Yes, it immediately jumps to that level. In case of an exact tie, earlier bid wins. It’s practically impossible to have identical bids with identical timing - ebay’s servers can compare down to nanoseconds, or something.
But just in case, never bid round numbers. Don’t bid $60; bid $60.07 or something, in case someone else also thinks it’s worth sixty bucks.
Heck yes! Collectibles are exactly what eBay is best for, and they are cheap enough that people will buy them, and easy to ship for the seller. However, I don’t know what the market is for magazines and LPs but I hope it’s stout enough for you to make some cash. One tip I would offer is, sell during the winter months. There are fewer collectors on their computers during the summer season.
Yeah, my terminology was not the best. I agree 100% with the points made. Pretty much the correction is that where I wrote “bid” I should have said “successful bid” i.e. a bid that actually became the current highest bid. If there is an existing bid that had a maximum higher than your new bid, you won’t be successful.
Right, Sniping doesn’t help you win at all, it helps you stay out of a bidding war. Which is exactly what proxy bidding does. Place one bid, then that’s it. A proxy bid will win over a snipe *every single time, *assuming they are both bidding about the same. In fact, a snipe will lose to a proxy unless the snipe is higher than the proxy by more that 50 cents or $1 (the bid increments go up as the price goes up, at a certain point, you must not only outbid, but outbid by more than $1 ymmv). In other words, if I proxy bid $50.00 on the very 1st day the auction is open, and you come in with a last second snipe at $50.01, I win, you lose, no matter how lat second your snipe comes in.
Now it’s true- sometimes there’s a bidding war, in which case your proxy will be outbid. So? You have already bid the max you wanted to pay, you haven’t* lost* anything.
Same thing with a snipe- if somebody bids more than you’re willing to pay- you lose.
I suggest you sell the 'zines by the lot, one year per lot.
I bought 3 copies of the National Enquirer headlining Rush Limbaugh’s drug bust. Sold them for $30 each a year later. Should have gotten more copies.
If you don’t want to deal with them yourself, you could try a service like iSoldIt, who sells stuff for you for a 30% commission. Or get a college kid to do it for $8/hour plus 10% 
This is true. The argument in favour of sniping is that a very large number of people don’t use a proper proxy bid, but are somehow still locked into the idea that it is a competitive auction. If this illusion was dropped, realistic proxy bidding and sniping become almost identical in effect, except, as you point out, sniping is inferior in the case that two bidders have very close to the same maximum. If everyone simply placed a single proxy bid, proxy bidding would work perfectly. However, in the current slightly surreal world of eBay, many people still make little incremental bids. If you are bidding you can’t always tell. Reviewing the bid history can let you get some idea, of who is bidding and how. But even then you don’t fully know, nor know who may join later. In this case sniping is a tactical play. You are betting that enough bidders are idiots, and that a sniper bid will, on average, be a better play than a single proxy bid. If you are not bidding against idiots, and there is at least one serious bidder, with a solid proxy bid, you may lose out. But only if you both decide that the item is worth essentially the same amount. Even then, if you had made a proxy bid, there is a 50/50 chance you made your bid second, and would lose anyway.
Even proxy bidders get bound up in the emotion. eBay plays on this, with notifications that your bid is now losing. Sniping helps insulate you from the emotional plays. Although that said, some sniping sites will watch the auction for you, and will email you if your sniper bid has dropped below the current bid. Turning off notifications is a good idea. Cold hearted play wins in the long run, whether it be proxy bidding or sniping.
Francis Vaughan, I kind of figured we were saying the same thing from different angles
No - again, there’s that difference of high bid showing versus high proxy bid. You only need to bid one increment higher than the high bid showing in order for your max to go up against the other bidder’s max. Your bid doesn’t meed to be an increment higher than the other bidder’s max.
Example: the auction starts at $15. I bid $50 on the first day. Now I’m the high bidder at $15.
You have to bid at least $15.50. That, or any higher amount, is accepted by the system and goes up against my $50. If you bid $50.01 at the last second (or any other second), you’ll win for $50.01.
I’ve seen it happen a lot of times. In certain circles, the one-second one-cent snipe used to be the ultimate badge of sniper honour.
In case of an exact tie, though, yeah, the early proxier beats the sniper.
ETA: Kaylasdad, I’m pretty sure this is more sniping theory than you ever wanted to know, but hey, it might come in useful sometime…
I would recommend using Craigslist (online classified ads) instead. The prices are often cheaper, you don’t have to pay shipping, and you can examine the item before buying.
Here’s a search for Ipod Touches between $20 and $80: http://orangecounty.craigslist.org/search/sss?sort=date&maxAsk=80&minAsk=20&query=ipod%20touch&srchType=T
What you seem to be saying is exactly what I said- that if I place a Proxy bid for $50.00, and then you snipe the auction at the very last second for $50.01, then I win, and you lose. Yes, you may only see my proxy bid at $15, but what you see my bid at is not germane. My bid is $50.00. You must beat my bid by at least the bid increment (which is $1 at the $50 level) amount. If you do not bid more than $50.99, you lose, no matter when you placed the bid. A “last second” bid gets you nothing but bragging rights, if that.
But then your statement “That, or any higher amount, is accepted by the system and goes up against my $50. If you bid $50.01 at the last second (or any other second), you’ll win for $50.01.” is false, as you must beat my $50 bid by at least $1. Your last second bid of $50.01 will lose. My proxy bid, placed a week ago at $50 will win.
Timing means nothing on eBay. Only dollars.
This is incorrect. If the current high bid (not proxy limit) were below $49.01 at the time the sniper entered the 50.01, then the bid would be accepted and win. The bidding increment determines what bids will be accepted, but once a bid is accepted, it doesn't have to be but .01 above the next lower bid to win. This is how stuff ends up with oddball prices.
This is a reason not to snipe too late. By getting in a little earlier (but still too late for an emotional bidder to react to) you reduce the odds that another bidder will push the current bid to within an increment of your price and cause your slightly higher bid to be rejected, and increase the odds that slightly higher (less than an increment) late snipe will be rejected.
Per your cite:
Ha!:smack: