I think just the opposite, because eBay does not work like a real live art auction. In a real auction, as long as higher bids keep coming in, the auction continues. There's no sniping - if someone raises the bid after the auctioneer has called going twice but before he gets to sold, the previous high bidder gets a chance to counter.
On eBay, the auction is over at the time it says its over, doesn't matter if two or more people are frnatically entering higher and higher bids, at the precise time it ends, whoever had the highest bid is the winner, no matter if someone else was in the middle of submiting a higher bid.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
richhotrainFor all of the above reasons, I rarely participate in auctions, preferring the Buy It Now format instead
I would say 98% of my purchases was BIN and many of those have "free" shipping..
I'm sure shipping cost is included in the price since nothing is free.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
I was bidding on a Stewart powered B unit, which went for $33.55, more than I was willing to spend. There were 8 bids by six bidders. 6 of those bids were in the last 9 minutes and 4 of those were in the last 30 seconds.
I did a buy it now on another B unti that included the shell for $35 and shipping was $4 cheaper.
Some buy it now prices are set for drunk ebay buyers who see something they want now and have no judgement at all.
My experience is similar to Tom, bidding high early starts a bidding war earlier.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
BigDaddybidding high early starts a bidding war earlier.
.
If a product offered is desirable, the bids will be there whether bids start early or not.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
eBay auctions can be conducted by a seller over durations ranging from 1 day to 10 days. While it is true that some early bids take place, particularly when the starting bid is low, the main benefit of longer duration auctions such as 7 and 10 day auctions is to give the item extended exposure to potential buyers. Most winning bids occur on the final day of the auction.
Rich
Alton Junction
Then, every once in a while, you get to witness one of these
Budd_diner by Edmund, on Flickr
This just ended a few days ago. Fun to watch. Oh, and don't forget — this diner is RARE!
I've always had good experiences with my eBay purchases. Just lucky, I guess.
I bid at the last few seconds when possible but I don't use any kind of software. Sometimes I use an ordinary kitchen timer to remind me when an auction is nearing the end.
Recently I've had several "make offer" requests emailed to me on items that I either have saved in my watch list or items that I've browsed. Sometimes these are pretty decent reductions on the original asking price and I have taken advantage of the offers at times.
It always helps to place items in your "Watch" list as eBay will frequently let you know when similar items arrive. I also look at "See Sellers Other Items" and right away you know if you are dealing with a big on-line seller such as Trainz or if it may be the mom & pop trinket shoppe who just happen to have a few train items on hand. It also helps to use the advanced search options and you can choose to be notified when items arrive that fall into your search category.
As the line in The Music Man says, "You gotta know the territory".
BigDaddyMy experience is similar to Tom, bidding high early starts a bidding war earlier.
I've also seen cases where an item had a reasonable "Buy-it-now" price but someone will make a low-ball bid which cancels out the BIN, then the bidding will go way over what the buy it now price originally was. C'est la vie.
Overall, eBay has been a great source for me for books, electronics and model "stuff" for many years.
Good Luck, Ed
SeeYou190 BigDaddy bidding high early starts a bidding war earlier. If a product offered is desirable, the bids will be there whether bids start early or not. -Kevin
BigDaddy bidding high early starts a bidding war earlier.
It also depends how the item is described when placed up for auction. I've seen "desirable" items go under the radar because the description was nebulous and/or not accurate enough for the search engines or "Saved searches" feature to catch. That's why I'll occasionally do my own individual search on eBay for an item(s) apart from the saved searches I've set up for the same item(s).
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
BigDaddy I was bidding on a Stewart powered B unit, which went for $33.55, more than I was willing to spend. There were 8 bids by six bidders. 6 of those bids were in the last 9 minutes and 4 of those were in the last 30 seconds. I did a buy it now on another B unti that included the shell for $35 and shipping was $4 cheaper. Some buy it now prices are set for drunk ebay buyers who see something they want now and have no judgement at all. My experience is similar to Tom, bidding high early starts a bidding war earlier.
Really?
