tips on how to win an eBay auction

ketamine · Jan 25, 2011

I see a TS resale I'd like to pick up.

Any suggestions?
So far no bids and no reserve.

Would appreciate any help.
Obviuously, there are Not a lot of bidders out there buying even re-sale TS's.

thanks in advance

dchilds · Jan 25, 2011

Bid the most you are willing to bid in the last 10-30 seconds of the auction either by hand or using a snipe service like bidnip.

AwayWeGo · Jan 25, 2011

Snipe Big -- The Highest Amount You Are OK With.

In 2003, we sniped in at $3,500 for a nice timeshare we had seen on tour that wanted to buy resale for lots less than full freight. When the dust settled, we won the eBay bidding at $1,925 -- a fabulous bargain at the time but an unrealistic high price today. (One just like it went for $10.50 on eBay last week.)

Last year, we spied a dinky points timeshare on eBay that we wanted just as a toe-hold into the points system. We set up an eSnipe bid for $1,500 or so. When everything shook out, we won the bidding at $162.

Moral to the story is, yes, conceal your interest in the item by holding off bidding till the closing seconds. But realize too that by sniping in late that way, you get only 1 shot at it, so don't skimp on the amount of your bid. Go with the full amount of your personal maximum, uninfluenced by extraneous factors like other people's bids.

Good luck.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.

DeniseM · Jan 25, 2011

Look at completed auctions for the same property, so you know what the closing price has been lately. Be patient - it's a buyer's market.

Here's how to find out what your timeshare is selling for on the resale market:

1) Register with ebay
2) Sign in
3) Search for your resort by exact name
4) From the menu on the left find the "Buying Formats" heading and click "choose more"
5) On the next page click "completed listings"
6) The next page will show you current selling prices

(Be sure you look at the completed listings - those are actually SELLING prices - you will find asking prices all over the place, but what really counts is what they actually sold for.)

Tommart · Jan 25, 2011

Websites

eSnipe.com charges 1% of the winning price as a fee--a very reasonable fee.

hidbid.com is free for five bids/month.

eSnipe is highly regarded, but hidbid.com has worked for me. Someday I may try eSnipe.

weh8625 · Jan 25, 2011

Ebay

I used auctionstealer.com which is free for the first few auctions per week.
I have had good results with timeshares and other Ebay items.

Robert D · Jan 25, 2011

dchilds said:
Bid the most you are willing to bid in the last 10-30 seconds of the auction either by hand or using a snipe service like bidnip.

I'd take it a step farther and say bid the most you are willing to pay with 5 seconds left. That way no one has an opportunity to react to your bid. No reason to bid anything before then.

bigrick · Jan 26, 2011

weh8625 said:
I used auctionstealer.com which is free for the first few auctions per week.
I have had good results with timeshares and other Ebay items.

ditto this.

These snipe sites will submit your bid in the last few seconds for you. You can check on the auction or your email later to see if you won. Very simple and no stress.

If you don't win, don't worry. There'll be another auction soon.

ketamine · Feb 5, 2011

Thanks again

Great tips.

I sure do appreciate this TUGgers ! :clap:

Corman · Feb 5, 2011

I use a program called auction sentry. I have yet to lose a ebay auction

AFARR · Feb 5, 2011

I use Esnipe...

The 'rules' of Ebay (and sniping) are to bid what you are willing to pay. I put my max in esnipe and often win for much less. Don't try to raise $1 (or whatever their minimum bid is...depends on the current price of the auction) at a time...

Walk away if it gets above what you are willing to pay....I've sold things on ebay that went for more than I expected...because 2 or 3 people continued to bid the auction up....that 'rush' they get from 'winning' the auction is what makes money for sellers and ebay.

AFARR

djs · Feb 5, 2011

I think Alan's advice is great; just submit your max bid into a sniping service and don't get caught up in the other hype. When not using a sniping service, one might submit a max bid of $500 on an item and then watch it. As they're watching it they may see a bid of $510 come through, and then respond by submitting a bid of $600. The problem here is that there may be some sellers who employ "shill bidding" where they might have a friend bid (or just use a different user name and bid themselves) if they want to drive up the price of their auction.

