"Those people should be hunted down and shot like rabid animals."
ROFLMAO !!! No point in messing about; get SERIOUS !!
I've bought and sold a fair number of times on eBay - Trains, Cameras ( My other hobby. ), Antique China, Tupperware ( My Wife's hobbies ) and assorted other items.
In Bidding I vary between the "Place Max Bid Now" camp and the "Snipe It At 5 Seconds" camp. If an auction ends at a time that I can easily be on-line to monitor it I will generally hold off bidding until the end of the auction. However, if the item ends at 3:13AM local time, I will go ahead and bid my maximum plus an odd amount between $.10 & $1. That way I end up with a bid of say $6.24 on an item that my Max was $6. You would be suprised how many times I've won on the strength of that odd cents amount.
In selling I've always used the USPS for shipping, unless an item was too bulky. And I always add $1 to the shipping cost to compensate for the time it takes to Pack, Label and Ship an item. I don't believe that the $1 does anything more than partially offset the cost.
Mark Gosdin
I have about a dozen "saved searches" on eBay from which I get an e-mail every day of all new matching items. So usually, when I come across something that I really want, it's still got about 6 days left, and I just know that the low, low price it's starting with will be way up by the time it hits the < 1 day mark when I start deciding whether or not I want to bid. Like some others, I keep track of this stuff in my Watchlist, and I remove it when the price gets too high for me (unless I'm curious about how much a sucker is paying).
I don't know that there's that much different between sniping an auction and bidding in advance, at least in terms of being able to win something. Since eBay doesn't work like a "traditional" auction, where you have to announce each higher bid, setting a max bid in advance just means that a sniper is going to have to snipe for more than that to win it. If they outbid you, it's ok because the price is beyond your max, and if not, you win and they can't re-bid. You might, maybe, end up paying more for the item, but you're still going to be under your max. It may kill some of the "great deals", but for me at least, most of the "great deals" I'm bidding on are for stuff that I don't really need, and so I set a low bid anyway (and I still win things by "accident").
Something I maybe should have mentioned in my previous post is that I really have three different "classes" of stuff that I watch/buy from eBay: stuff I want, stuff I need, and stuff I really, really want/need.
The first class ("stuff I want") is mostly where I see the "great deals". I somethings trawl through the first few pages of the HO section on eBay just to look for something that I want or could use that's going for a ridiculously low price. Sometimes this ends up being stuff in the last minute of bidding, but it's not really sniping (to me) since I wasn't setting up for that for some time.
The second class ("stuff I need") is generally for locos/shells/parts that I need to have on hand for kitbash projects (for when I get back to working on them, anyway). Sometimes it's because I'm at a standstill, and sometimes I'm just stocking up on things for the future. This class also includes some other random stuff that's not common, and that I might like to have. I put it into this category because the opportunity is often "use it or lose it" (or at least get stuck waiting for months). For items in this class, I generally set a max bid, and will bid near it in the last day or two, edging up toward the max if I'm outbid.
The third class is for really rare stuff that doesn't really come up often at all. A very limited run brass model with a certain paint scheme (*cough*CNJ GP40P*cough*) would be the sort of thing that falls into this category. I generally don't set a definite max for stuff like this, but I know that there's a certain amount which would just be too much, with a gray area before it. I'll watch these items for a while, and put in bids toward the end, and depending on where the price is and how much I finally decide I actually want the thing, edge my bids up until I'm either winning or have crossed that line into "too much" territory. I imagine that there are probably a few things (or in my case, a whole (very rare and specific) category of things, namely Hoboken Shore stuff (collectibles, mostly, not HO stuff)) which may (or may not, as I've never actually found such things yet) venture into "the sky's the limit" territory, though I'd like to think I'd still be reasonable.
MAbruce wrote: To me it should not merely be a contest of who will win the auction; it should be about winning an auction without overpaying for the item.
To me it should not merely be a contest of who will win the auction; it should be about winning an auction without overpaying for the item.
I recently bid on 12 pieces of N scale Midwest Cork Roadbed. I lost the auction to a couple of people that got into a bidding war. The roadbed went for over $12. plus $9. shipping. That's over $21. with shipping. Discount Trains sells 12 pieces of N scale Midwest Cork Roadbed for $6.87 plus 6.95 shipping, total $13.82. That's $7. cheaper than the person paid for it on ebay. I was disappointed that I didn't win the auction until I saw what the winning bid was.