I have bought lots of stuff "buy it now" at prices that were very fair.
And I have won auctions at low prices even when I placed my max bid very early. Years ago I got two Bachmann Spectrum 2-6-6-2's for $75 each.......
And I don't pretend to have any idea what other people are thinking in their bidding/buying choices/methods. Nor do I really care.
I sold GRAVELY tractor parts on Ebay for years, made good money for what it was.
I always sold stuff "buy it now".
I don't sell trains on Ebay, because I don't buy trains that I don't want, so I don't have any trains to sell............
Sheldon
tstageIt also depends how the item is described when placed up for auction.
That is very true.
Back when I was collecting my Bretonnian army for Warhammer, I had a saved search with "Bretonnian" mispelled about a dozen different ways.
I got lots of good bargains from people that listed with spelling errors and other bidders could not find them.
That's a smart strategy, Kevin. On more than one occasion I ended up being the only bidder/buyer on a few auctioned items and BINs because the description "missed the mark".
I have won many eBay auctions by sniping (and I have lost many as well). eBay auctions go to the last bidder, not the highest bidder. For most auctions, many potential bidders say to themselves "I would have paid that for the item". But alas, the auction has ended. Rarely, if ever, does the high bidder get an eBay auction. I laugh at those who bid in the first day of a 7 day auction, and even more so than those who counter-bid on the first day. Why don't we all wait until the last 30 seconds and put our best bid in and let the highest win? Bidding early only raises the price for last bidder.
gmpullman Then, every once in a while, you get to witness one of these Budd_diner by Edmund, on Flickr This just ended a few days ago. Fun to watch. Oh, and don't forget — this diner is RARE! I've always had good experiences with my eBay purchases. Just lucky, I guess. I bid at the last few seconds when possible but I don't use any kind of software. Sometimes I use an ordinary kitchen timer to remind me when an auction is nearing the end. Recently I've had several "make offer" requests emailed to me on items that I either have saved in my watch list or items that I've browsed. Sometimes these are pretty decent reductions on the original asking price and I have taken advantage of the offers at times. It always helps to place items in your "Watch" list as eBay will frequently let you know when similar items arrive. I also look at "See Sellers Other Items" and right away you know if you are dealing with a big on-line seller such as Trainz or if it may be the mom & pop trinket shoppe who just happen to have a few train items on hand. It also helps to use the advanced search options and you can choose to be notified when items arrive that fall into your search category. As the line in The Music Man says, "You gotta know the territory". BigDaddy My experience is similar to Tom, bidding high early starts a bidding war earlier. I've also seen cases where an item had a reasonable "Buy-it-now" price but someone will make a low-ball bid which cancels out the BIN, then the bidding will go way over what the buy it now price originally was. C'est la vie. Overall, eBay has been a great source for me for books, electronics and model "stuff" for many years. Good Luck, Ed
BigDaddy My experience is similar to Tom, bidding high early starts a bidding war earlier.
Gee, and I thought I made out like a bandit when I got $79 for my AHM/Pocher Lincoln Funeral Car, which still had the original $1.99 price tag from when we bought it.
rrinkerGee, and I thought I made out like a bandit when I got $79 for my AHM/Pocher Lincoln Funeral Car,
Aah, but was it RARE?
Regards, Ed
gmpullman rrinker Gee, and I thought I made out like a bandit when I got $79 for my AHM/Pocher Lincoln Funeral Car, Aah, but was it RARE?
rrinker Gee, and I thought I made out like a bandit when I got $79 for my AHM/Pocher Lincoln Funeral Car,
Ed, I don't think they were even well-done...
Yes, on those BIN listings there are "dealers" out there who are watching or tracking the price. If I get in a hurry and drop the price too much, they pounce and buy the item and then relist it for their own stock. Some have even been so brazen as to re-use my uploaded photos when they relist the items for sale.
With brass items in particular, there are 6 or 8 brass "dealers" (using that term loosely) that watch many if not all auctions. I have tried offering them a "deal" at a lower price point, as discussed above, but if it is close to the item's actual value, they never take the deal. They are clearly looking for the steal.
