| JERRY2KONE |
03.24.2011 09:14 AM |
Ebay purchases.
I personally have not made a purchase on Ebay for quite some time now, but when I was it took a few times before I learned how the bidding worked in order to win. I only made a few purchases when I was on there, but in order to win you have to either pay the buy it now price, or wait until the last day. As I have mentioned before on one of these threads there is one way to almost garuntee a win in any bidding.
First you have to know what you are bidding for and its true value. Retail value and sale value are two very differnet things. Whole sale value and garage sale value are even more confusing for some.
The retail value of any item is what it is selling for from the supplier or manufacturers suggested retail value, which can be found on the manufacturers website.
Sale value is that which may be listed in most stores in order to move out outdate inventories, and usually 10% to 20% lower than retail.
Whole sale value is the lowest you will see an item listed in most stores or suppliers. This value is designed for suppliers to purchase bulk amounts at one time, and then resell them for high volume profits.
Garage sale value is the lowest price you will find anywhere for an item, and it is usually 10% of the MSRP or initial release value.
These are merely rules of thumb that should help you avoid paying too much for an item just because people are trying to get more than the item is really worth. Which one you pay really depends on what your expectations are and how much you have in your wallot.
The last thing is what is the highest amount in which you are really willing to pay for the item. Once you decide this you are ready to win the bid. Wait until the last two minutes of the bid by the timer. Begin filling in all of your bidding info and place that highest value into your offer. Hold off on placing the bid until the last few seconds and then hit enter.
For example if you want to purchase a UE Lightning chassis. We have all seen them selling for $600 to $800 even though the original value was something like $350. You have to decide what it is worth to you. Once you set that value do not change your mind and end up paying over $1000 for it. Set your price and stick to it.
This way if the bidding is right around $300 throughout most of the advertised period you will not be fooled and fall into any kind of a trap. If your highest bid is $800 and it sell for more, than so be it. If people try to keep their bidding low, by the time the bidding come to the end people will be going crazy trying to figure out what bid to place over and over again while you sit back and wait for the last few seconds and BAMM!
I won 8 striaght auctions this way over a 4 week period, and on one auction the bidding was at $350 with one minute to go for a UE Lightning chassis along with a LOT full of UE accessories worth well over $1000. In fact the total value was between $2000 and $2500, but I won with a winning bid of $756. I had a high bid listed for $999 shich of course no one could see, because that is what I was willing to pay (50% of the true value)for the lot. That was the last time I used Ebay, because things were just getting to difficult and people were hacking into Ebay and paypal accounts at that time. SO we just closed our account and were done with them. That was like three to four years ago.
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