious misspellings. Was a time when you would be the only bidder on a Voightlander but now Ebay will find that on a search for Voigtlander. And so on.
 
It is my belief that every swindler and cheat in the land operates on ebay.
They use mobile phones networks and internet to cheat the system and ebay cannot trace them even though they say they stamp it out.
I would buy from somewhere else, even if that means a long wait.
 
Caerus said:
It is my belief that every swindler and cheat in the land operates on ebay.
They use mobile phones networks and internet to cheat the system and ebay cannot trace them even though they say they stamp it out.
I would buy from somewhere else, even if that means a long wait.
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Depends on what you are buying. I have been buying old cameras from Ebay on a very regular basis for the last 15 years and have only had two purchases go bad and Ebay sorted both out with no fuss. I also sell quite a bit through Ebay and I have never had a sale go bad.

I think most problems are when people try to get around Ebay rules to save on paying the commission.
 
john.margetts said:
Depends on what you are buying. I have been buying old cameras from Ebay on a very regular basis for the last 15 years and have only had two purchases go bad and Ebay sorted both out with no fuss. I also sell quite a bit through Ebay and I have never had a sale go bad.

I think most problems are when people try to get around Ebay rules to save on paying the commission.
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I am talking about shill bidding. The item and service is A1 but one of the bidders is the seller on a fake account created on a mobile phone network that ebay cannot link to the seller.
 
Caerus said:
I am talking about shill bidding. The item and service is A1 but one of the bidders is the seller on a fake account created on a mobile phone network that ebay cannot link to the seller.
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How prevalent do you think that really is?
 
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