What using a sniping service does is protect you from that type of action as your bid is not known to anyone until the final seconds of the auction. If the seller does still employ shill bidding, you can still be protected because he/she doesn't know your final bid and if they put in a bid it's not immediately trupmed by your bid as it hasn't been placed yet. Yes you may pay more than you would w/o any shill bidding, but you still pay an amount that you presumably were willing to pay.

AwayWeGo · Feb 5, 2011

I Lose Most Of The eBay Auctions I Participate In -- & It's Not eSnipe's Fault.

Corman said:
I use a program called auction sentry. I have yet to lose a ebay auction

My knee-jerk reaction to that is that if you're not losing any auctions, then you're bidding too high.

Then again, it's possible you're highly selective & setting up auction sentry bids for only the eBay auctions that you'd really like to win.

By contrast, I set up ridiculous lowball eSnipes on lots of items that I'd like to have at ridiculously low prices but that I would not care to buy at anything like the going rate. I lose practically all of those auctions. Not only that, when I notice that the current bid exceeds my eSnipe amount, I usually just cancel the eSnipe rather than letting it go ahead when I know it's already doomed.

Right now I have eSnipes set up on 2 semi-oddball eBay horns & 1 totally oddball eBay clarinet. I am positive my eSnipe amount for the clarinet will be exceeded in the next day or 2, with 5 more days of bidding still to go on eBay. With 3 more days to go on the horns, however, there is a (slight) chance my eSnipe amounts will hold up. We'll see.

Typically the winning bid amounts are double to 10 times the amount of my losing eSnipes. The reason is that if the items (mostly horns, etc.) are going to go for unrealistically low prices, they might as well go to me (for potential fix-up & resale). But, because I already have all the horns I want or need or can play, I'm not interested in bidding realistic amounts for any more of'm than I already own.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.

sjuhawk_jd · Feb 5, 2011

AwayWeGo said:
...But, because I already have all the horns I want or need or can play, I'm not interested in bidding realistic amounts for any more of'm than I already own.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.

Why waste time then?

AwayWeGo · Feb 6, 2011

Sometimes (Rarely) A Diamond In The Rough Sneaks Through.

sjuhawk_jd said:
Why waste time then?

The reason is that if the items (mostly horns, etc.) are going to go for unrealistically low prices, they might as well go to me (for potential fix-up & resale).

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.

jl2010 · Feb 6, 2011

hidbid.com

Hidbid.com is a completely free auction sniper and therefore better than other fee based sniping programs.
You can make 5 bids a week (not per month as someone said above) for free forever and you have the ability to edit your bids as many times as you want prior to the end of the auction. It is not an introductory free sniping offer like many of the fee based sniping programs have.

I have used them for a long time now. They will log into your ebay account and enter your maximum bid 5 seconds prior to the end of the auction.
Free for me

My last piece of advice is never ever bid in even increments. People think in 5 and 10s....Make sure you add random change to the end of any max bid you have. That way if someone who thinks in even increments bid $500, and you bid $500.21 ..you win!!! It's so true and has made the difference for me in the past.

BoaterMike · Feb 6, 2011

Good tips! I hope we are not bidding against each other.

I will usually take a look at the bidders on the item to see what kind of bid activity they have. (If it's not a private listing.) However, that being said most of the serious bidders will be making their bids in the last minute, or less.

I was watching one recently where the price up to an hour in advance of the close was about $500, then $2k with a minute, closing at just over $6k.

Mike

Egret1986 · Feb 6, 2011

Thanks for the tip on this free service

jl2010 said:
Hidbid.com is a completely free auction sniper and therefore better than other fee based sniping programs.
You can make 5 bids a week (not per month as someone said above) for free forever and you have the ability to edit your bids as many times as you want prior to the end of the auction. It is not an introductory free sniping offer like many of the fee based sniping programs have.

I have used them for a long time now. They will log into your ebay account and enter your maximum bid 5 seconds prior to the end of the auction.
Free for me

My last piece of advice is never ever bid in even increments. People think in 5 and 10s....Make sure you add random change to the end of any max bid you have. That way if someone who thinks in even increments bid $500, and you bid $500.21 ..you win!!! It's so true and has made the difference for me in the past.

