Winning an Ebay Auction
Written: May 10 '00
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Ebay to me stands for Everyone But All Ya'll will win an auction. BUT if you knew these secrets, you can WIN your auction item that you are bidding on. What you need to know is how Ebay works and how to beat out your "competitors". Ready to win? Great! Let's hit the high points.
How Ebay is set up
Ebay is made up of two main servers. One holds member information (stats, feedback, personal info, etc) while the other is strictly to store and host the auctions. The clock on the auction server never resets nor changes (except for Daylight Savings Time). Whenever you setup or even bid on an auction, your information from the Info Server is also passed on to the Auction Server. Any new auction is added to the Auction Server and the time begins to count as soon as the record is posted. That's how it works behind the scenes, now here is how to beat out your competition.
Refresh Rate
Before you can beat your competition, if it is one of those auctions that comes down to the last second, you need to know how fast Ebay can post your bid/change. This is called the Refresh Rate. Here's how to check yours based on when the auction is ending:
* Be online and in Ebay a day prior to the auction close. This will give you a small idea of the number of users accessing Ebay at that time.
* Open the details of the auction you are wanting to bid on.
* Note the current official time and time remaining on the auction.
* Now refresh your page and see the difference in time. This difference tells you that at this time of the night, one day prior, here is how long it takes for Ebay's Auction Server to process a request/change made by you from your computer through your ISP.
* If the time difference is greater than 10 seconds, try going to the public library. They always have high speed access.
Now that you know how long it takes to make a bid/change, you now need to ensure YOU are the winner. There are two tricks to this.
Trick #1: Snipe
This is the main reason you lose auctions I bet. Someone comes in with less than a minute left and outbids you by a cent or two. How do they do it even though you made your last bid five minutes prior to close? They know their Refresh Rate. Here's how to beat this part of the system to work for you:
* Open a window of just the details of the auction you are bidding or have bid on.
* Open a second window that will allow you to post a last second bid. See what we are about to do?
* Now that you know your Refresh Rate, you know that you have a certain amount of seconds before the auction closes to make one final bid.
* As the clock ticks down on the auction, keep refreshing the window with the details to see if any last minute bids are coming in. You should be refreshing the page every chance you can during the last minute in order to pull off the snipe just right.
* Be sure to note the Refresh Rate too. It may be different than last night.
* At the last possible chance you can, make your last and final bid if you previous bid was outbid. Will it be the winning bid? See Trick #2 for that.
I have personally seen winners with 0:00 seconds left in an auction. NOTE: An Ebay auction is not officially closed until the time has completely passed. Equal time does not equal closure.
Trick #2: The way to win by a penny
Now that you know all the above, let's put it all together to ensure a win for you. The problem that most bidders have is that they post a bid that someone already else has made for the same amount. If you post a $10 bid and someone else posted a $10 bid a day ago, they win if the winning bid is $10. They got in first and got the $10 spot. If you had bid $10.01 YOU WOULD HAVE WON. So how do you bid?
* Never make a bid in an even number. ($10, $25, $50)
* Always make bids in weird amounts. ($10.87, $27.52, $51.26)
Why do this? Because the others are betting in even numbers! There are people that know this trick and will bid with odd numbers. The trick is to post a bid that may be a little more off than normal. Figure a bid that looks like no one in there right mind would place. Here's an example:
* An item right now is at $25.
* You think the price will not go any higher than $30, but you WANT THE ITEM.
* Snipers may come in and try to get it at the last minute, so you want a bid that cuts them out just in case too.
My suggestion: Bid $32.66, but place it at the last possible second.
WHY THIS BID:
* The bid is just a few dollars above what it should go for.
* It covers snipers that bid above a dollar more than $30.
* It covers the odd bidders who know this trick too that may bid $30.26.
* It also covers bidders that may have bid $32.50.
* Chances are YOU WILL WIN THIS AUCTION.
GOOD LUCK AND MAKE SURE YOU DON'T GET ADDICTED TO EBAY AND SPEND THE FAMILY FORTUNE. But if you do...I got a 1977 Luke Skywalker C-9 to sell ya!
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