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...

Hmmm.
Isn't that contradictory advice?

Bid the highest you'll pay BUT wait until the last 5 minutes to see if you want to up it again. ;-)

And real snipers (live or via bots) don't get in there before 5 seconds to the end of the auction. :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Which is why using a service like esnipe (or bidnip that was also recommended upthread) is the way to go.

And then just go to sleep and don't worry about it. :D :D :D

My daughter hooked me up with esnipe and that is how I got my featherweight. No hassle for me and less then what my highest bid would have been.

I loathe snipers and bidnip!

I didn't know there were sites like esnipe or bidnip...wow...I go back 5 minutes before to see if I'm still in the lead.

My hubby buys a lot from ebay and feels the same

:thumbdown:

But why?

Seriously.

What business transaction do you go into where you lay out all your cards on the table so the competition sees what you have?

When you go to buy a car?
When you go to a garage sale? Or hold one? You always put the lowest amount you're willing to take for an item?

Now, if it's just that you're pissed because you lose the auction, please see the ** in my post upthread.

And if you ....decided too late you WOULD pay more money / don't have the money / don't think the widget is worth more than x / forgot to get up at 3AM to monitor the auction...that's not really the fault of the snipers, is it?

:mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

I had that problem, and I went to "buy it now". I got a really nice featherweight for $260.00 including shipping. Good Luck!

I agree, wait until the latest minute possible, bid the highest you're willing to pay. If you bid too early others will definitely bid up, when there are no bids they are caught off guard and might bid lower giving you a good chance of getting it.

I primarily look for buy it now or make offer items. Other than that I wait until the last day and then I decide what the highest amount I am willing to pay is and I watch the clock and bid when there is very little time left.

This is how I do it too. :)

I use http://www.auctionstealer.com to bid on eBay items. It automatically places your bid about 10 seconds before time is up. You get 3 free bids per week.

I always decide the *maximum* I am willing to pay for the item and put that amount in auctionstealer. If I am outbid, I know the item sold for more than I was willing to pay. The system bids the minimum I can get the item for.

If I want to bid I always wait until the last 10-15 seconds (10 if I think I can get it done in time) before placing my bid and I bid what I'm willing to pay for the item. If I'm outbid in the last second, well, it wasn't meant to be mine anyway :)

I know there are proxy bidding services that will come in at the last second and place your bid. But I make my best deals when I am on at 2AM, and there is the thrill of the win... :-P

I decide in advance what I'm willing to pay and if I win, I win. If I lose--it wasn't meant to be. I even do this at the grocery store. No way am I paying $3 for a loaf of bread. Same thing with ice cream. I'm not paying $4 for less than a half gallon of ice cream. Sniper bidders are no different. You have to set a limit and then a bot stays up til 3:00am instead of me.

I'm still determining my limits on the price of gasoline. Knowing that it is cheaper in Missouri than almost anywhere else on the planet helps but it's getting close to the point that my 2 year old Scion may get traded in on a Prius if I can even find one.

I just bid yesterday. I was the only bidder until 30 sec. I had the amt in and hit send for higher bid. Still did not get it.

There is a blue color "one bid" or something like that. I think it is automatic price increase. Next time I will do that one...

Makes you mad doesn't it? Kept telling DH, I got it I got it....He said no you don't....

Another good idea is to set up a "search" on your eBay account. eBay will email you new listings. This can be a good way to catch a "Buy It Now" listing when the price is in your range.

You make it sound like the autobots decide when to bid. ;-)

They come in at the last few seconds because the BIDDER set it up that way. The bid could also be set to release one hour before the end of the auction, but what would be the point?

And staying up until 2AM is no guarantee that you'll win.

Conversely, you didn't win because you stayed up until 2AM.

Last year, I watched EBAY for months....bidding on Featherweights and OMG....I could not figure out how it was done. I'd think I finally got one and the price would jump up hundreds of dollars. Finally one was marked "buy now" it was exactly what I wanted to pay for it....and I bought it....it's a beauty.

I bid last week for the first time on a couple of featherweights and on the first time around I won, and again 3 days later I won again. I watched a few different featherweights at a time, bid on a couple of different ones with a max in mind. The second one was on behalf of a friend. Yes I was outbid on more than one, but was watching 3 or 4 at a time. The second one was on a weekend and lost out all day Sat (once by $ 5-10), Sunday I won. Next time I will try to avoid the weekend.

2 weeks later I am still waiting for delivery on mine. Delivered my friends to her last Sat, last then 1 week.

OH man, I feel bad, there have been times I went onto ebay and searched items and an item I wanted comes up with a few seconds or minutes left so I bid on it. Now it is an item I really really want for certain, then I just put in my max and leave it be from there, cause I travel a lot. If not I will end up paying more then what I actually wanted to.

This may sound a bit odd but last minute bidding is very dangerous for me. I'm likely to impulse buy and spend more than I should.

I now use auctionsniper.com and I decide well in advance of the auction closing time exactly how much I'm willing to spend. I enter that amount -- period -- and then schedule a bid time. I don't watch the auction close, if I win, eBay notifies me. If I don't win, I get a note from auctionsniper about being outbid. By figuring out and bidding my max (as it were) in advance and not watching, I curb my impulse buy tendencies and only spend what I can sanely afford to spend. YMMV

I usually go with the
Buy Now option if it fits my spending budget.

I have won a few bids in the past 24 months though.

I have bought quite a lot on eBay and didn't miss out on much. You need to decide how much you are willing to pay then as others have said bid only once and as close to the finish as possible. I wouldn't bid until it was down to 10 seconds, but that would depend on the speed of your computer. Even at 10 seconds I would have a couple of seconds left.
Hope this helps and you get your featherweight.

Snipers can only win if they bid more than your high bid. I've lost auctions to snipers who outbid me but then had the last laugh when a similar item was available for less from another Ebayer or even Amazon.

We usually watch the item and then in the last 45-60 seconds (we are on DSL) put in the highest amount we would pay, sometimes we win, sometimes we don't but it sure is a great way to get it for less than what you were willing to pay for it. Bidding bit by bit can be too costly because emotions come in to play and you sometimes outspend your budget.

I watch an item until it gets to close to the end. I always set my limit before I bid and usually while I am watching it. Sometimes I bid at the end if it isn't near my max but sometimes I am the first bidder. But I never go over what I set as my max. If you don't like bidding this way try the Buy it now board where everything is a fixed price and you know what they want for their items.

I like to be the first bidder bidding only a few dollars higher thatn the start price. I can keep track of them a lot better. You then have the newbies thqat just run the bidding up days before it closes. If it has not been bid higher than I want to pay, I will wait until the last10-15 sseconds and bid my highest. If it isn't good enough then I lose, but sometimes I am successful.

I find if you wait till the last 3 minutes of the auction and put your highest bid in in the last 45 seconds it works pretty good ........everyone is doing this now and if you snooze you loose ..........lol

I would probably have more money if I had trouble bidding on ebay!!! lol But like anything else it can be addicting. I try to get an idea of what I want to spend and not go over that amount including shipping charges that sometimes seem or is more than the items.