posted on March 6, 2007 04:42:37 PM new
I was just looking thru my "didn't win" section on ebay, and came across an item - my max bid was $6.00 and I was the winning bidder until the last day, the winning bid was $6.03! I thought it would have to be at least $6.50. What gives?
posted on March 6, 2007 07:53:57 PM new
deichen wrote: I was just looking thru my "didn't win" section on ebay, and came across an item - my max bid was $6.00 and I was the winning bidder until the last day, the winning bid was $6.03! I thought it would have to be at least $6.50. What gives?
The simple story is your maximum bid of $6.00 was less than the other bidder's maximum of $6.03. The full story is you haven't yet discovered one of the secrets to making winning bidding on eBay - always use odd numbered maximum bids that exceed the next bid increment i.e. if someone else's current bid is $5.50 (with a hidden maximum bid of $6.00) then you would need to bid at least $6.05 (or more) to win.
Many bidders will use whole, round amounts when bidding - primarily out of habit and sometimes out of sheer laziness. You can take advantage of them by guessing their maximum and adding a few cents (see below).
Understanding eBay's bid increments is also useful if you bid, but don't become the high bidder. If after your bid, the price ends up lower than your bid plus the bid increment (you bid $6.00 and the price rises to $6.03 and NOT $6.50 as expected), then you just discovered the high bidder's maximum... so you know to counter bid with an amount of at least $6.57 in the last seconds of the auction.
posted on March 6, 2007 11:05:01 PM new
I bid on items for our museum, and I *always* bid with odd numbers--$32.39, $10.19, etc.
Oh, and I frequently win the items.
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