eBay Bidding Strategies. Your guide on How to Win!

When bidding on eBay, you have several options to make sure you make a winning bid. A smart strategy will increase your chances of winning. I will summarize some of the different strategies:

1) Proxy Bid - A Proxy Bid is simply a bid that is higher than the current auction price. You can enter at any time before the end of auction. eBay's system will increment to the next highest price automatically up to your maximum bid. How does this work? Say an auction item currently has a bid price of $5.00 and it doesn't close for 3 days. You enter $20.00 since this is the maximum you want to pay. eBay's system will increase the bid price to $5.50. If another buyer comes in at $7.50, he will be outbid automatically by you and the bid price will now be $8.00. This will continue until your maximum bid price is reached, and then you will be outbid, at which point you can enter a new proxy bid price, or just decide it is not worth that much to you.

Advantages: You don't have to watch the auction like a hawk, and don't have to worry that maybe you didn't bid close enough to the end of the auction.

Disadvantages: Your proxy bid may get outbid quickly, sometimes immediately if another buyer has a proxy bid in place. Often last minute bids will be higher than your proxy leading to disappointment, especially if you were the high bidder for several days. Once you place your proxy bid, you have a contract to buy that item up to your maximum bid. You cannot change your mind and back out.

2) Watch List - Simply place the item on your watch list and monitor it closely. A few minutes or even seconds before the end of close, swoop in and place your maximum bid. I have used this strategy many times, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

Advantages: Watching does not artificially inflate the bid price as other bidders try to outbid you. You can change your maximum bid depending on how bidding progressed over the course of the auction, and possibly change your mind entirely not to buy without any consequences.

Disadvantages: You may forget to bid. I can't tell you how many times I have got busy exactly at the time of auction close, and completely forgot to bid. Worse yet, the winning bid was lower than I expected. You may experience computer slowness, or loss of internet connection at the worst possible times. Auctions that have 100's of photos sometimes take 30 or more seconds to load, and you may miss the opportunity to bid altogether while your computer tries to display the auction. Other users are especially skilled at timing the auction to the last second. Also, there are probably other watchers who will try to bid at the last second who may have more money to play with then you.

3) Contact the Seller - You can try to email the seller and make an offer he simply cannot refuse. The seller will need to cancel the auction and complete the transaction outside of eBay's website. eBay frowns against this action, and both the buyer and seller can lose selling/buying privileges if eBay feels it has violated its policies. Also, you will lose some protection as eBay will not defend you if the sale goes awry. You can ask the seller to cancel the auction for the item, and relist as a Buy It Now item at the price you are willing to pay. EBay does not prohibit this activity. However, the seller will incur more fees this way and may be hesitant to cancel the auction, especially if there are many bids or watchers (sellers can see how many watchers are watching, buyers cannot). There is nothing wrong with contacting the seller and asking politely if you can be notified if the winning bidder does not pay or changed their mind, or asking if they have a similar item they can sell to you. If this seller has many items you desire, get friendly with them, and ask to be notified when something you want will be made available.

4) Sniping programs/websites - The term 'sniping' means to bid at the last possible second to win an auction. There are many websites and programs that can provide a way to increase your chances of winning an item. In general, these websites watch your auctions for you. You tell them when exactly to place your bid, and for how much. In my opinion, these services, although not free, provide the best way of winning an item that you want. Most of the time, there is a small fee for each item you win that is paid to the service, but it is money well spent. Normally, you pay nothing if you do not win. Two websites that I recommend are:

               esnipe.com 

               Powersnipe.com

Advantages: No worries about forgetting to bid, internet service/computer issues, and your are more likely to place a logical bid, instead of one frantic and rushed one near the end of auction. These websites have high bandwidth networks that guarantee your bid will be placed when you want to place it.

Disadvantages: There is a fee involved, but usually minimal. The bid you placed with a sniping service may not be high enough to win, so not 100% foolproof. However, with most of these services, you only pay if you win.

Auctions are usually very emotion driven. When people want an item based on emotion, price can be no object. It is very difficult to win in this situation. Nobody can win every item they want, but you can increase your chances by using logic instead of reacting to emotion. Remember to stay calm, know your item's worth, and your dollar limits (and stick to them!).