eBay bidders, bidding immediately, why?

[coansha]

I have been lusting after something for a while but they are pretty pricey £360-£500 and already another of said item but different model.
It will make my life much easier and found one , nearly new on eBay , oh I was very excited and happy with myself and my bargain "buy" anyways some bugger has bollocking well put a bid on it 6 days 22 hrs to go, followed by 2 other bids an hour later!!! Bastards have discovered it, but why bid soooooooo early?
This is not over, this might get ugly....

I must say that eBay has lost it's sparkle for me since they starting disguising the bidder id. It means you can't spot a shill bidder nearly as easily.
I just do BIN.

bidding in the last seconds isn't lack of manners - that is the whole point of eBay isn't it?

my husband and I once got into a bidding war against each other for a nursing chair by accident - ended up paying £10 extra! I'm useless at ebay

LOL, at not manners. I love it when there is only seconds to go and I'm battling it out with someone else. That's part of the fun. Seeing who's internet connection is fastest.

Bidding in the last seconds is part of the fun, using a sniper programme or whatever is shit.

Mamma Yes, basically.

If I see something for 99p,for example, I might put £5 on as my max bid. However, eBay puts my bid in as £1.04 and if no-one else bids, I get it for £1.04.

However, if Fred123 comes and bids £2.39, eBay increase my bid to £2.87 (for example) and so on until the bidding reaches £5, in which case I'd get a message saying I'd been outbid, when it usually turns out that some sly bugger has got it for £5.03 after using a bloody sniper.

I throw an early bid in, so it goes into my 'bidding' list and not just my 'watch' list, especially when i am buying lots.

I am starting to buy for winter Birthdays, Christmas and a new baby that we have coming, as well as maternity wear for mum.

I set a price that i will pay and sometimes bid as much as £3 less, right at the start.

Many items are available from lots of sellers, so this lets me know if that is worth carrying on bidding on, as i have the luxury of looking well in advance of needing it, whereas others will pay more, because they need it in a hurry.

Ha, I use a sniper, it's ace.

If you are bidding your maximum, put it at something random like £5.18, rather than just £5.

I don't get this bid sniper business.

Suppose there's an item that is currently on for 99p and someone has bid 99p on it with 5 days to go.

If I bid £5 on an item 4 days before it ends, and somebody else sets up a sniper at the same time to bid up to £4.50 in the last three seconds, then I'm going to win.

Likewise, if I'd bid 4.50 with 4 days to go and the sniper had done 4.50 in the last three seconds, I'd still win because my bid went in first.

So what is the advantage of using the sniper?

if you snipe you can outbid people and not give them enough time to bid again

I hate snipers when I'm bidding but I love them when I'm selling!

no a sniper will only bid as high as you have set it to. You will never know what the highest bidder's max price is until you outbid them.

..but how can a sniper beat me when I bid 4 days before they did?? That's the bit I don't get.

Sure, if they bid higher than my maximum then yes they are going to win it, but if they don't then I just don't see the advantage.

They will beat you if they bid higher than your highest bid. If they don't bid higher than you and outbid you then no they won't win the auction.

Those of you who hate losing out to snipers...why dont you just use one yourself?

Theyre really useful when a listing ends at an inconvenient time. You can just bid your maximum and forget about it

...and you can set them to bid 3 seconds before a listing ends, so nobody has a chance to outbid you

I bid early because it suits me - I would forget otherwise. I'm not quite sure why I should do it differently because that suits you

I dont know really, it just feels like cheating for some reason

The thing about sniping is you can't go even higher.....sometimes I just have to win something. Because I am an obsessive

Thats another reason sniping is good, maked you set a limit and stick to it, and you dont get caught up in the bidding at the end and end up paying more than youwanted to

If you bid early and set your max there's no need to get into a bidding war either. The only difference with sniping is your max bid is put on at the last moment so those with no self control don't get tempted to up their max when they find they've been outbid

I don't get it. But then I entered my max bid on something I want yesterday, when it had nearly five days to go. I'd have bid on it at eight days to go, but I was waiting for the seller to answer my question!