Placing your auction bid

To fill out the bidding form and place a bid, first make sure that you’re registered. (For help in registering, see Chapter 3.) After you make your first bid on an item, you can instantly get to auctions you’re bidding on from your My eBay page. Follow these steps to place a bid:

1. Sign in to your eBay account, and find an item that you’d like to buy.

2. Click the Place Bid button and in the resulting box, enter your maximum bid on your selected item’s page.

   Your bid must be higher than the current minimum bid and you are not required to place one of the bids suggested by eBay (as shown in Figure 6-2).

   You don’t need to put in the dollar sign, but you do need to use a decimal point — unless you really want to pay $1,049.00 instead of $10.49. If you make a mistake with an incorrect decimal point, you can retract your bid (see “Retracting Your Bid in an Emergency,” at the end of this chapter).

3. Click Bid.

   The Review and Confirm Your Bid page appears on your screen, filling it with all the costs involved in purchasing the item. This is your last chance to change your mind: Do you really want the item, and can you really buy it? The bottom line is this: If you bid on it and you win, you buy it.

4. If you are sure you want to bid on the item and agree to the terms, click Confirm Bid.

   After you agree, the Bid Confirmation screen appears.

5. After you place your bid, you will either be the high bidder … or not.

   You’ll know where you stand because a window pops up confirming your bid or letting you know your bid wasn’t high enough, as shown in Figure 6-3.

eBay considers a bid on an item to be a binding contract. You can save yourself a lot of heartache if you promise never to bid on an item you don’t intend to buy. Don’t make spurious bids on the silly assumption that because you’re new to eBay, you can’t win; if you do that, you’ll probably win simply because you’ve left yourself open to Murphy’s Law. Therefore, before you click Place Bid, be sure that you’re in this auction for the amount you’re bidding — and make yourself another promise to figure out the maximum you’re willing to spend — and stick to it.

If you want to practice bidding, go to eBay’s Test Bid page at

http://pages.ebay.com/education/tutorial/course1/bidding/

Bidding to the max with automatic (proxy) bidding

When you make a maximum bid on an item, you actually make several small bids — again and again — until the bidding reaches where you told it to stop. For example, if the current bid is up to $19.99 and you put in a maximum of $45.02, your bid automatically increases incrementally so you’re ahead of the competition — at least until someone else’s maximum bid exceeds yours. Basically, you bid by proxy, which means the automatic-bid feature stands in for you so your bid rises incrementally in response to other bidders’ bids.

No one else knows whether you’re bidding automatically, and no one knows how high your maximum bid is. And the best part is that you can be out enjoying your life while the proxy bidding happens automatically.

The bid increment is the amount of money by which a bid is raised, and eBay’s system can work in mysterious ways. Buyers and sellers have no control over the bid increments that eBay sets. The current maximum bid can jump up a nickel or a quarter or even a twenty-dollar bill, but there is a method to the madness (even though you may not think so). To determine how much to increase the bid increment, eBay uses a bid-increment formula that’s based on the current high bid. Here are examples:

• A 5-quart bottle of cold cream has a current high bid of $14.95. The bid increment is $0.50 — meaning that if you bid by proxy, your automatic bid will be $15.45.
• A 5-ounce can of top-notch caviar has a high bid of $200. The bid increment is $2.50. If you choose to bid by proxy, your bid will be $202.50.

Table 6-1 shows you what happens when you put the proxy system and a bid-increment formula together in the same cyber-room.

Using the lounging-around strategy

Sometimes the best strategy at the beginning of an auction is to do nothing at all. That’s right; relax, take off your shoes, and loaf. You may want to make a token bid (the very lowest you are allowed) or mark the page to Watch on your My eBay page. I generally take this attitude through the first six days of a week-long auction I want to bid on, and it works pretty well. I do, however, check in to keep tabs on important items I’m watching on My eBay, and revise my strategy as time passes.

If an auction has received no bids 12 hours before the auction ends, the seller has the right to change the minimum bid. Also, if there is a Buy It Now option on an auction, someone can swoop in and purchase the item for the stated price. If you place the minimum as a token bid when you first see the auction, you may foil a Buy It Now from another bidder. (Buy It Now is disabled after a bid is placed in some categories. In others, it disappears once the reserve is met — if there is one.)

If you see an item that you absolutely must have, mark it to watch (or make a token bid) and revise your maximum bid as the auction goes on. I can’t stress enough how important this is.

As you check back each day, take a look at the other bids and the high bidder. Is someone starting a bidding war? Look at the time when the competition is bidding and note any patterns, such as lunchtime bidding. If you know what time your major competition is bidding, you can bid after he or she does.

