Sniping on eBay
orchidnick
9 years ago
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Full StoryI have bought quite a few plants from eBay and check their offerings regularly. My favorite way to bid is to enter the lowest possible bid which gets me on board and makes it easier to follow the plant. No matter what others do I will enter no more bids until there are about 3 seconds left on the item. At that time I will enter the maximum amount I'm willing to pay for that plant.
This practice is called sniping. It does give one some advantage only under certain circumstances. If for example a plant's bid is at $13 but the bidder has entered $19 as the maximum he is willing to pay, this is not apparent unless someone outbids him. If I bid $20 one hour before the end of that item, it gives him time to reconsider and maybe go to $21. If I bid $20 with 3 seconds to go, he does not get the opportunity to do this.
So far so good, only problem is that you have to sit at the computer and hit that bid button at precisely the right time. If you can't be there, then this does not work. Tonight I was picking up the grandchildren from a function just as several plants I was bidding on came to an end.
A site called 'Goofbid' came to the rescue and did the bidding for me. It's free and allows you to enter the maximum amount you are willing to pay for a plant and then enters that bid for you 3, 4, or 5 seconds before bidding ends. It did that tonight for me. I was outbid on a couple of plants but got a nice Coelogyne that I was lusting after. I probably could have gotten that plant in the normal way also but this is just more fun and you never know.
I feel a little bit like the little old lady in the Big O Tire commercial who raves about the adrenaline rush of bingo. Oh well, whatever blows one's skirts up, sniping definitely does it for me.
Nick
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