The offers I've been receiving have typically been from people thinking either I'm stupid or desperate to sell as they are typically below dealer net (or on Overland Models brass, below the dealer net cost from 20 years ago.)
I finally gave up and sent some good brass items to Brasstrains.com. One of my engines sold in only 4 days at the price I set, which makes the consignment fee at least worthwhile. The kicker is it may take up to 90 days for the listings to go live, because they have so much to list for sale. However, their inventory sells and much sells fairly fast, so they are doing a lot right.
Bottom line: I have a few last items to go on the evil auction site, and my intention is then to keep all the trains I buy and never list any more for sale again. The hassle that it has become recently, within the past year, is frankly not worthwhile. I also don't appreciate the complaints about shipping charges when I don't set the shipping rates and I eat all shipping materials costs and don't charge a nickel more than the shipping costs me.
I am using Ebay to find a few relatively rare brass models (preferably unpainted) that I want for my railroad, but my days of horse trading or selling are rapidly ending.
John
I don't get the whole "snipe" bit.
Last purchase, I set max bid, sniped last 1 second by $1.
Same item was listed by another seller, with a $10 higher shipping cost. I put a bid $11 lower than the other sold for, and won. So, I still got my item, at what I thought was a fair price.
Ricky W.
HO scale Proto-freelancer.
My Railroad rules:
1: It's my railroad, my rules.
2: It's for having fun and enjoyment.
3: Any objections, consult above rules.
This is all a big game that I have no interest in playing. If I want a locomotive (or bike part or ham radio) I check prices and buy. If it is not worth market price to me, I don't buy it. If I do buy on eBay, which is rare, it is usually as BIN.
Genesee Terminal, freelanced HO in Upstate NY ...hosting Loon Bay Transit Authority and CSX Intermodal. Interchange with CSX (CR)(NYC).
CP/D&H, N scale, somewhere on the Canadian Shield
tstage Doughless So to offset, I suppose a seller should set a BIN now price higher than they really want, then send out discounts to the watchers at the real price. That's called "marketing". Online and b&m stores, as well as "infomercial" stuff that is sold on TV have used this tactic to sell merchanise for years. They tell you what the MSRP or going price is for an item then discount it to give you the [false] notion (aka "the hook") that you're getting a bargin. Asking price and "worth" are two totally separate things. You also have to watch out for S&H cost that a seller might use to recoup some of the loss they are taking for selling an item or items at lower cost. I think the automotive and residential services (window replacement, carpet cleaning, etc.) use marketing tactics the most often. Ask 10 people on the street which offer sounds better: 25% off all tires or Purchase 3 tires and get the 4th one FREE I'd be willing to guess that more than 50% would say the latter. (In fact, they're both exactly the same.) It's just a numbers game. Folks hear the word "free" and they lose all sense of reasoning. And there's "the hook" for selling someone four new tires for their car, or replacement windows for their house. Tom
Doughless So to offset, I suppose a seller should set a BIN now price higher than they really want, then send out discounts to the watchers at the real price.
That's called "marketing". Online and b&m stores, as well as "infomercial" stuff that is sold on TV have used this tactic to sell merchanise for years. They tell you what the MSRP or going price is for an item then discount it to give you the [false] notion (aka "the hook") that you're getting a bargin. Asking price and "worth" are two totally separate things. You also have to watch out for S&H cost that a seller might use to recoup some of the loss they are taking for selling an item or items at lower cost.
I think the automotive and residential services (window replacement, carpet cleaning, etc.) use marketing tactics the most often. Ask 10 people on the street which offer sounds better:
25% off all tires
or
Purchase 3 tires and get the 4th one FREE
I'd be willing to guess that more than 50% would say the latter. (In fact, they're both exactly the same.) It's just a numbers game. Folks hear the word "free" and they lose all sense of reasoning. And there's "the hook" for selling someone four new tires for their car, or replacement windows for their house.