Using the beat-the-clock strategy

You should rev up your bidding strategy during the final 24 hours of an auction and decide, once and for all, whether you really have to have the item you’ve been eyeing. Maybe you put in a maximum bid of $45.02 earlier in the week. Now’s the time to decide whether you’re willing to go as high as $50.02. Maybe $56.03?

No one wants to spend the day in front of the computer (ask almost anyone who does), but if you have a smartphone, you might want to use the eBay mobile app while running errands. Just place a sticky note where you’re likely to see it, reminding you of the exact time the auction ends. If you’re not going to be near a computer when the auction closes, you can also use an automatic bidding software program to bid for you; see “Succeeding by Sniping,” later in this chapter, for details.

In the last few minutes

With half an hour left before the auction becomes ancient history, head for the computer and dig in for the last battle of the bidding war. I recommend that you sign on to eBay about 10 to 15 minutes before the auction ends. The last thing you want is to get caught in Internet gridlock and not get access to the eBay website. Go to the items you’re watching and click the auction title.

With 10 minutes to go, if there’s a lot of action on your auction, click reload or refresh every 30 seconds to get the most current info on how many people are bidding.

Bidding in odd increments is just one of the many strategies to get you ahead of the rest of the bidding pack without paying more than you should. Many of the strategies in this chapter are for bidders who are tracking an item over the course of a week or more, so be sure you have time to track the item and plan your next move. Also, get a few auctions under your belt before you throw yourself into the middle of a bidding war.

Hunting for errors

Some of my best buys on eBay were the result of searching for misspellings. Many sellers are in a hurry when they set up their auction listings, and to err is human (and to win, divine). I am more than willing to forgive sellers for their mistakes because the payoff for bargain hunters is, well, a bargain.

Think of alternative spellings when you search for an item. A favorite of mine is Von Furstenburg for Von Furstenberg. Usually, I search for the correct spelling and find a bunch of items where the bidding can get steep. But when I search for the misspelled version, I may find identical items that have no bids, because I’m the only one who has found the listing. Figure 6-4 shows that eBay is often aware of misspellings when it comes to name brands.

You can search for both the correct and incorrect spellings by using a search such as (furstenberg,furstenburg). Book 2 gives you lots more search tricks.

I was also successful during one holiday season when computer-animated cats were popular (and going for extremely high prices on eBay, because they were sold out everywhere across the country). The brand name was FurReal. I searched for spellings like fur real and furreal and found many bargains.

eBay smartened up and now sometimes shows alternative spellings — but not always (what is the right way to spell L’Occitane?).

A couple of our favorite misspellings are neckless (instead of necklace) — currently 2,305 items up for sale — and vidio (instead of video), for which 180 are currently on the site. I accidentally ran a misspelled search for a popular electronics game and noticed that there were 29 items spelled Nitendo. Note that eBay did suggest the proper spelling of Nintendo, with 43,902 items.

There are a couple of websites that can help you find misspelled bargains on eBay; check out www.fatfingers.com and www.typohound.com for some stellar examples.

Researching your item

Sometimes we (that includes me and you) find what we think is an incredible deal on eBay. It may well be, especially if we know that the retail price is, say, $80 and we’re seeing a Buy It Now or an auction closing at $40. If a low, low price works for you, just go ahead and buy the item if you want it right away. To find the best price for any item on eBay, do your homework to find out what similar items on eBay (or Amazon) tend to sell for.

When you conduct your eBay research, the best strategy is to look at the prices achieved in previous sales. Do a search for Sold auctions. Then check an auction’s bid history by clicking the number of bids placed on the auction item page (the link appears next to the Winning Bid price). You’ll be presented with a screen like the one in Figure 6-5. This will at least give you an idea of how many people are duking it out for the item, if not their actual IDs. You should also click the Show Automatic Bids link on the right, so you can see how many bids were placed by proxy.

Pay attention to the times when bidders are placing their bids, and you may find that the people bidding in the auction are creatures of habit — making their bids about once a day and at a particular time of day. They may be logging on before work, during lunch, or after work. Whatever their schedules, you have great info at your disposal in the event that a bidding war breaks out: Just bid after your competition traditionally logs out, and you increase your odds of winning the auction.

Early in an auction, there may not be much of a bidding history for an item, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still check out the dates and times a bidder places bids. You can also tell whether a bidder practices sniping (discussed later in this chapter) if his or her bid is in the last few seconds of the auction. You may have a fight on your hands if the bidder uses sniping.

