EBay Bidding Strategy

Like many other millions of people across the globe I am something of an E-Bay addict. Whether I'm aggressively looking for that particular item that has been eluding me for years or just idly browsing through the categories during my lunch break at work I probably spend more time than is deemed healthy searching around this site for that elusive something special. My curse is that I collect records and like any other collectors there is an excitement about bidding on something that is going to help complete your collection, whether it be that hard-to-find single by that obscure band you remembered from your youth or the uber-rare beanie baby you just have to have in your collection.

After many years buying and bidding my way around e-bay it's hard not to become aware of certain bidding strategies that take place. The simplest of these seems to be the last minute bid and for me this seems to be the most effective. If you know the most you are going to pay for an item it is usually a good idea to wait till the last minute (literally) before making your bid. Like many people who probably think they're being sneaky I have bid in the last 20 seconds in mad dash panic of bid, bid confirm and hopefully win with many punches of the 'refresh button'. There are even online services which will do the last minute bidding for you but I prefer the thrill of doing it myself. One of the benefits of last minute bidding is that it avoids getting you sucked into bidding wars whereby you see that someone's bid $10.00 and so you bid $11.00 only to see that you haven't bid enough to take the highest bid. Then you perhaps bid and bid again in $1.00 increments until you become the highest bidder. Doing this can sometimes lead to you bidding far more than you were really prepared to and that is why I prefer to bid one time only near the end of the bid.

However, and there is always a 'however' isn't there. You could take the view that if someone sees that an item they want has a bid and or bids on it they may shy away from bidding on it themselves because they think that it's probably going to go too high, whereas an item with no bids on it looks more unpopular and perhaps easier to win. A good idea is to check out how many people have viewed an item because if it's say more than a hundred it is very likely that there will be a flurry of last minute bidding.

Another thing to look out for are items that are posted with spelling errors. If you collect 'Beatles' records for instance you might like to type 'Beetles' instead and you'll be surprised to see many 'Beatles' items appearing under that misspell. Less people will be likely to have seen these items and you may have a better chance of getting it. Also sometimes people will only list the record title, i.e.: 'White Album' with no reference to the Beatles at all so it pays to think of all the ways the item you're looking for may have been listed.

Sometimes it is just the luck of the draw. I bought a 'Meatloaf' Acetate of 'Two out of Three Ain't bad' a couple of years back for $12.00. It had been listed with the 'Buy Now' function. This is an item which would I'm sure normally get bids of $40-$50 or more so it pays to be vigilant. Check back often. Don't forget about bidding internationally either. If you go to 'Ebay.co.uk' there are many of the same items you'll be looking for in the states and you can just as easily get them off the U.K. Ebay site with just a little extra shipping and handling costs.

Finally, don't fret if you don't end up winning that rare record you'd been looking for. In most cases unless the item you're looking for is completely unique then you'll see the same item listed again at some time.