Yeah, but if a store does that, the buyers will just pass by the store every day of the year until the sale happens, rendering the other days of the year a waste of overhead expenses.
All I meant was that buyers simply wait for how much discount you offer. I used to be able to put something on BIN for 7 days, IIRC. Now the minimum listing is 29 days. So they watch and wait, like I'm a store with inventory on the ebay shelves. All it does is force the sellers to raise the BIN price to above market value. I'd think the process slows down the number of items sold and raises the amount of listed clutter than if the BIN price was simply the bottom line like it used to be.
- Douglas
When it comes to shopping, some people live for the hunt, some don't.
I don't. And I hardly ever buy anything you would call "used".
So I have no time for all these mental exercises trying to guess the thinking of sellers or other buyers, but I still manage to get lots of good deals, like my two $75 Spectrum 2-6-6-2's.....
ATLANTIC CENTRAL When it comes to shopping, some people live for the hunt, some don't. I don't. And I hardly ever buy anything you would call "used". So I have no time for all these mental exercises trying to guess the thinking of sellers or other buyers, but I still manage to get lots of good deals, like my two $75 Spectrum 2-6-6-2's..... Sheldon
It really isn't thinking about them on a continual basis. Its just a matter of listing an item differently when Ebay changes the rules.
I freelance and my railroad has no fixed type of loco. I have no needs. I simply swap out different locos from time to time just to watch them operate, mostly four axle diesels. Different locos get acquired and some get sold off, especially new models I'm unfamiliar with and I find out they were not designed or built as I expected, which is happening more and more these days. They're not out of factory specs to return, they're just not up to my standards.
I just bought a brand new MSRP $250 loco that has a yellow-glow headlight, but bluish cool-white ditchlights. What a cheap, unthought out, ugly and distracting design (just grabbed what they had in the parts bins?). Not going to fiddle with swapping out the lights, so it might get recycled to the secondary market as "Like New". Now I know never to buy that vintage loco ever again.
As far as sniping, if I want an item, I'll make time to check the bids on the auction once in a while. I don't think sniping matters much because the winner pays no more than just a dollar or so above the next bid, so placing it 6 days or 6 seconds before the end yields the same results most of the time.
The relatively few items I am hunting just do not turn up very often, but some did around Christmas a year ago, when I was not flush with cash. The list is 20 to 30 models of individual road-specific engines that I either would buy and run as is or would have painted to represent some other roadname.
I usually do not appreciate comments like "lives for the hunt".
There are items I've hunted for over 25 years and never found again, or not again at a price I felt was "affordable" so I simply do without. If one shows up tomorrow and I have disposable cash, then I'll buy it, but I don't know when tomorrow might be (one example, and only steamer on the list: Max Gray or Westside SP 4-10-2 in excellent to mint condition and/or excellent paint).
gmpullman rrinker Gee, and I thought I made out like a bandit when I got $79 for my AHM/Pocher Lincoln Funeral Car, Aah, but was it RARE? Regards, Ed
Half the stuff on Ebay is listed as rare as an excuse to rip people off. That Walthers phase IV diner that finished aroudn $2500 I seriously doubt actually got paid for. So who made out like a bandit? Probably nobody.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
PRR8259 The relatively few items I am hunting just do not turn up very often, but some did around Christmas a year ago, when I was not flush with cash. The list is 20 to 30 models of individual road-specific engines that I either would buy and run as is or would have painted to represent some other roadname. I usually do not appreciate comments like "lives for the hunt". There are items I've hunted for over 25 years and never found again, or not again at a price I felt was "affordable" so I simply do without. If one shows up tomorrow and I have disposable cash, then I'll buy it, but I don't know when tomorrow might be (one example, and only steamer on the list: Max Gray or Westside SP 4-10-2 in excellent to mint condition and/or excellent paint). John
Well John, I was not referring to you with that comment, but if the show fits?
Unlike you or Douglas, I don't buy stuff, keep it a while and resell it. In 50 years I have only sold about a dozen items I later decided were not acceptable or useful.
That does not even amount to 1% of my loco and rolling stock fleet.
