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Started by steve, 13:54, 05 September 11

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TFM

What a pity, it's UK only. Hope it will find a good home!!!
TFM of FutureSoft
Also visit the CPC and Plus users favorite OS: FutureOS - The Revolution on CPC6128 and 6128Plus

Joss

.... and by now only 2 pounds .....  :-[


db6128

It jumped from £6.50 to £73 in about five seconds. FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU—
Quote from: Devilmarkus on 13:04, 27 February 12
Quote from: ukmarkh on 11:38, 27 February 12[The owner of one of the few existing cartridges of Chase HQ 2] mentioned to me that unless someone could find a way to guarantee the code wouldn't be duplicated to anyone else, he wouldn't be interested.
Did he also say things like "My treasureeeeee" and is he a little grey guy?

TFM

Well, I never unterstood why folks must bit in the last second. That's kinda weird.

I mean... I think about how much I would like to afford and then I place my bid.
And I do that once at the beginning. That's it!
TFM of FutureSoft
Also visit the CPC and Plus users favorite OS: FutureOS - The Revolution on CPC6128 and 6128Plus

Joss

Quote from: TFM/FS on 19:06, 16 January 13
Well, I never unterstood why folks must bit in the last second. That's kinda weird.
....
I do so now .... :D  but I don't like it  :-X . Once, someone else was overbidding me and then after 20 minutes he or she took the bid away (I could checked it in my email when I came home, ebay sends you, someone overbid and after 20 min another mail, you win .... that was very weird .....). Because this other "ghost-bidder" I won BUT at my maximum bid, what I wanted to bid plus a couple of Euros more. There was nobody else in the auction. Since than, I do it in the last minute .....


I called ebay. They told me I should try to speak with the buyer. I did it so, and did not have to pay for it. But by today I'm not sure, if the "ghost-bidder" was a friend of the buyer or someone who wanted to know about the limit ..... he or she did not have any feedbacks ....

db6128

Quote from: TFM/FS on 19:06, 16 January 13Well, I never unterstood why folks must bit in the last second. That's kinda weird.
Maybe in the abstract, but in reality, that's how it works. Sniping can be surprisingly effective and sometimes is essential. If one really wants an item, sometimes it's the best way to have a chance. At other times, it lets you get an item for a lower price than if someone else saw your desired price and bid higher. I'm not saying it's a particularly nice tactic, but there you go! I guess it's 'law of the jungle' on eBay, anyway.  :laugh:

Anyway, I totally got out-sniped for that 6128+... :|

QuoteI mean... I think about how much I would like to afford and then I place my bid.
And I do that once at the beginning. That's it!
Which is a nice idea, but I wonder: how often do you get outbid? ;)
Quote from: Devilmarkus on 13:04, 27 February 12
Quote from: ukmarkh on 11:38, 27 February 12[The owner of one of the few existing cartridges of Chase HQ 2] mentioned to me that unless someone could find a way to guarantee the code wouldn't be duplicated to anyone else, he wouldn't be interested.
Did he also say things like "My treasureeeeee" and is he a little grey guy?

beaker

#906
Yeah, I use sniping tools now as well as ebay seems so open to abuse it's mental.

I know I've had it a few times where someone put in bids in the final moments hoping to increase the final selling price and almost immediately I got a second chance offer once the auction finished, or putting in a ridiculous amount to find out what my maximum bid is only to withdraw it, and those are the ones I know of. I am sure it's happened loads more times to me with people putting in fake bids to drive up the price a little without me realising. Although sniping doesn't stop it it may reduce it a bit if the dodgy seller doesn't have time to put in the fake bids.

The other group are those people putting in low bids hoping to get a bargain who won't have time to increase their bids once they've been outbid in the last few seconds.

Sniping doesn't guarantee you'll win the auction obviously, but it "may" help you get something at a better price.  :D

Which reminds me I must get that 6128+ sent to my sister in the UK so I have something to play with when I am over there...  ;) Just kidding - I did think about it though...

db6128

Quote from: beaker on 20:35, 16 January 13Yeah, I use sniping tools now as well as ebay seems so open to abuse it's mental.
Hey now, I'm an old-fashioned manual sniper, thank you very much. :P

QuoteSniping doesn't guarantee you'll win the auction obviously, but it "may" help you get something at a better price.  :D
Yeah, as I said, this is the other advantage. Naively expecting a great deal, I was stunned when the 6128+ jumped from £10 or something all the way to £70. Still not too bad, mind you! I'm guessing it all works perfectly, although the seller wasn't willing to hedge their bets and say that.

QuoteWhich reminds me I must get that 6128+ sent to my sister in the UK so I have something to play with when I am over there...  ;) Just kidding - I did think about it though...
WHY YOU LITTLE [reads second sentence] Oh... [stops strangling beaker]
Quote from: Devilmarkus on 13:04, 27 February 12
Quote from: ukmarkh on 11:38, 27 February 12[The owner of one of the few existing cartridges of Chase HQ 2] mentioned to me that unless someone could find a way to guarantee the code wouldn't be duplicated to anyone else, he wouldn't be interested.
Did he also say things like "My treasureeeeee" and is he a little grey guy?

