Hey all.
I’ve been wondering if there’s any real strategy to winning auctions on eBay. It seems almost every auction I’m interested in I get sniped by 1 dollar at the last second.
Do you guys hold off bidding at all till the last second, or put in your max bid and walk away?
Thanks and happy Sunday
Put your max bid in and hope for the best. That’s how I’ve won my auctions, but tbh if I really want something ain’t nobody got time for auctions I just buy it 
You have no clue how much you actually lost an auction by. It just looks like $1, but could easily be hundreds.
Snipping is nice to avoid someone bidding you up. The thought process is someone puts in a bid sees they aren’t the leader so they bid again, if you snipe bid they don’t have time to put in a second bid. Gixen is a free service, to snipe for you. There’s others out there as well.
Most of the time the better option is to message the seller offering them a price for their card. It doesn’t always work, as I personally reject all offers made to me, but a lot of times it does.
As far as other strategies go there’s not any more except really scummy things, that I probably shouldn’t mention.
Many strategies, but the one I live with is determine in your head the absolute max you are willing to pay for an item—without buyer remorse—and enter it in the last seconds. If you win, great, if you lose, you lose. But you also avoid auction ego battles. And when an item gets bid up to above market values with multiple bidders over days/hours, that tends to give those same bidders confidence they are not crazy for bidding that high, and the price tends to keep going up making it more expensive to buy. BUT, if you are a seller, you obviously want the opposite with early and often bidders!
The best strategy to win an auction is to bid high and bid last.
Just put in your max price with 5 seconds left. If you win, great. If you lose, at least you didn’t get into a emotional bidding war and pay more than you were comfortable with.
Any auction i seriously want to win, I always bid in the last seconds. Been using Gixen for that for quite some time now. I really do not see any advantage as a buyer in bidding early on.
Sometimes I bid early to get the price up high enough to draw less attention. No evidence that its been a successful strategy.
I’ve seen the bid early strategy work. It prices people out who think they will get a deal. Basically lowering the potential competition.
I third, fourth, fifth. I lost count. Anyways. I always bid last 20 seconds lol.
Every bid must somehow include the numbers 420 or 69.
How do you know it works when you don’t get to see what the outcome would be if that strategy wasn’t used?
Because it’s usually on higher end items. I assume the strategy works when the bid doesn’t move.
This precisely!
Even if you lose, you still win because if you did your homework, you know how much the card is worth and from that can determine the maximum you would want to bid. Shouldn’t overpay unless you REALLY want the item, then you could perhaps place the bid at 15-10 seconds so you have time to place a follow up bid if needed.
Besides bidding high and late the only tip I have is not too bid exact numbers or standard bids like .00 or .50…always use .26 or .78
or something etc…I’ve won quite a few items in the last 15 years by a few pennies that way
If you want to get really technical you should bid on an increment of an auction block plus a few cents to prevent the next auction block.
If the current high bid on the auction is from $0.01 to $0.99, then the next bid must be at least $0.05 higher.
If the current high bid is $1.00 to $4.99, then the next bid must be at least $0.25 higher.
If $5.00 to $24.99, the next bid must be at least $0.50 higher.
If $25.00 to $99.99, the next bid must be at least $1.00 higher.
If $100.00 to $249.99, the next bid must be at least $2.50 higher.
If $250.00 to $499.99, the next bid must be at least $5.00 higher.
If $500.00 to $999.99, the next bid must be at least $10.00 higher.
$1,000.00 to $2,499.99, the next bid must be at least $25.00 higher.
If $2,500 to $4,999.99, the next bid must be at least $50.00 higher.
If $5,000.00 or higher, the next bid must be at least $100.00 higher.
using this you could get an advantage by say an item is 5k you bid 5100.01 and the next bid has to be 5200.01 and if someone has a snipe bid for 5200 it’ll block them from bidding.
I bid my highest at the last second aka sniping. Removes all emotional aspect to bidding for both you and what your competitors might have against you. If they win, oh well they were willing to pay more and deserve it. My issue with bidding high and early is that people will run up to your max bid then back out and if it’s just one guy you probably could had got the item last second for a cheaper price.
Would they not be priced out anyway once the “serious” people put in their bids in the final seconds? I guess it could work in some situations. One could also do both by putting in a temporary decent bid to scare off some competitors while also having a much higher max bid ready for the final seconds.
For items that are more niche or has a poor description in the title, an early high bid could also attract unwanted attention…
A very good point above is to put in uneven numbers! If your bid is $50, then bid maybe $52.50 instead.
Thank you everyone for your answers. This has explained quite a bit
Gixen is a great site, but last I checked they limited the free service to 3 items per month or something unless I am mistaken. I use it for items that are late at night and I do not want to stay up for. Best idea, have a high number in mind and let it fly at the last second or let gixen do it for you.