Good advice about adding random change. I've won a couple of auctions in the past based on that little bit of difference.

AwayWeGo · Feb 8, 2011

Outsniped Again With eSnipe.

AwayWeGo said:
Right now I have eSnipes set up on 2 semi-oddball eBay horns & 1 totally oddball eBay clarinet. I am positive my eSnipe amount for the clarinet will be exceeded in the next day or 2, with 5 more days of bidding still to go on eBay. With 3 more days to go on the horns, however, there is a (slight) chance my eSnipe amounts will hold up. We'll see.

I got outsniped on both semi-oddball horn auctions. The winning bids were about $75 over my eSnipe bids.

Any disappointment is fully counterbalanced by a sense of relief.

The oddball clarinet auction is still live, but with 3 days to go the current bid amount is already within $23 of my eSnipe amount.

So it goes.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.

AwayWeGo · Feb 14, 2011

Outsniped On The Oddball Clarinet Too. So It Goes.

AwayWeGo said:
The oddball clarinet auction is still live, but with 3 days to go the current bid amount is already within $23 of my eSnipe amount.

My eSnipe bid was right around $90. The winning bid was just over $300. So it goes.

What made the clarinet "oddball" in my estimation is that it's a 1-piece all-wood full Boehm instrument.

As distinct from standard Boehm clarinet keywork, "Full Boehm" instruments have added keys & extra push-buttons not found on most clarinets, new or old. What the extra hardware is good for, I don't know. It takes a clarinet player to understand that, & I have my hands full just playing horn.

One-piece construction is also unusual. Wooden & resin clarinets are practically always made in 2 main sections with a mortise-&-tenon connection where the upper & lower sections join. Mouthpiece & barrel & flared bell are the same on 1-piece & 2-piece clarinets -- i.e., those also attach via mortise & tenon, with cork linings on the tenons so they'll fit together tight. That is to say, a 1-piece clarinet actually consists of 4 pieces -- mouthpiece, barrel, main 1-piece body, & bell. Standard 2-piece clarinets, which are commoner by far, consist of 5 pieces -- mouthpiece, barrel, upper main section, lower main section, bell.

There are also 1-piece all-metal clarinets, mostly antiques -- but those are another story.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.

krmlaw · Feb 14, 2011

ive signed up for hidbid, how many seconds should i bid ahead? i put 10 seconds

vacationtime1 · Feb 14, 2011

krmlaw said:
ive signed up for hidbid, how many seconds should i bid ahead? i put 10 seconds

I use a six second timer on eSnipe. The goal is to make sure that no one can manually overbid after your bid becomes visible to the world. Ten seconds may be enough for someone to do that; I would shorten the time to 3-7 seconds.

Corman · Feb 14, 2011

I stand by my earlier comment. I have it set to log on to ebay,place my bid on the last secound of the auction. Not as if I paid stupid money for a product.

ronparise · Feb 17, 2011

Thanks

Thanks for the heads up about esnipe, I knew services like this existed, but I never used one until last night. And I sniped a week in new orleans in the last seconds...I dont think I would have gotten it otherwise

Thanks again

krmlaw · Feb 17, 2011

i did hidbid b/c it was free .... is this as good as esnipe?

tips on how to win an eBay auction

ketamine

dchilds

AwayWeGo

TUG Review Crew: Expert

DeniseM

Tommart

Tug Review Crew: Rookie

weh8625

Tug Review Crew: Rookie

Robert D

TUG Review Crew

bigrick

ketamine

Corman

AFARR

djs

AwayWeGo

TUG Review Crew: Expert

sjuhawk_jd

AwayWeGo

TUG Review Crew: Expert

jl2010

BoaterMike

Egret1986

TUG Review Crew: Expert

AwayWeGo

TUG Review Crew: Expert

AwayWeGo

TUG Review Crew: Expert

krmlaw

vacationtime1

TUG Review Crew: Veteran

Corman

ronparise

krmlaw