But I think there are too many factors at play to think you can beat the system in any way on Ebay. It is just the luck of the draw.
For many years I sold custom GRAVELY tractor parts, always as "buy it now". For what it was, I stayed pretty busy, custom up grades for 20 year old garden tractors that have a bit of a hobby following.........
When I sometimes took an item down, I never saw any "pent up" demand when I put it back up, in fact I often wondered if I had missed sales?
Virtually everything model train related that I have ever bought on Ebay is "new old stock", never been out of the box.
Recent exception, trying to gather up some Brawa/Eheim trolley buses, some what played with may be all I find.
ATLANTIC CENTRAL Well John, I was not referring to you with that comment, but if the show fits? Unlike you or Douglas, I don't buy stuff, keep it a while and resell it. In 50 years I have only sold about a dozen items I later decided were not acceptable or useful. That does not even amount to 1% of my loco and rolling stock fleet. But I think there are too many factors at play to think you can beat the system in any way on Ebay. It is just the luck of the draw. Sheldon
Let me be clear, I rarely buy any train with the INTENTION of reselling it (there have been some projects of turning a sows ear into a silk purse). In the past, any churning of the fleet was more about honing it to a particular focus, and then there was the switch over to DCC/Onboard sound, so there were many models that were just going to sit around the train room and not get used.
Now most sales occur because the new item I buy is a POS, by my standards. And that includes some of the newer more modern designs with recent electronics. And if they are a POS, I won't run it. Selling them certainly wasn't the intent when I bought them, and I have little patience anymore for fiddling with models trying to make them right.
riogrande5761 gmpullman rrinker Gee, and I thought I made out like a bandit when I got $79 for my AHM/Pocher Lincoln Funeral Car, Aah, but was it RARE? Regards, Ed Half the stuff on Ebay is listed as rare as an excuse to rip people off. That Walthers phase IV diner that finished aroudn $2500 I seriously doubt actually got paid for. So who made out like a bandit? Probably nobody.
If you don't know how "rare" it is, or what its value is, maybe you should not be buying it?
On-line auctions may provide a measure of thrill - or angst - for some. But not like another type that exists. As my wife was born in Holland, I've found it enjoyable to become acquainted with things Dutch. One of the items that came across my path was the manner in which the Dutch auction off consignments of fresh flowers to be flown out from the warehouses near Schipol airport. As I understand it, the auctioneer starts with a high price that he knows no broker will pay, then he begins to come DOWN. The first broker to jump gets the lot. To me, that takes some real guts!
Attuvian, the auctioneer starts with a high price that he knows no broker will pay, then he begins to come DOWN. The first broker to jump gets the lot.
I have received notifications for house auctions that start high and then go lower until someone buzzes in. The auction ends with one bid.
I have never gone to an auction like that. I tend to think the final price would be about the same, just less bidding, "One And Done".
Maybe this is the ultimate form of sniping.
SeeYou190 Attuvian , the auctioneer starts with a high price that he knows no broker will pay, then he begins to come DOWN. The first broker to jump gets the lot. . I have received notifications for house auctions that start high and then go lower until someone buzzes in. The auction ends with one bid. -Kevin
, the auctioneer starts with a high price that he knows no broker will pay, then he begins to come DOWN. The first broker to jump gets the lot.
Better know your stuff. There are few to no second chances. As a buyer, not so good to come back to the boss with a pile of money and no product.
ATLANTIC CENTRALIf you don't know how "rare" it is, or what its value is, maybe you should not be buying it?
The little whistling emoji I placed after my comment was there to imply sarcasm. Tom Stage picked up on it.
I know eBay sellers throw out the rare term in order to generate excitement for their offering.
Ever been to a used car lot? "This baby's a real cream puff!"
Everything on eBay is a cream puff (sarcasm again)
BTW, the Amtrak diner I mentioned (no surprise) has been relisted
Cheers, Ed
Yep, saw that, and of course, it's still "RARE!" as the seller puts it. Which is good! I hate my diners "well done".
Mike.
My You Tube