Ebay, 40 watchers in an hour but no bids?

Does this mean I’m going to be worth a mint anytime soon or do people just watch shit for the sake of it?

Cheers.

*watches thread*

It means they have something similar to sell and are watching the market.

Maybe, but as it’s a limited edition repro BMX then I doubt that many people have one to sell.

Auctions mean zilch until they are over.

Massive load of bids in the last minute.

No-one sane on ebay bids before the last 30s of an auction!

Bidding outwith the last 5 or so seconds is pointless, so they probably aren’t bothering.

Ben a few years since I regularly sold stuff on ebay but it was normally something like 1 bidder for every 10 watchers.

Early bidding just drives the price up. I don’t understand why any potential buyer would do it.

Early bidding just drives the price up. I don’t understand why any potential buyer mate of the seller would do it.

FTFY. 😉

I got a very nice set of wheels for £58 recently by bidding in the last 5 seconds. WTB frequency I23’s with DT swiss hubs , felt bad for the seller , for about 5 seconds 😆

+1 if you’re not last second sniping you’re wasting your time and money. Lots of early watchers is a good sign. Have you set a reserve? A too-high reserve is the only thing likely to scupper you if you’re selling what people want!

I understand people’s love of last minute bidding/sniping, but it’s not generally what I do.

If I want an item I work out the maximum I’d be willing to pay, stick in a bid of that, and eBay’s bidding system does the work for me. I just walk away at this point. If I win the item I get an email from eBay, if not then someone else wanted it more than me and was willing to pay more.

It also stops you over bidding when that last minute rush of adrenaline kicks in – we’ve all done it!

As far as watchers goes, it will be a combo of people with similar items seeing what it goes for, and potential buyers earmarking for later perusal and comparison against other bikes.

I once had something like 150 watchers on some spares or repairs studio monitors. That developed into a bidding war in the last couple of hours, and I got way over what they were worth 😀 some people just can’t help themselves!

But if I put the max mid I’m happy with

At the last minute

Unless someone puts in higher already nobody has time to react by incremental bidding and I get the best price.

ajantom – Member

If I want an item I work out the maximum I’d be willing to pay, stick in a bid of that, and eBay’s bidding system does the work for me. I just walk away at this point. If I win the item I get an email from eBay, if not then someone else wanted it more than me and was willing to pay more.

And how many do you lose out on by a couple of quid? All you’re doing by bidding early is giving someone something to bid against so they can convince themselves they want it more. You’re creating your own personal bidding war. This technique works but if you’re not the only person interested I expect you’re not getting the best value or are missing out on “wins” a lot.

Max bid last few seconds either by the exiting way of watching it tick down or use a sniper. That way you don’t get sucked in and can’t complain if you don’t get it.

My rule of thumb is 50% of ultimate sale price at 1 day from end of auction. It’s usually pretty close on an item with a good few watchers.

Thing is it doesn’t really bother me. If I lose out by a quid or two, so be it, the highest bidder wanted it more than me and was willing to pay a higher price. If you keep upping your maximum price then you end up paying more than you originally wanted.

I get your point about putting in the max bid in the last few seconds, and I have done that in the past. But nowadays I’m far more likely to be doing stuff with the family or work related, so I just stick in a bid, and if I win it then great, if not then no tears are shed!

ajantommuch much better to not contribute to an early bidding hysteria and snipe your max price wtih 5-10 secs to go. You will probably “win” more often if you do that.

^^ this. You’d be surprised how many people place a low bid with the logic that if they get outbid then they’ll simply bid again slightly higher.. like a regular auction.. outbidding them with your max bid with 5 seconds left means you often get cheap stuff simply as they don’t have time to respond… and if you don’t get the items with your max bid, then it wasn’t worth it anyway..

how did you get on Op?

I only use Buy It Now with Best Offer these days and tend to get good deals that way.

That way you can open up a discussion with the seller and reach an agreement that suits both.

Otherwise, IMO, as a buyer you always overpay on auction if there is at least one other person bidding. If you’re lucky enough to get an auction where there are inactive/no other bidders then thats fine. But the moment there is someone you’re bidding against one of you is guaranteed to be paying over what it’s really worth or what you really wanted to pay.

If it’s a mega niche item I occasionally put a bid early to register my interest, as more than once I’ve seen an item unlisted I was planning on bidding on later in the week.

finbar – agreed. I watch a lot of stuff just out of interest. Maybe bid on it, maybe not.

For sniping – Gixen

how did you get on Op?

