Ebay
Wednesday, December 17, 2003
Push the Proxy Bid
This bidding strategy goes hand in hand with sniping and involves testing the bidder's proxy amount by increasing the high bid in very small increments. Its entire purpose is to gain information about the proxy bid, and to perhaps get an exact fix on the maximum amount. This strategy is also dependent upon how EBay handles proxy bidding. When a counter bid is placed against an auction with a proxy bid, the system automatically increases the proxy bid to the next increment. When the proxy bid's maximum is almost reached, then the system simply matches it by the amount remaining on the proxy bid. This is an important facet of the bidding process and by simply increasing the maximum bid by the minimum increment and then watching how the proxy bid reacts, bidders can often uncover the proxy maximum rather quickly.
Since this is a risky maneuver, most bidders try this very late in the game, perhaps with only an hour or two left in the auction. If done correctly, the proxy push will approach the high proxy bid, but not exceed it. Once the proxy bid increases by less than the required amount, the bidder has essentially divined the proxy limit without going over. Thereby no “you have been overbid” email will be sent to the current high bidder and sniping will be much easier. This method also allows the bidder to tell rather quickly if the proxy bid is much too high, and then back off.
Like any other strategy, this one can backfire in a few ways. First of all, there may not even be a proxy bid in place and the first incremental bid may be greeted by a “you are the top bidder” message. At this point the bidder has become the hunted and not the hunter, and it is then time to either cross your fingers and hope you win, or employ a secondary strategy to hold the bid. To make sniping much harder, many bidders also use unusual proxy bids such as $11.37, and this can also hamper the proxy pushing game. To counter this, bidders also use unusual counter bids and then see how the proxy bid reacts.
Play the Auction Ending Times
EBay auctions go on twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week and by using this information wisely, bidders can really make hay. It is logical to assume that the most bidding takes place during the Internet's peak usage times and just by watching the closing auctions, it is easy to see the correlation. Between 7 and 11 PM EST, the auction action can get pretty wild and sniping can reach epic proportions. After 11 PM, it does slow down a bit, but the West Coast is still going strong so most auctions remain relatively active.
If one auction is ending at 8 AM EST on a Wednesday and another is finishing up on a Saturday at 8 PM EST, which do you think will get the most attention? Less traffic means fewer snipers and also a lower potential winning bid. The early-morning, late-afternoon times seem to be best, since this is when most of the North American population is either on the way to, or home from, work. The middle days of the week (Tues-Thurs) are also especially dead during these periods, owing perhaps to less vacations and sick days. Prime auction ending times include the last day of holiday weekends (when everyone is on the road), as well as any other time that a good percentage of the population will be away from the PC. Placing a proxy bid on these auctions, or even following them if you are able to, can often be a great investment.
Follow Multiple Auctions
Although bidding based on time and EBay usage can bear fruit, the opposite is also true in peak times. If a few similar auctions are ending the same night, then one or more of them might get lost in the shuffle. Interested EBay buyers may snap up the early ones, leaving the scraps for others. Here is the way most of these auction buildups tend to progress: The first item is usually hotly contested by a large group of snipers with the winner usually paying a hefty premium for their victory. Subsequent auctions are far less active, with the buying crowd using them as a barometer of overall price levels for the night. These can be referred to the “post-shock” auctions and it is here where smart bidders can possibly win for far less than the first auction went for. By the time the final auction rolls around, it is back to the same voracious bidding of the first auction, as many have discovered it is the last one for the night.
The above scenario only applies to the really hot items like overclockable CPUs, high-end 3D cards or low priced SDRAM. For more common auction items, having a large pack of them end on the same night can lead to even better values, since sniping will likely not be as large a problem. Smart bidders simply observe how the first few auctions progress, then place a proxy bid or snipe appropriately at the subsequent items. Since winning bidders will continually be dropping out of the race, there will be less of an EBay market for these later auctions, and the inadvertent creation of a glut can pay dividends for the interested parties.
Brownouts are your Friends
All's fair in love, war and EBay, so if competing bidders cannot get online, then that is something many bidders use to their own advantage. EBay auctions end at their allotted time, no matter if the system goes down for hours, or the entire East Coast experiences an Internet brownout. I have been on EBay during a few such instances and there was bargain hunting galore. It was like a party that no one came to, and a few smart EBay'ers probably outfitted their PCs for a fraction of the retail cost.
