|
Honestly, I rarely even look at actual auctions on Ebay any longer. Pretty much people would start the auction at what they really wanted anyway, and the auction was nothing less than a hope by them that someone will be willing to pay more than they would be willing to sell it for.
Plus I just don't have the patience for auctions for a lot of purchases I want to make. Generally when I am looking for something specific, and find what I want, I am ready to buy NOW. Not three days from now, not tomorrow, right now. So I set the filters to BUY IT NOW, and sort the entries by the lowest price first. Then I check feedback on the sellers, and weed them out of the running. Sometimes I don't care how long it will take to get to me if the price is good enough. Other times I want to find a seller as close to me as possible so it will get to me as quickly as possible. Depends on what I am buying and what I want it for.
About the only time I play the actual auction game is if there is something kind of frivolous I want (quartz crystal clusters, for instance), and I know I can likely get it for a much better price if I try my luck with an auction. I do use a sniping program, so I just set it to the maximum I am willing to pay, and then forget about it till the auction ends and I either won or I didn't.
One technique I have used with auctions is by searching on an item that has been spelled incorrectly, and therefor will likely not have very much in the way of competitors. Not so much with Ebay, but back when I was in the gun buying time in my life, I was collecting Colt Pythons, and got some REALLY good deals by searching for "Ptyhon" or similar misspellings.
|