Ebay help please??

[Farmer_Gyles]

the thing i want is going to be pick-up only .... i can click on the bids and see who has bid so far, but i can't see the hidden bids that automatically outbid me ....

there are several that are "local" .... everything on preloved is waaaay up north .... no local on gumtree .... i'll keep trying with ebay for now, but if i don't get what i want this week, it looks like i'll be driving up to liverpool or newcastle ..... (why isn't anything on preloved south of watford?!?!)

[Two_Sheds]

sorry, it's really hard to have a conversation when it takes 5 mins to load every reply ... and I see that we're echoing too

[julesapple]

You could also contact the seller to see if they are willing for you to arrange collection by courier. Type 'courier collection' into an ebay search and lots of services will come up. If the seller agrees you could have the object collected.

[Two_Sheds]

i can't see the hidden bids that automatically outbid me ....

So: you're not bidding enough (the market finds the value, you can't decide what something is worth, only what it's worth to YOU)

With BS, you are now using the "hidden bid" to your advantage (BUT, you need to bid a proper amount, don't always expect a total bargain: you're not the only one who is going to be sniper-savvy)

[Farmer_Gyles]

So: you're not bidding enough (the market finds the value, you can't decide what something is worth, only what it's worth to YOU)

With BS, you are now using the "hidden bid" to your advantage (BUT, you need to bid a proper amount, don't always expect a total bargain: you're not the only one who is going to be sniper-savvy)

but does BS submitting 7 seconds before the end beat the automatic bids?

[Two_Sheds]

I do feel that you're overthinking this.


If you really want the item: maybe you should buy it in a store?

[zazen999]

but does BS submitting 7 seconds before the end beat the automatic bids?

No because everyone might be using BS.

EBAY will go up the the second highest bidder, plus one 'notch' and that will be the selling price. So if you put £100 as your max and someone puts £100.01 as theirs, then they get it.

[Two_Sheds]

if you put £100 as your max and someone puts £100.01 as theirs, then they get it.

I don't think they do.

It all depends on "the increment"*.

It might be £100.05 that wins the auction, not £100.01

(but I'm happy to be corrected)

*eBay uses a sliding scale of increments, but I CBA to look them up right now)


In a nutshell: put the ABSOLUTE MAXIMUM that you want to pay into BS. If you lose, then it's your "fault" because you didn't think the item was worth that much

[Glutton4...]

Late to the party, I know (I've only been using eBay nine years!!), but what is the benefit of BS against just putting in your maximum bid directly? Am I being thick?

[zazen999]

I don't think they do.

It all depends on "the increment"*.

It might be £100.05 that wins the auction, not £100.01

(but I'm happy to be corrected)

*eBay uses a sliding scale of increments, but I CBA to look them up right now)


In a nutshell: put the ABSOLUTE MAXIMUM that you want to pay into BS. If you lose, then it's your "fault" because you didn't think the item was worth that much

No, if that was the case things wouldn't sell for odd pence. Which they do.

[zazen999]

i hate ebay with a vengeance .... trying to buy anything from it is a nightmare ....
anyway, me and the missus want to buy something 2nd hand .... i put in a bid, it tells me i've been outbid .... how does that work?

so now i just tried buying something at the last second .... it was showing £117 .... i would have paid up to £150 for it .... but to avoid this automatic outbidding thing, i put in a bid with about 10 seconds to go .... then had to confirm it .... then the screen refreshed and it showed the £117 price as the price it was sold for, so missed out again ....

ebay seems to be a real pain to use ....
how can i make sure i get what i want?

What you should have done here is to put £150 as your max bid in. Then it would stop bidding at £150. So if the others only had put £149 or lower as their max, you would have won it. If others had put £150.01 or more, they would have got it. Either way you'd either have won it, or not paid any more than you wanted to pay for it.

[Farmer_Gyles]

ok so i'm starting to understand this .... and missed out on the one that was £80 even tho i used BS .... it sold for much more than the previous one which was much better (the one i missed out on because my bid took too long)

[Farmer_Gyles]

If you really want the item: maybe you should buy it in a store?

can't buy new, gotta be second hand .... which is ebay, gumtree and preloved .... and it's looking very much like i'll end up driving waaaaaay up north to get one from preloved without the hassles of ebay .....

[Aberdeenplotter]

so it's a *hidden* / sneak auction, rather than an open auction?

It is no more a sneak auction than being in an auction room where you don't know how mauch the guy next to you is prepared to bid. If you want to bid on an item which is sitting at 99p and you are prepared to pay up to £20 you can try to outbid the 99p in increments placing a new bid every time until you are the highest bidder. Ebay has been developed to save you that trouble and you can place a maximum bid of £20. If the person who has the highest bid of 99p had indicated he was prepared to bid to £15, every time you bid in increments to try to beat his bid, Ebay will automatically increase his bid till it reaches his maximum of £15. if however, you have indicated you wish to bid to a maximum of £20, ebay will automatically place your bid at the minimum needed to beat the highest bid of the other party.

It gets easier with practice.

[Mikey]

Beautifully explained AP.

Its easy to explain these things when you are sat next to someone doing it, and you learn by practise.

I used to do the small increment thing, many moons ago but lost too many bids, which is very infuriating.

Deciding before you start what you are happy to pay for it, and only paying a little bit more than the next highest is much easier. I hate watching it in the dying seconds, I'd much rather wait for the email while I go off and do something far less frustrating.

I can understand why BS is useful as it doesn't alert anyone else to your interest in a product, in which case they might not bid as much as they would have done had they known there were loads interested.

Cool.