Stop Outbidding Me! And Super Mario Brothers are NOT Little People!!

The BBQ Pit
21

Ah, the never-ending battle of the snipers and non-snipers. It’s pretty damn simple, folks. If you want to bid on an eBay item, you put in the highest amount that you would possibly be willing to pay. If you get outbid, it just means that somebody else wanted it more than you. Period. There is nothing unfair about last minute bids. In fact, I would suggest to any eBay user that you get savvy and start bidding at the last minute. If you don’t, you’re just gonna get some bozo who bids low on the first day of the auction, then comes back again and again all week to see if they got outbid, and picks and picks and picks at their bid, a little at a time, driving the price up all week. If you bid on the last day, and bid the highest amount you are willing to pay in one fell swoop, you avoid all that nonsense. If you get beat, tough cookies. And no, just because you’re the high bidder 3 days before the auction closes, doesn’t in any way, shape, or form, mean you’re going to win.

[Not directed at the OP; I realize that was tongue-in-cheek]

22

eBay has a “contact another member” feature–click on any member’s username, and you can send them a message. There’s some anonymity protection: if A uses this feature to e-mail B, A won’t see B’s real e-mail address (though B will see A’s real e-mail address) unless and until B responds to A’s e-mail.

23

Oh, yeah, blowero, that’s fine and all, but I still ain’t got no damn airplane & I just spent almost $30 on Sesame Street characters (the little Grover on the TV did me in). Fortunately I think I probably pissed off a good number of bidders by sneaking in on the last second with that one.

My Hubby is gonna kill me.

Anybody know of a good 12-step program?

24

No shit? How much for putting real seed pearls around the edge of a generic tulle veil? I hand pearled a veil for my best friend because the veil she bought had the pearls that are plastic blobs on a string as the edging looked so cheesy [ I was storing her wedding stuff for her, and I did it as a surprise…because I couldn’t stand how cheesy it looked…] I think I still have around 3000 seed pearls left from a major buy I did when making an Elizabeth Armada dress on commission…and I am desperately broke…

25

While we’re here, I’d like to pit two types of sellers: those who clutter auction titles with synonyms and those who list items with pictures but the pix have little (if anything) to do with the auction! And a vairant of the latter: sellers whose auction picture says to use the “contact seller” function to get a picture.

26

You could try a used game shop, like Gamestop. They usually have old systems for sale.
Or you could get an emulator. I like FCE Ultra.

27

That just made me laugh like a loon.

Oh, my e-bay bitch? I was bidding on a vintage Kenner knitting machine, and some asswipe ups the bid by $5 in the last 2 minutes. Nice snipe try, asshole- I GOT IT!!

28

blowero: You are entirely right that last second bidding is a legitimate bidding tactic. I’m not annoyed at getting outbid. When I see something I want, I bid once, bidding the most I’m willing to pay, and if someone outbids me, that person deserves to get the item, regardless of when they outbid me. That’s all fine with me. I just don’t see the point of bidding at the last second, or even more, repeatedly bidding in small increments.

E-bay’s proxy bidding will bid for me at the last second, regardless of when I bid, so if I am bidding my maximum, it doesn’t benefit me at all to wait for the last second. Assuming that Bob and I are the two highest bidders, if my maximum is $50.00, and Bob Smith is willing to pay $60.00, he’s going to get the auction for $51.00, regardless of who bids first or when either of us bids.

My one complaint, and it’s fairly minor, is that waiting until the last second inconveniences those you are outbidding, without helping you in any way. In my example above, I was bidding on Batgirl comic books. I found a good set, and bid what I was willing to pay, $50. Had either of the people who outbid me in the last minute bid earlier, I could have redirected my $50 bid to a similar set that ended earlier, and which had a lower BIN price. As it turns out, I got a similar set for a few dollars less from an auction that ended an hour later, so I came out a bit ahead. As I said, there’s obviously nothing wrong with it, I’m annoyed only because it inconveniences me and I see no benefit to it for the person doing it.

The thing that truly mystifies me is incremental bidding. One of the bidders in my Batgirl auction bid, in the space of a minute, $30, $35, $40. While I’m amazed at the speed of the connection this guy must have to get that many bids in that fast, I truly don’t understand how this strategy could possibly benefit this bidder. I assume he was hoping to get it for less than $30 (his first bid), but cannot understand why, given that he was obviously ready to bid $40 from the start, he didn’t just bid once for that amount. I don’t see any way that this strategy could save money.

Nah, I’m happy to bid once, bid my maximum, and bid when I find what I want. I’ll let the proxy bidding system take care of snipers for me. If they outbid me, that’s fine, I wouldn’t have wanted to pay that much anyway.

My last E-bay story. I have a set of Legion of Superheroes vol. 2, 1-63 in NM condition that I paid $5.00 for (these are worth about $40.00. The opening bid was $5.00, I bid $50, and nobody bid against me. The listing had spelled the title Legoin of Superheros, and I was apparently the only one who found it. I love finding badly misspelled auction titles, as that means less competition.

29

I resent that. The Comic Book Guy is a fat, single, pimlpy-faced, 40-something man obsessed with comic books. I, on the other hand, am married.

I expect your apology forthwith.

30

Whoa, thanks for the link. I’ve got the mail, the hospital, and tons more stuff that is on there. I was just washing them up for my boys to play with. I mean, $5.50 for the mailman and his truck, $1.00 for a yellow-collared Lucky the Dog? Wow.

