eBay madness

I was watching this lens on ebay, as my wife is interested in getting one to use with her new Kx. The winning bid on this second-hand lens link was more than 70 quid over the price of a new one, and 60 quid more than the seller paid for it new! What on earth possesses people to continue bidding when it obviously doesn't make any sense?

Buyer had only 1 for feedback. If you look at the automatic bids
he put on quite a few one after the other, probably someone had
already left on a large bid, which does tend to push the price up

I assume this lens is not longer available at £270

It's available new at £257....link

Then that is mad. Hope it's not that ebayer called "iaintpayinyou"

Ebay remorse, I had it on a book I was expecting to pay £10 and got into a bidding war and ended up £45 poorer for quite a ropey dog eared book

Just goes to show that the term ‘the madness of crowds’ is something of a misnomer.

That said I recently participated in an auction where I am fairly sure my last minute winning bid was around a tenner more than I had indicated as the maximum. Buggy system or did my fingers/keypad through unknown transcendental means mysteriously acquire foreknowledge of the required bid?

Who knows, but I am in any case delighted with the item.

For my part I've purchased around 140 items on eBay over the years and bid on goodness knows how many, and eBay has never once autobid over my stated maximum. I really doubt they would let a bug like that creep in because the autobid system is really the heart of eBay, or should be, if used properly.

In all honesty the way many (possibly most) people go about bidding on eBay simply baffles me. Used properly (the way the people who designed it intended it to be used) you should only ever bid once, and it should be the maximum amount you're prepared to pay - let the autobid system take care of the rest. Some people seem to think that if you bid this way you'll end up paying more for the item, but that isn't how it works - autobid will never bid higher than necessary to keep you ahead of the next highest bidder. There is no real advantage to withholding your highest bid until later, and there is the severe disadvantage that you might well lose the item to a 'sniper'.

A lot of people whine about snipers, i.e. last second bidders who outbid them to win the item. If you use the system as it's intended and bid the most you're prepared to pay straight off you cannot possibly be beaten by a sniper unless they're simply prepared to pay more than you are. Snipers are not taking advantage of 'faster internet connections' or being able to 'be there for the close' when other people might not be able to as the complaints often state. Nobody's internet connection is fast enough to beat the autobid system, nor is anybody unable to bid because they're not there, as long as they let the system do it for them! The only thing snipers are taking advantage of is other bidders' indecisiveness. Another reason to be decisive and use the system as it was intended.

If you find it hard to decide on the maximum amount you'd be prepared to pay, think of it this way - what's the lowest amount you definitely would NOT be prepared to pay? Got it? Okay, bid a penny less than that. Not a pound, not ten pence, just ONE penny. Remember than unless another bidder is prepared to match you pretty closely (or outbid you) the likelihood is you will not end up paying as much as your maximum bid.

Very good advice Mark. I always use a sniper for the reason you state - manual input will never beat a snipe/autobid process. Got my DA 21mm for £250 this way - I think I was prepared to go to £300!

Tony

Crikey Mark!..... a Scotsman who likes to throw money away!

You need to get into sniping Fast! How do you think all the
dealers who resell stuff pick it up cheap?..... certainly not your
way

The good thing about a snipe is you can still cancel it a few minutes
before the auction... Autobid your stuck!

I have been known to snipe when 'appropriate' so to speak... however if you know exactly how much you're prepared to pay there is no need to cancel, unless you're bidding on several items at the same time when you only really want one, of course. When I bid it tends to be on rare items I can't get hold of through normal retailers, for such items the likelihood of several being up for sale at once is quite low.

I don't buy stuff to resell, generally speaking. If I did I'm sure I'd take full advantage of all these indecisive bidders and snipe constantly.

To be honest I do find it helps if you wait until late to bid. If you bid early then someone will always be willing to pay more than you are, waiting until 30 seconds or so and then putting the same maximum bid down will often succeed by a few quid.

There do seem to be a few bidders who throw money about like water, I strongly suspect that they do it in order to intimidate the rest of us - don't try bidding against me because you'll never win. Fine by me, if you really want to pay more than any sane person would consider to be market value then you go for it!

As for daft final bids it happens with everything. I remember a few years ago watching a G scale model railway baggage van bid up to £120. It was a limited edition, but at that time they were still available brand new for about £67!

I will never pay ridiculous sums for used camera gear (why I don't have an LX - my limit for any single used camera or lens is £100).

The advice for any auction is to set your maximum and don't go over it. A lot of people listen to this and then ignore it. Mark's approach is spot on for ebay.

I was once (many years back) at a farm auction and there was this Czech single barrel 12 bore shotgun with a split in the stock. I was doing woodwork for guns at the time, so that did not worry me. I set a maximum in my mind of £10 pounds. I never even got to bid. The price went past £10 so fast it was eyewatering, and stopped at over £30. The punch line is that the new price of that gun at the time was £12.50.
Geoff

I don't do the ebay thing but 21mm for 250... tastyyyy

Yes, it certainly does help. It helps because, and only because, other bidders are indecisive. My point is if you don't want to*, or for some reason can't bid at the last minute then the only way you can possibly win is to be decisive and bid your maximum straight off.

*Some folks seem to feel it's "cheating" to snipe.

I agree with Mark and sometimes bid a the last minute, but the "I'll just try another fiver" temptation creeps in. I have won a couple of items by bid early and bid what I'd reasonably pay, then I add another quid. I have won two items recently by less than £1 !!!! Both with last minute snipers.