[OT] Outbid...AGAIN!

[MarauderX]

Don't you hate it when you are winning an online auction and then you get outbid within the last 5 seconds?!? It just happened to me again just now, and I got rather miffed about it since in normal auctions there is usually at least another minute for someone else to outbid instead of giving someone the shaft within the closing seconds.

Not really a necessary topic, but I just had to vent with others that might understand.

Now my question to you is, what should I do?

 

[Chun-tzu]

In the past 4 years in Chicago, I bought enough stuff on eBay to crank my rating up to 70-something (although I don't browse it regularly anymore, thanks to some grievances with Paypal). So I've used it a lot.

You really should be bidding the maximum amount that you're willing to pay. You're only screwing yourself by bidding less.

No one but eBay knows what your max bid is. The seller doesn't know, and other bidders don't know. You will only pay more if someone else bids higher than your last bid. Bidding less than what you're REALLY willing to pay may get you a few more bargains, a couple times, but you're really running the risk of losing it. So if you've made your true bid, then it doesn't matter when you got outbid, because at that point you don't really feel like it was worth getting at that price.

Edit - I say all this because getting outbid at the last second would happen ALL the time to my sister, who I found out wasn't bidding what she was really willing to pay, just bidding enough to gain the lead. That's a sucker's way to bid.

 

[DM_Matt]

Aren't off-topic polls a no-no?

 

[MarauderX]

Good point, and I bid that way already. I just feel bad when I watch a bid for a $100+ item be lost to less than a dollar. Perhaps I got too hyped up about it when I knew my bid was $15 over the current max only to, somehow, lose by a mere $0.89 in the last 5 seconds. Just bums me right out.

 

[Rackhir]

I haven't been on Ebay long, but from what I understand, probably the guy who steals it at the last moment is using sniping software. Which is designed specifically to do what you've been experiencing. Of course they still need to be willing to pay more than you.

On the other hand, I've done most of my buying via proxy bidding where your bid is automatically advanced up to the max you are willing to spend (at least when the bid is input), when someone make a higher bid than your current bid. So sniping may not be relevant any more.

Another tip I've picked up is to not to bid in even dollar increments. Bid $101.21 instead of $100.

 

[Kai Lord]

In before thread lockdown!