MoreBuyer’s Blunder Number Four –
Not Being There for Auction End
and Not Sniping
Most people bid at the last second. Many auction shoppers wait for the last minute or seconds to place their bids. They do this for two reasons. The first reason is that if they don’t show any interest in the item in the days before it ends, other bidders won’t know that someone else is interested. They get an advantage over the competition. The second reason is that by waiting until the last seconds they can take someone by surprise and the other bidder won’t have time to react and place a higher bid. My mother is the queen of last-second bidding, even though, I am The Queen of Auctions! The only problem with this is that sometimes you forget to be there waiting at the computer and you miss out on a great item. If I really want something badly, I will place a high proxy bid to begin with. OK, OK–so I am showing my hand early. It is still better than missing out on a great item. Then, I still make sure to be at the computer for the auction finale.
Proxy Bidding. Proxy bidding is when you let eBay do the bidding for you. You decide ahead of time the most you are willing to pay for an item (in other words, what your maximum bid would be in a competitive auction). I was buying a gift for my friend Peter. It was a hard-to-find Panther XL Mad Catz video game control stick that was no longer being manufactured. I had phoned several big stores in major markets, Egghead Software, Computer World, etc. and no one had it in stock. Of course, I had looked on eBay but they came up for auction rarely and sold quickly. I put a search in on the “My eBay” page so that eBay would let me know by email when a new one came up for bid.
Finally one showed up. I had done my research and decided that I would spend $55.00 for it and not much more. I immediately went in and bid $55.76. I always add some extra cents to my maximum bid just in case. Those extra cents can sometimes win the auction for you!  After placing my bid, the screen showed that the game control had one bid and I was the current high bidder at $9.99. eBay will not bid up to your maximum unless it has to because someone else has come in to bid against you. On the final day, I was at my computer waiting for the auction to end. The bidding was up to $37.99 with 5 bids. eBay had bid the $37.99 for me and I was still the high bidder. A friend of Peter’s, Jim, knew I was bidding on it for Peter, but he decided to bid against me anyway. Nice guy, huh!
Anyway, as I watched the last seconds of the auction unfold, it became very interesting. You need to remember to click refresh on your computer every 10-20 seconds or so or you will not see what is happening. With 10 seconds left, Jim came in and bid $50.00, his max. He thought for sure he was going to win the item. What he didn’t realize is that I had placed the proxy bid for $55.76. eBay bid $50.50 for me and I won the auction with 1 second to spare. If I hadn’t placed a high enough proxy bid, Jim would have outbid me and I would not have been quick enough to bid again. Jim called Peter the next day and was so impressed with my quick fingers! He actually thought that I had time enough to place that winning bid. Little did he know that eBay had done the bidding for me.  I called my friend Peter and told him that his friend Jim cost me an extra $12.50 and I wasn’t happy with Jim!
Sniping. When another bidder comes in at the last second and outbids you like I did to Jim it is called “sniping”. There is even sniping software that will record your bid for you and go in at the very last second and place the bid. As a buyer, there are two ways to protect yourself against sniping. You can place a very high proxy bid early in the auction or you can play the sniping game by going in with a high bid in the last few seconds. It really depends on how badly you want the item, if you have done your research, and whether another one will come up for auction again soon. I typically only bid now using auction sniping software. The site I use is www.auctionsniper.com and they give you a few free snipes to sign up. Try it! You will be hooked.
