I spend days bidding on featherweights and someone comes in at the last second and it's gone. :cry: :cry: :cry:

you need to hold your bid to the last day also...otherwise you are just bidding it up...

wait until the last...then enter the highest amount you are willing to pay out...

you might get it for less than your top dollar amount

No.

And it's not a question of having trouble.

It's just an issue of you not bidding high enough.

Bid once and bid the most you want to spend on the item..

If you win it, congratulations.

**If not, then you didn't pay more than you thought the item was worth. That is what it means, right? Which is a good thing, right?

If your response is that you would have bid higher had you known, well, then your emotions are getting involved. That's always costly. And then you should have made your one bid higher to begin with if you felt you really, really wanted it.

And the smartest thing would be to put in snipe bid. With your ONE highest bid of what is the most you're willing to pay for the widget. http://esnipe.com/

And after the auction ends, go back above and read **.

Nibbling is useless, and can actually drive up the price if you happen to have an equally inexperienced buyer bidding against you. :roll:

Do you sense a theme here?

Bid ONCE, and make it the most you're willing to spend on the widget, taking into account any additional S&H charges of course.

www.bidnip.com

Thank you for the advice.

That is good advice--I used to make my living at auctions--and learned the hard way to wait till the last few bids, then bid. AND SET YOUR LIMIT first!
The disadvantage to eBay is you cannot see body language and know when the other bidder is about to quit!

Before eBay started hiding the ID's a few years ago, you could - if you knew your way around - pretty much figure out what a person's strategy was. Were they newbies, clueless, snipers, nibblers, also sellers, etc? Was their proxy bid always 23.89? Do they always use nuclear bids? Did they snipe at 3 or 10 seconds? And on and on.

I miss those days. It actually gave a personality to an ID and was very helpful in bidding. And I knew people were doing the same to me. It was so much fun trying to out bid someone I never met but kind of knew.
And now...
Bleh.

No, I hover. I have time.. that is probably what happened to you. I wait for the last 4 mins. then start to out bid.

Sorry. Does sound mean. Did get my Cricut cartridges at $9.00 that way.. had my own limit and if it was more, than I lost my bid.

Good luck..watch the times when the bidding is up.

Good luck next time.
No, not me. Have never bid on a feather weight.

good advice MTS, and you're right; everything is different now.

You need to bid the highest amount you will pay....none of this $1 at a time. Leave it alone till an hour before the end of the auction. See where it is and decide if you need to up it...always keep refreshing the last 5 minutes...that is when the snipers get in there. My cousin use to do this and won almost all of his auctions...