eBay Trading Company

[j4]

Please bear in mind before reading this that there are no stupid questions, only STUPID PEOPLE. So, sorry in advance for being dense.

Can anybody provide me with a very quick beginner's guide to eBay bidding tactics? I simply have no idea how the bidding tends to work -- whether lots of bids tend to happen at the last minute, whether it's better to bid on the cheaper thing with more time to run or the thing that's already at a higher price but has less time to go, or ... or what. Or whether the bidding patterns vary enormously depending on the thing for sale, or stuff like that.

Er, basically, in summary, "hello, am clueless, but want to buy thing off eBay without spending masses more money than I need to". :-)

Comments

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

I tend to work out how high I am realistically willing to go for an item, then bid reasonably early and never rebid, relying on the proxy bid thingy - if I lose the item, I lose the item. However, this probably does mean I pay too much sometimes. Bidding last minute is fine if a) it's in the right time zone and b) you have the patience. But you need to be careful of getting carried away with bidding wars and paying more than you'd like to. Looking for things with less than a day to go at least means you have time to go back to the cheaper/longer items if you lose out on the quick ones.