Sniping techniques for the beginner

Here’s a list of things to keep in mind when you get ready to place your snipe bid:

• Know how high you’re willing to go. If you know you’re facing a lot of competition, figure out your highest bid to the penny. You should have already researched the item and figured out its value. Raise your bid only to the level where you’re sure you’re getting a good return on your investment; don’t go overboard. Certainly, if the item has some emotional value and you just have to have it, bid as high as you want. But remember, you’ll have to pay the piper later. You win it, you own it!
• Know how fast (or slow) your Internet connection is. Before you start sniping, figure out how long it takes to get your bid confirmed on eBay. Test it a few times until you know how many seconds you have to spare when placing a bid.
• Don’t lose heart if you lose the auction. Remember, this is a game.

Although sellers love sniping because it drives up prices and bidders love it because it’s fun, a sniper can ruin a week’s careful work on an auction strategy. The most skillful snipers sneak in a bid so close to the end of the auction that you have no chance to counter-bid. Losing too often, especially to the same sniper, can be a drag. See the section on BidRobot further on to solve this problem (it works for me).

If your Internet connection is slow and you want to do some sniping, make your final bid two minutes before the auction ends and adjust the amount of the bid as high as you feel comfortable so you can beat out the competition. If you can make the highest bid with just 10 seconds left, you most likely will win. With so many bids coming in the final seconds, your bid might be the last one eBay records.

This stuff is supposed to be fun, so don’t lose perspective. If you can’t afford an item, don’t get caught up in a bidding war. Otherwise, the only person who wins is the seller. If you’re losing sleep, barking at your cat, or biting your nails over an item, it’s time to rethink what you’re doing. If it’s taking up too much of your life or an item costs too much, be willing to walk away — or log off — and live to bid another day.

To snipe a bid manually (without a sniping service), first make sure you’re signed in. Then follow these steps to snipe at the end of the auction:

1. In the last few minutes of the auction, locate the item you want to win and press Ctrl+N to open a second window on your Internet browser.

   Keep one window open for bidding, as shown in Figure 6-6.

2. Continuously click the Reload or Refresh button that appears in the last few minutes of an auction, just above the Place Bid button.

   By reloading the item continually, you’ll be aware when you’re in the last 60 seconds of bidding. You also can see instantly whether anyone else is doing any last-minute bidding.

3. In the bid box of the second browser, type your maximum bid and then click the Place Bid button.

   You then face a page that, when you press the button, finalizes and confirms your bid on the item. Do not click the Confirm Bid button yet.

4. As the auction nears its end, confirm your final bid by clicking the Confirm Bid button.

   You know when the auction is almost over because you’re reloading your first browser continually. The longer you can hold off bidding before the auction ends, the better.

If you really want an item bad enough, you may want to set up a backup for your snipe. Try my three-screen system, in which you can place a backup high bid in case you catch another sniper swooping in on your item immediately after your first snipe.

Obviously, if you win with the first snipe, the second window is unnecessary. But if you lose the first one, that second window feels like a real lifesaver! If you’re outbid after two snipes, don’t cry. The winner paid way more than you were willing to pay. It’s not much consolation, but rarely is an item so rare that you only see it come on the auction block once in a lifetime.

Auto-sniping your auctions

My daughter says that I can make almost anything high-maintenance, and she may very well be right. When it comes to eBay bidding and winning, a bunch of software programs and websites can help automate your shopping and feedback process. I like that they will bid for me whether I’m near a computer or sleeping peacefully.

Here is one bidding service that I have used successfully: BidRobot. Shown in Figure 6-7, BidRobot deftly places sniping bids for you from its servers. It’s won many an auction for me while I’ve been on the road or busy writing. The service is one of the least expensive out there, charging a low flat rate. Get a three-week free trial (all you can snipe for three weeks!) at

www.bidrobot.com/cool

BidRobot also has a BidGroup feature to use if you’re bound and determined to get the lowest price for an item. This is accomplished by planning a bidding schedule at a set price. The bidding continues until you win your item (or not). Here’s how it works.

1. Search for your item. Search for your specific item on eBay. You may find a large number of eBay auctions that offer your item.
2. Select the auctions you’d like to bid on. Review the listings (checking the seller’s feedback, description, and eBay Buyer Protection availability) and select six different listings.
3. Create your first snipe. Type your first snipe bid in the pale-yellow Bid section (at the very top of the BidRobot bid screen) and select the option to indicate that you want to create a group of bids with the other five auctions.
4. Group the other auctions. To bid on other sellers’ auctions, scroll down until you find the Pending Bid Group that contains your first item bid. Then use the form in that BidGroup area to add more snipe bids for other auctions in that specific BidGroup. You may add bids for as many additional auctions as you like to this group.
5. Winning. If you win any one of the auctions in your BidGroup, the remaining bids in that specific group will not be placed. This is automatic.