On the flip side, EBay itself is not the most stable online entity and downtimes occur at random intervals. While it is impossible to time such random crashes, if a bidder currently holds a few items at exceptionally low bids, then a system crash can actually be quite beneficial. If EBay goes down and does not come back up again until after these auctions have closed, then the bidder won them by default, and at the pre-crash bid. With the growing amount of last-second bidding, combined with EBay's unyielding auction ending times, a smart bidder can sometimes use these factors to their advantage.
Know your Competition
For those serious about getting deals on EBay it is important to know who you might be up against. If an interesting auction is found, before doing anything further, be sure to see who is currently bidding on it. Use the Bidding History to check out the current high bidder as well as the previous bidders who could reenter the party at any time. Feedback is a useful tool for this research, and finding out what products the other bidders have won in the past can illustrate their buying habits, as well as their potential for excessive bidding and sniping. If the current bidders are not big PC buyers and concentrate on Beanie Baby auctions, a higher bid may ward them off. Conversely, if the high bidder has been paying exorbitant prices for high-end hardware, then it might be a better use of time to just to move on to another auction.
Search for Misplaced Items
Finding misplaced EBay auction items can be one of the most rewarding aspects of the entire process. Just about everyone and his dog is selling on EBay and the vendors offering PC hardware and software will include computer retailers, junk dealers, pawn shops, flea market gurus, along with members of the general public. With such a wide array of sellers comes an equally varying level of knowledge concerning computer hardware and the value of individual components. You might find a new 28 GB hard drive priced at a dollar sitting over in Electronics, or a DVD-Player placed in Automotive. By using the search engines inventively and spending a little time perusing the individual auctions, a bidder may find exactly what they are looking for at a fraction of the cost. Also, if no other bidder has found that same item, then you are likely to win it for song. Just to be safe, a smart bidder always assumes that someone else did find it, and is ready to counter bid if necessary.
In Closing
EBay has been successful for one reason, it fills a real need in the online marketplace and gives buyers and sellers a viable market for online transactions. It can also be a bit difficult getting your feet wet in the online auction environment and we hope that this EBay Buyer's Guide has been helpful in illustrating how EBay works, as well as helping to make potential purchases cheaper and safer. Also keep in mind that EBay auctions feature just about every product imaginable, so if you get tired of looking for hardware, there is bound to be something interesting sitting in another category.
This bidding strategy goes hand in hand with sniping and involves testing the bidder's proxy amount by increasing the high bid in very small increments. Its entire purpose is to gain information about the proxy bid, and to perhaps get an exact fix on the maximum amount. This strategy is also dependent upon how EBay handles proxy bidding. When a counter bid is placed against an auction with a proxy bid, the system automatically increases the proxy bid to the next increment. When the proxy bid's maximum is almost reached, then the system simply matches it by the amount remaining on the proxy bid. This is an important facet of the bidding process and by simply increasing the maximum bid by the minimum increment and then watching how the proxy bid reacts, bidders can often uncover the proxy maximum rather quickly.
Since this is a risky maneuver, most bidders try this very late in the game, perhaps with only an hour or two left in the auction. If done correctly, the proxy push will approach the high proxy bid, but not exceed it. Once the proxy bid increases by less than the required amount, the bidder has essentially divined the proxy limit without going over. Thereby no “you have been overbid” email will be sent to the current high bidder and sniping will be much easier. This method also allows the bidder to tell rather quickly if the proxy bid is much too high, and then back off.
Like any other strategy, this one can backfire in a few ways. First of all, there may not even be a proxy bid in place and the first incremental bid may be greeted by a “you are the top bidder” message. At this point the bidder has become the hunted and not the hunter, and it is then time to either cross your fingers and hope you win, or employ a secondary strategy to hold the bid. To make sniping much harder, many bidders also use unusual proxy bids such as $11.37, and this can also hamper the proxy pushing game. To counter this, bidders also use unusual counter bids and then see how the proxy bid reacts.
Play the Auction Ending Times
EBay auctions go on twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week and by using this information wisely, bidders can really make hay. It is logical to assume that the most bidding takes place during the Internet's peak usage times and just by watching the closing auctions, it is easy to see the correlation. Between 7 and 11 PM EST, the auction action can get pretty wild and sniping can reach epic proportions. After 11 PM, it does slow down a bit, but the West Coast is still going strong so most auctions remain relatively active.
