Hi,
This thread is starting to look like a real flame-war bait, so I'll refrain
from giving strong biased opinions and I'll bud out of the thread after this
post. However, there was one thing I wonder about:
I thought that if you bid on an item, the only way you could track what
happens to it is when you receive an "outbid notification" or an "auction
ended" notification (and by viewing the item of course), and that that would
be the end of the story. But am I to understand that if you bid once on
something, you can still track the items status (using the "My e-Bay"
feature) even when you've been outbid by someone else?
Now, regarding e-Bay in general: I've pretty much stopped looking around
there for Oly gear several months ago after I discovered that all the
Zuik-sharks are circling in those waters and the prices were almost always
raised much higher than the ones I wanted to pay for these items.
Nevertheless, I've learned the hard way that when you really want an e-Bay
item, the only good tactic is to snipe. Really, it is. I used to *hate* it
when an auction ended when over here it was 3:00 a.m. or so, and you were
the high bidder during the whole week, only to find out the next morning
that in the last 10 seconds you have been outbid and the lucky last bidder
got the item for $0.50 more than your maximum bid. But really, the only way
to get a bargain is to not bid at all during the whole auction period, and
then in the last 5 seconds or so (if e-Bay isn't down then) bid your maximum
amount in one go. ANY other form of bidding will only unnecessarily raise
the prices, and should therefore (IMO - mind you: just my opinion, so no
flames please!) be avoided. When sniping you have two options, either you'll
win the auction and you'll get the item at or below the maximum price you
wanted to pay for it, or you won't win and then some other buyer gets it at
or below the maximum price they wanted to pay for it; sounds fair enough to
me, but it doesn't feel nice to have to be the *ssh*l* who outbids someone
in the last 5 seconds, but hey, if it's the only way (and god knows it has
happened MANY times to me)...:(((
Ah, regarding auction tracking: there is actually another way of tracking
auctions which I haven't seen mentioned yet, just use the "send auction to
friend" option to send the auction info to your own e-mail address, then you
can click on the URL in the message to see the auction status. That is the
way I always track items when I'm interested in them, and if during the last
few hours the price is still low enough for my likings, I will make sure to
follow the auction closely (using two browsers) and to snipe near the
auction end.
Apart from this, there are a few more bold e-Bay tactics that I use at
times, but I'm not certain whether I should disclose them over here :)
Cheers!
Olafo
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