This leads me to a question: I see a bunch of auctions for the modern little people - stuff that is still sold at Toys 'R Us. What’s up with that? Why are people bidding more for stuff that is available in stores?

31

Hey Number Six

You wouldn’t happen to be ndcomicstexas on ebay, would you? I’m keeping an eye on one of your auctions right now, if that’s the case. (not comics, guitar stuff, FWIW) - i mean, how many comics guys can there be in Texas? :smiley:

And yes - I am seriously ticked off at those damn incremental bidders myself.

But worse is all the sellers that pull an auction at the last minute because the bidding’s not high enough…that’s what’s the damn reserve is for, you fuckwits!
I don’t know how widespread it is across every area of ebay, but it’s rampant in the musical instruments section. My guess is that it’s to bring in a bunch of bidders who say “ooh! no reserve!” to drive up the price, but man, that really frosts my cupcake. I was less than a minute from a beautiful Mesa Boogie combo amp when the auction was pulled at the last minute. Aren’t there rules about that?

-P

32

Thanks for the tips! Game Stop blows, blows, blows! But I’ll check there anyway. I already decided I’d run around this weekend checking local pawn shops and things. I’d never really considered checking a Good Will/Thrift Shop, but I will.

Thanks again. :slight_smile:

33

picker: Nah, I pretty much only buy and sell comic books, and I do most of my selling at a local swap meet on Saturdays and at conventions. People at conventions will pay insane prices for certain collectibles. At my last convention, I managed to sell a dozen copies of Amazing Spider-Man #36 for 20 times what I paid for them and twice what they go for on E-Bay.

34

But you’ve inadvertently hit on it - the reason you have to snipe is because of the incremental bidders.

Exactly - it’s stupid. I think people just get frenzied, and all of a sudden have to win, so they keep upping their bid beyond what they originally wanted to pay. But let’s take the scenario you present: Let’s say you proxy bid $55 for the Batgirl thing. And let’s say Asswipe is an incremental bidder. So let’s say you have the high bid at $25.
-Asswipe bids $30.
-Your bid automatically increases to $32.50 (or whatever the increments are).
-Asswipe bids $40.
-Your bid automatically increases to $42.50.
-Asswipe, in a sweaty, feverish panic, bids $50 (Just gotta have Batgirl)
-Your bid automatically increases to $52.50 and you win.

But, let’s take the alternate scenario where you snipe Batgirl:

-Asswipe bids $30, and has the high bid.
-Ten seconds before the auction ends, you proxy bid $55.
-Asswipe sees the price go up, and wets himself in his maniacal attempt to bid again, but it’s too late, the auction is over.
-You win for $32.50.
-You take the $20 you saved and buy more useless crap on eBay.
-Everyone lives happily ever after, except Asswipe.

35

I’ll apologize when I stop giggling from thinking about Comic Book Guy saying “I expect your apology forthwith”.
Hee hee hee hee… :smiley:

36

Look at church rummage sales. In the past six months, I’ve bought several original NES consoles with accessories, as well as a few Atari Heavy Sixers in the orignal boxes and I’ve never paid more than $2 per set.

I’d offer you one of the NESes but I’ve already flipped them all on eBay.

37

Incremental bidding doesn’t bother me, I just don’t understand why anyone would bid that way. If you’re willing to pay $50.00, rather than $30.00 then upping your bid $5 at a time, just bid $50.00 to start with, and let the computer bid $1 more than your opponent.

I don’t think you understand proxy bidding. The bid you enter initially isn’t a proxy bid, it’s your maximum bid. Proxy bidding occurs when e-bay’s computer bids on your behalf when someone bids against you. For example, I bid $50.00, and bidder A bids $30, e-bay’s computer proxy bids $31 for me. To bid with 10 seconds to go, I’d have to be sitting at my computer waiting for the auction to count down the seconds and then time it just right to get in that bid.

In the scenario I presented, there were three people all trying to snipe the same auction. Regardless of when I had bid, I would have lost.

I can see your scenario happening, but out of hundreds of auctions I’ve won on E-bay, I honestly don’t think that’s ever happened to me. Every time I’ve seen the incremental bidding, it’s either been done in an auction with multiple bidders, or the increments went up until I lost the auction. In any case, I bid what I’m willing to pay, so if I win the auction, regardless of what my final bid ends up, I’m happy with it.

I personally think that the best solution would be to set things up so that auctions don’t end until something like one or two minutes after the final bid. That would allow for both the benefits of proxy bidding and live bidding.

Last, insulting those you are trying to convince is seldom an effective tactic.

38

If you hand-pearl them, I’d say around $35-50 on eBay? The veils I’d looked at online had pearls on the edge, but it was a string of pearls, not hand-pearls, and she was selling them on the 'net for about $50-100, depending on the length of the veil.

Hell, if you can make the veil with the different kinds of edging and accents, you can make a serious killing on eBay.

Ava

39

Do you mean the little blue and white, one-person jet or the big airliner that opens up so you could film a miniature “Airport” remake in it?

40

tee-hee - I have managed to snag at least one of those little planes, mine’s red and holds one person. It’s the big, 4-passenger airliner I’m missing. Those babies are in high demand, they typically go for $23 or so (including shipping).