So many on ebay bid higher just to win an auction without researching what a new item can be purchased for online or from a local source. I lose a lot of auctions for this reason but I'm not going to pay retail for an item on ebay. That's not what I consider a bargin.
Bill
Tom,
Think you have to add a rule to help those who bid on old Rivarossi locos. Of course I'm assuming such bidders have a shred of sanity left. They(the old R engines) run like fecal matter and aren't heavy enough to make decent paperweights.
P.S. did you put a decoder in your NYC S1. If so, which one?
Jon
Bidding early can fuel a price war on an item. Auction bidding is as much a strategy game as anything.
If you bid early, you risk giving away to someone who doesn't know squat what the item is really worth. Why give your competition the benefit of your knowledge?
Not all bidders on ebay are rational ... sometimes when an irrational bidder sees an item has bids, they will start to "bid fish", trying to find the upper limit of the prior bidders' maximum price but not really willing to buy the item -- it's mostly a game for the curious. The end result is they simply drive up the price and if they end up in the lead they become a deadbeat bidder.
The moral of the story is DO NOT give away your knowledge of the item's value nor give away your interest in the item until the latest possible moment. Snipe bidding is how you do that.
Many good sniping services exist ... my favorite is AUCTIONSNIPER. If you use a sniping service you can place your maximum bid when it's convenient and walk away from the auction. The sniping service will place your bid for you in the last few seconds.
Mathematical computer models of a second-price auction* like ebay show consistently that bidding at the latest possible moment most often gets you the item at the best possible price.
NOTE:
*In a second-price auction, high bidder wins, but the second highest bidder's bid plus a small increment sets the price for the item.
Joe Fugate Modeling the 1980s SP Siskiyou Line in southern Oregon
jondrd wrote: Tom, Think you have to add a rule to help those who bid on old Rivarossi locos. Of course I'm assuming such bidders have a shred of sanity left. They(the old R engines) run like fecal matter and aren't heavy enough to make decent paperweights. P.S. did you put a decoder in your NYC S1. If so, which one? Jon
Jon,
Yes - a Lenz LE0521W Micro Back EMF decoder. ("Micro" = N-scale)
It's small enough that I don't have to remove any material to fit it under the hood. Because it comes with Back EMF, the low end speed is terrific.
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
Looks like there was yet another bidding war over at eBay. I was watching the sale of a complete set of (12) Accurail B&O 55-ton hoppers kits. The final bid came in at $162.50, plus $7.41 for S&H. That comes out to $14.16 a car!
I'm not entirely sure if these are out of production kits. But MSRP for Accurail kits is usually $10.98.
NeO6874 wrote: I like ebay... when people "play nice"Sniping gets annoying (especially when its a continued affair... 8 items IN A ROW was my breaking point)
I like ebay... when people "play nice"
After getting sniped 8 times in a row-might be time to start bidding on rifles. Just kidding!!!
MAbruce,
Think the N-scale cork winning bidder was a wee nuts? Ever catch the auto bidding on Barrett-Jackson carried by Speed Channel? Sometimes eBay and Barrett-Jackson drive home the message, "More money than brains".
Thanks for response. I've got a P2K NYC switcher that I've got to change over to DCC so you've shortened the research time and increased the operating time.
You receive your cat whisker FT's yet?
csmith9474 wrote:I have had great luck with poorly listed items. Some sellers make mistakes like misspelling in the title or not having the appropriate keywords in the title. It doesn't happen often, but often enough to take the time to look for things like this.
jondrd wrote: Tom, Thanks for response. I've got a P2K NYC switcher that I've got to change over to DCC so you've shortened the research time and increased the operating time. You receive your cat whisker FT's yet? Jon
Make sure that your Proto 2000 switcher doesn't need the motor insulated from the frame. I had to do that with my S1. But I think the S1 is the exception.
Jon, I also forgot to mention that the LE0521W is NOT a silent decoder, so it "growls" slightly. This kinda bothered me at first. But then I got to thinking, "Ya' know, diesel switchers make noise in real life. Think of it as an inexpensive sound decoder". Now it doesn't bother me at all. (The growl makes it sound tougher, too. )
No - no "Cat whisker" FTs yet. Tim says that he and Bowser/Stewart are still working through logisitics. It's been about a year and a half now since I placed the order. The way things are going, I may not see anything till summer. Even so, there's no real rush. At this point, I'm in it for the long haul.