I’ll let you know in 9 days 😉

ajantom

I am with you on this. ebay bids you up automatically to your maximum same as sniping. My feeling is a lot of folk don’t really understand how e=bay works / want to feel they are clever to get the best deal.

No-one sane on ebay bids before the last 30s of an auction!

I don’t use snipers, I set a maximum price and try to time it so I get the winning bid, if someone gets in a fraction afterwards and wins, then tough.
I went after a pair of Meindle Desert Fox boots the other day, they were in excellent condition, very little wear showing in the photos, was showing at £15, I went with about thirty seconds to go at £35.78, it seemed to get a bit confused, but I won them at £28, which I was pretty chuffed about, they’re £140 a pair, or thereabouts.

At the moment I’ve got about 50 watchers but I bet only a fraction convert to bids. This probably varies depending on how rare/interesting the item is but it literally just means “hmm, interesting”, it’s no sort of declaration of intent

tjagain – Member

I am with you on this. ebay bids you up automatically to your maximum same as sniping. My feeling is a lot of folk don’t really understand how e=bay works / want to feel they are clever to get the best deal.

It’s not so much about how ebay works, it’s about how ebayers work. Which is about 25% about not understanding, and about 75% psychosis.

I am with you on this. ebay bids you up automatically to your maximum same as sniping. My feeling is a lot of folk don’t really understand how e=bay works / want to feel they are clever to get the best deal.

Snipping when the item is popular and all the serious buyers are also snipping is relatively pointless as in the frenzy in the closing seconds it will go to the person who wants it most for a bid more than the 2nd most in any case. But snipping makes a big difference for low interest items. There are plenty of folk who bid and then bid a bit more – bidding late cuts out their option to respond to being outbid. Even if they are not prepared to pay more than you they put a couple of extra bids in just to see if they can ‘beat’ you. I’m not sure if you are missing out on items but doing it your way you are definitely paying more for the ones you do win than you need to a good proportion of the time. Snipping just turns ebay into a sealed bid system which it should be anyway if it wasn’t for the divs who put more than one bid in or don’t really know how much they are prepared to pay.

12 minutes to go, approx 80 watches, 6 bids so far, I’ll report back in a mo 😀

It was £360 when I just posted, went for £462 in the end, not sure if I’m happy with that or not, still it’s sold now.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/122565340698?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

Cheers.

Hopefully you listed when they were doing max £1 FVFs.

It’s not so much about how ebay works, it’s about how ebayers work. Which is about 25% about not understanding, and about 75% psychosis.

Too true!

not sure if I’m happy with that or not

That’s what reserve prices are for.

not sure if I’m happy with that or not

I wouldn’t be 🙁

I gave it a go, lessons learn’t are that people pay the best prices on a Sunday night at about 8 or 9 & to start with no reserve, it generates far more interest, it appears I made rookie mistakes but looking at similar sold I didn’t do to badly.

Cheers.

It’s not a disaster by any means. Seen similar sell for far more, but not generally on eBay.

Strangely, VW shows seem to be the best place to sell them. But you kind of need to be there already 🙂

Cougar – Moderator
That’s what reserve prices are for.

IME reserves just put people off as they’re almost universally unrealistic. I’ve not breached a reserve with a “my max bid” yet. More like that’s what BUY-IT-NOWs are for.

If you’ve got 40-50-60 watchers and a good few bidders at the start I’d be confident it will find market value – so long as it ends on a Sunday night at a decent time (7-9pm) and isn’t a coma inducing 30 day listing.

2unfit2ride – Member
It was £360 when I just posted, went for £462 in the end, not sure if I’m happy with that or not

[Harshbutfair]It was a copy of a pretty rubbish bike and as such was only really worth hanger-on money to those that can’t now afford an original. You’d have been better off buying a real one as “an investment”. Assuming you made someprofit, I’m sure you’ll get over it[/Harshbutfair]

[Harshbutfair]It was a copy of a pretty rubbish bike and as such was only really worth hanger-on money to those that can’t now afford an original. You’d have been better off buying a real one as “an investment”. Assuming you made someprofit, I’m sure you’ll get over it[/Harshbutfair]

To be fair {not harsh} I have enjoyed owning it & it always amazes people I have a bike on the wall in the house (my office) & yes I did make a profit, I think I paid £230 for it in 2007 🙂

Cheers.

What sort of money does such an item usually fetch? (in the completed listings) It doesn’t seem like too bad of a return to me…

I like Burners BTW. Plenty of folk look down on the humble Burner but most kids I knew had one BITD. Those R gusseted Pro Burners are lovely…