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How we Ebay

66.74.72.231

Posted by Bambi B on October 1, 2004 at 10:21:27

Mates,

I am by no means the most experinced Ebayizerator- I only just earned my "50" feedback purple star after four years, but I do enjoy watching the way people bid- and the carelessness with their- and especially MY- money.

1. Silly Early Bidding: The thing that strikes as me most stupid is how often bidders act against their interests. Here, I'm referring to the way some people have to maintain their position as high bidder through the whole auction period. I see auctions for something that have 6 or 8 bids from each of three people but with 5 or 6 days left. If they are outbid, they keep bidding until they see the magic "congratulations- you are the high bidder" screen. Who are they trying to impress? I saw once someone who bid 15 times in small increments at one session- these bids were 30 seconds apart until they were the top bidder- and there was 5 days to go. That person did not win the auction either- just doubled the price. It's just stupid to do this continously as the bidders are only spending their own or others' money needlessly- and possibly spurring a bidding war and piquing others' interest in the item.

I understand the commonality of shills, but these are suprisingly easy to spot and I avoid the auction further unless it is some $10 thing.

2. Annoying late bidding: I feel it is civilised to make a -that's "A" and only "A"- bid at some point earlier in the auction to establish interest and having a bid in sends Ebay notices of the auction end and tracks progress in "My Ebay". But, we've all probably suffered to watch something for days and have someone with a name like "snipemaster2000" bid $.50 more in the last 8 seconds and win the auction. This seems really petty to me, cheap, and sneaky.

Of course, there is no recourse except to snipe it on yourself. When I've had a low interest auction and I'm the only bidder until near the end, I add four or five bids in the last minute so snipers do not have time to enter many new bids. This works as snipers are so cheap they will increase their bids by only $1.00 to try and keep the price lower. I did this recently on an item i had bid $10.00 on and was the only bidder the whole auction. I entered my little series in the last minute and sure enough when the aucton ended I had paid $13.00 and in the middle of my protection bids was a new name. Thanks "sphincterlad23" for spending my $3!

3. Non-serious bidding: I don't understand those who bid once on something as it is a 95+% probability that you will not be the only bidder. I have won perhaps 2 auctions unopposed in the bidding and this was for something relatively obscure like a 6BE6. When someone casually bids it raises the price for others needlessly. If these bidders are just studying the market, I wish they would just add the item to their "watch" list.

4."Hot" items: The perponderance of early bidding can often create an intense interest in something that is not warranted. I'm amused by how many times in the tuner information site when referrin gto prices the reference to "naive" or "misguided" bidders driving prices well above reason with this technique. But, by "hot" itemIm also thinking of how discussion of certain items creaes a temporarily increased interest in something particular. Someone here recently commented on the sudden interest in the RCA "cleartop" 12AU7 due to a few posts somewhere and I found that was true- prices for these are lower generally than a couple of years ago as the interest subsided. I think we are going through a continuing Tesla ECC803S "hype" still. There is no sense that a 1994 mass-produced $11 tube should be offered for up to $50 now. These are nice, but there are millions of them even if a Hong Kong dealer says there are only 4 left in the World- every day for two years. And, look at the orginal of that one the Telefunken ECC803S- a year ago or so a pair of NOS on Ebay was something like $1200! Not today!

So, my only real friends, mark you turf with a bid during the auction, protect against the last 5-second artists, bid only when serious, and avoid trendiness. Whatever you're after, no matter how "rare" it's proffered to be, there are thousands and thousands!

See you in the Pit- I have three more things to buy before I'm done.

Cheers,

Bambi B- Now the new and imporoved Bambi B with 50!- 100% positive feedbacks. Very rare!

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