
You'll now have 12 people all trying to outbid you. If you make an early bid, even just 10 seconds before the close, then everyone knows you're there, and you're a target.

Playing poker, another competitive gambling game just like eBay, is all about keeping your cards close to you. There is no reason for anyone to early-bid, just as no one should share their hands at poker. eBay allows listings to sit out and collect early bids in the hope that suckers will try to out-do each other, and jack up the price and interest level. On eBay, the real bidding only happens at the very end, as if the bids were sealed. Don't let it get away!" followed by a big INCREASE BID box to click.ĮBay is not at all like a live auction. Increase your bid to have a chance at winning. "There's a new highest bid on this item, but there's still a chance to make it yours. If you're an early bidder, you'll especially get these emails as soon as anyone else bids: Hee hee, eBay isn't happy that you just bid, they want you to bid too high. You can improve your chances of winning by increasing your bid." followed by a big INCREASE BID box to click. "It's almost yours, but you could still be outbid. The fewer steps you take to the end of the auction, the better.Įvery bidder gets automatically-generated "closer" emails like: eBay sends constant text messages, emails, and more to every other bidder want to "close" them on paying more.ĮBay will incite constant and certain doubt at every step of the way to early bidders to suck them into paying more. When someone commits an early bid offense (any bid placed before the end of an auction so that others can see and react to it), every other early-bidder who placed a bid gets numerous notices that you just outbid him.ĮBay (and all good auctioneers) do everything it can to incite auction fever, and incite otherwise reasonable people to want to outbid you, even if it's stupid, just for the sake of outbidding you. In every auction, there are cool-headed pros waiting it out on the sidelines to the last second, and at least one newcomer who bids with his emotions, not his reason. In an open eBay auction, which is anything other then Buy-it-Now, you're bidding against emotional people. For all I know, they get big gift baskets from eBay at Christmas.

#Silent sniper ebay bidder review pro
Likewise, you'll see many articles in the mass media, written by journalists, not pro bidders, who actually encourage early-bidding. eBay does everything it can to make you want to early and bid more than once, the surest ways to lose an auction while jacking up the price for the winner. This is obvious, and eBay keeps this quiet because they make profits directly related to selling prices.

If I see something with 25 bids, I'll check it out out of curiosity. I'll be honest: when I see an item with no bids in the search results, human nature is to think there's something wrong with it. The more buzz eBay can stir about a listing, the more people look at it, and the higher the bids are likely to go. If only two idiot early-bidders are nickel-and-diming each other to death with penny-ante bids, eBay will show each bid as if it's significant, and you might see "Bids" listed as 23, even if there are only two bidders. (Actually eBay uses a psychological trick and lies, labeling the highest current bid as "price." It's most emphatically not a price, since no one can buy the item at that level, but sucks more early bidders into bidding thinking they can buy the item that cheaply.)īy encouraging a lot of early bidding, items look more interesting to everyone because the bid count is shown in the search results. I can't vouch for ads below.ĮBay and sellers encourage people to bid early is because it makes them more money.ĮBay's search results show the number of bids an item has received, and the current highest bid.