If one auction is ending at 8 AM EST on a Wednesday and another is finishing up on a Saturday at 8 PM EST, which do you think will get the most attention? Less traffic means fewer snipers and also a lower potential winning bid. The early-morning, late-afternoon times seem to be best, since this is when most of the North American population is either on the way to, or home from, work. The middle days of the week (Tues-Thurs) are also especially dead during these periods, owing perhaps to less vacations and sick days. Prime auction ending times include the last day of holiday weekends (when everyone is on the road), as well as any other time that a good percentage of the population will be away from the PC. Placing a proxy bid on these auctions, or even following them if you are able to, can often be a great investment.
Follow Multiple Auctions
Although bidding based on time and EBay usage can bear fruit, the opposite is also true in peak times. If a few similar auctions are ending the same night, then one or more of them might get lost in the shuffle. Interested EBay buyers may snap up the early ones, leaving the scraps for others. Here is the way most of these auction buildups tend to progress: The first item is usually hotly contested by a large group of snipers with the winner usually paying a hefty premium for their victory. Subsequent auctions are far less active, with the buying crowd using them as a barometer of overall price levels for the night. These can be referred to the “post-shock” auctions and it is here where smart bidders can possibly win for far less than the first auction went for. By the time the final auction rolls around, it is back to the same voracious bidding of the first auction, as many have discovered it is the last one for the night.
The above scenario only applies to the really hot items like overclockable CPUs, high-end 3D cards or low priced SDRAM. For more common auction items, having a large pack of them end on the same night can lead to even better values, since sniping will likely not be as large a problem. Smart bidders simply observe how the first few auctions progress, then place a proxy bid or snipe appropriately at the subsequent items. Since winning bidders will continually be dropping out of the race, there will be less of an EBay market for these later auctions, and the inadvertent creation of a glut can pay dividends for the interested parties.
Brownouts are your Friends
All's fair in love, war and EBay, so if competing bidders cannot get online, then that is something many bidders use to their own advantage. EBay auctions end at their allotted time, no matter if the system goes down for hours, or the entire East Coast experiences an Internet brownout. I have been on EBay during a few such instances and there was bargain hunting galore. It was like a party that no one came to, and a few smart EBay'ers probably outfitted their PCs for a fraction of the retail cost.
On the flip side, EBay itself is not the most stable online entity and downtimes occur at random intervals. While it is impossible to time such random crashes, if a bidder currently holds a few items at exceptionally low bids, then a system crash can actually be quite beneficial. If EBay goes down and does not come back up again until after these auctions have closed, then the bidder won them by default, and at the pre-crash bid. With the growing amount of last-second bidding, combined with EBay's unyielding auction ending times, a smart bidder can sometimes use these factors to their advantage.
Know your Competition
For those serious about getting deals on EBay it is important to know who you might be up against. If an interesting auction is found, before doing anything further, be sure to see who is currently bidding on it. Use the Bidding History to check out the current high bidder as well as the previous bidders who could reenter the party at any time. Feedback is a useful tool for this research, and finding out what products the other bidders have won in the past can illustrate their buying habits, as well as their potential for excessive bidding and sniping. If the current bidders are not big PC buyers and concentrate on Beanie Baby auctions, a higher bid may ward them off. Conversely, if the high bidder has been paying exorbitant prices for high-end hardware, then it might be a better use of time to just to move on to another auction.
Search for Misplaced Items
Finding misplaced EBay auction items can be one of the most rewarding aspects of the entire process. Just about everyone and his dog is selling on EBay and the vendors offering PC hardware and software will include computer retailers, junk dealers, pawn shops, flea market gurus, along with members of the general public. With such a wide array of sellers comes an equally varying level of knowledge concerning computer hardware and the value of individual components. You might find a new 28 GB hard drive priced at a dollar sitting over in Electronics, or a DVD-Player placed in Automotive. By using the search engines inventively and spending a little time perusing the individual auctions, a bidder may find exactly what they are looking for at a fraction of the cost. Also, if no other bidder has found that same item, then you are likely to win it for song. Just to be safe, a smart bidder always assumes that someone else did find it, and is ready to counter bid if necessary.
In Closing
EBay has been successful for one reason, it fills a real need in the online marketplace and gives buyers and sellers a viable market for online transactions. It can also be a bit difficult getting your feet wet in the online auction environment and we hope that this EBay Buyer's Guide has been helpful in illustrating how EBay works, as well as helping to make potential purchases cheaper and safer. Also keep in mind that EBay auctions feature just about every product imaginable, so if you get tired of looking for hardware, there is bound to be something interesting sitting in another category.
