Originally Posted by
louieatienza
I'm a sniper, been doing it since I started on eBay, which is about 2001. Itt's the only sane way to bid, so that I don't get caught up in the heat of a bidding war... and I've been there!
What sucks now is that you HAVE to use PayPal unless you have your own credit card machine, so you Pay eBay a 3% commision over the listing fee, then pay PayPal a 3% fee, and PayPal is owned by eBay, so in actuality you're probably paying about 10% as a seller. Every live auction I've ever been to, the buyer pays all the fees - the cost of getting what you need....
Here's the deal: Pick a threshold, the highest you'll pay for something, and set that as your snipe price. Set up the sniper bot to place the bid about 4-6 seconds before the auction end. Prepare to lose out to another sniper at work with a T1 line and four friends on standby, or maybe with multiple accounts. I don't care if the winning bid is $1 over my max bid.
Sometimes sellers employ shills to jack up the bid. I can spot them a mile away (just check the bid history and their past purchases). Sometimes people do it just to screw around with other prople on popular items. Check everyone eho's bidding as well as the seller. If there are people bidding with 100% positive feedback, but their bid history shows all they bought were tee-shirts for the last 2 months and now are bidding on a ballscrew, that's a good sign to bail. Likewise with the seller... not all the time but be cautious. Email the seller for more pics. See how fast the response is.
Another dirty eBay fact of life is the backdoor deal. I've been backdoored a few times, and have to admit I've done my share of backdooring. I do try to make it beneficial to the seller by offering a "package deal" on their stuff. I laugh at what I've paid for things, you never know. The worst they can say no, and you move on...
Note: on Best Offer, if you lowball more than three times on Best Offer in an attempt to fish for the bottom line price, you may get locked out altogether from the auction - Beware! I find when you get up to about $300, you can make an offer $100 less and about 60% of the time it's accepted. The rest, either the offer is declined or a counteroffer is proposed. This is a good time to haggle as the seller is motivated to move his stuff. If you can exchange information outside of eBay you might be able to work something out; but them you won't be under the "umbrella" of buyer protection.
Speaking of "buyer" protection, eBay has gone out of their way to protect the buyer in such a way that they hurt part time or small business sellers. Thye won't release money until positive feedback or 30 days have passed, and even then they slack off, making interest every second your dollar is with them, and then charging YOU a fee for being THEIR bank. This IMO gives the buyer too much leverage, and unless you are a larger seller that can absorb costs in the short run, you're footing the shipping costs AND are out your merchancise. Again I believe this is eBay's attempt to shut out some of the smaller sellers, and use our money to earn interest.
Treischl, how did you end the auction with 36 minutes. From past experiece, once there's a bid, the auction cannot be stopped 12 hours before auction end. I've had to get a friend to bid the item and win it back for me, and I had to absorb the fees.
As for timing, you almost never want to sell something between December 26 and April 15, but usually after tax season, things pick up. Conversely this is a good time to buy, as there aren't as many bids. Unfortunately, you just blew a wad for Christmas, and your credit card is maxed!
As for shipping: I wanted to get one of the air cooled spindles and VFDs on eBay. In fact I just received it today, and the quality so far looks realy good, to my surprise. The shipping on the spindle was $110 or so, and the VFD about $44 - or vice versa. The package deal cost was cheaper, but the shipping was $222! I made an offer $100 below the BIN. Got the counteroffer for $50 off. I then made the counteroffer for $85 off BIN, explaining their shipping 'gaffe'. They accepted the counteroffer! So I got he package deal, and an net reduction in the shipping, and I saved a few dollars overall, without lowballing. A win-win...