TFM

#908
@Joss: That's a good point. ;) Shame on that greedy primates out there.


@db6129: IMO your theory works only as long nobody is bidding the way I do. :laugh:


@Beaker: You are one of the few with a great sister I guess. ;)
TFM of FutureSoft
Also visit the CPC and Plus users favorite OS: FutureOS - The Revolution on CPC6128 and 6128Plus

db6128

Quote from: TFM/FS on 21:32, 16 January 13@db6129: IMO your theory works only as long nobody is bidding the way I do. :laugh:
Sure, but then your bid has to be very high for it to survive the entire time, especially the rapid-fire sniping near the end. ;)
Quote from: Devilmarkus on 13:04, 27 February 12
Quote from: ukmarkh on 11:38, 27 February 12[The owner of one of the few existing cartridges of Chase HQ 2] mentioned to me that unless someone could find a way to guarantee the code wouldn't be duplicated to anyone else, he wouldn't be interested.
Did he also say things like "My treasureeeeee" and is he a little grey guy?

TFM

No. I just place my maximum bit at the beginning. If somebody wants to pay more, then I'm ok with that. I see no connection to sniping  ???  If somebody does overbid me, I will not alter my opinion, why should I do?  :)
TFM of FutureSoft
Also visit the CPC and Plus users favorite OS: FutureOS - The Revolution on CPC6128 and 6128Plus

db6128

Yeah, sorry, I get it. :) And it is a good method. I guess you don't suffer from compulsive purchasing and terrible money-management like some people do ;) ... which is probably much better in the end! I'm so used to thinking 'MUST HAVE IT' that I forget that some people just name a sensible maximal price and leave it at that, haha.
Quote from: Devilmarkus on 13:04, 27 February 12
Quote from: ukmarkh on 11:38, 27 February 12[The owner of one of the few existing cartridges of Chase HQ 2] mentioned to me that unless someone could find a way to guarantee the code wouldn't be duplicated to anyone else, he wouldn't be interested.
Did he also say things like "My treasureeeeee" and is he a little grey guy?

TFM

Haha! It took me decades to be able to do that :P  However Joss story is an good example for a reason for sniping.

I guess in future I do it a bit more like you do it. So I will bit not in the last second, but in the last hour or so  ;)
TFM of FutureSoft
Also visit the CPC and Plus users favorite OS: FutureOS - The Revolution on CPC6128 and 6128Plus

Joss

Well ... compulsive bidding can everyone of us happens ........ after reading you I think the best way can be to think out the price/bid you want to pay and not giving it at the beginning but wait until the last minute to give it up.
.....
(If someone else bid higher before this last minute comes, you should switch off the Internet connection and go jogging :) )

TFM

Good idea :-) But while you go jogging I will have a smoke ;-)
TFM of FutureSoft
Also visit the CPC and Plus users favorite OS: FutureOS - The Revolution on CPC6128 and 6128Plus

archcosmo

Quote from: db6128 on 21:00, 16 January 13
Hey now, I'm an old-fashioned manual sniper, thank you very much. :P

sorry I've come into the conversation a bit late (time zone differences), but:
why manually snipe an auction when there's free online sniping sites to do the deed for you? eg http://www.gixen.com  ;D
just need to log in using your ebay ID and password, and fill in the item ID and your maximum price  ;)

ralferoo

I also always bid in the last 10 seconds or so. Actually, the first bid on that 664 was me, but that was an unreasonably low figure because I wanted ebay to remind me of the auction before it ended, which is does if you've been outbid.

Now, the reason for sniping is simple. People get all emtional about things, and artificially inflate their perceived value of something if they think someone else thinks it's worth more. So, what typically happens is they'll bid £20 because they think that's a fair price. Someone else will bid £25 and they'll think a bit more and decide to up it to £30 because it's obviously worth more than they thought. The person bidding £25 might actually have placed a £40 bit, so it'll instantly go up to £35 and they'll see they're instantly outbid, and go "ooh, gosh, this must be really good" and so they'll bid up to £50. (I know these figures aren't exactly right, the ebay bid increment is actually £1 at these prices).

Usually, there's some psychology involved though. People decide to increase their bids more the closer it is to the auction end, because it then becomes the need to make a snap judgement and by then they're emotionally involved because they've already placed 3 bids. In reality, though, they're actually bidding £50 for something they initially thought was worth £20. And they might actually get it for £45 in this scenario and think they've got a bargain, but they've still paid more than double what they thought it was worth and more than everybody else thought it was worth.

My strategy is to decide well in advance what I think something is worth to me. So, maybe I've looked at recent prices and decided it's worth £40 (the second bidder in the scenario above). I see someone has already bid £20 on the item, but that's fine because I think it's worth more. In the dying seconds I bid £40 and it trumps the £20 bid and I win it for £25. I'm happy, I got it for less than I assessed it was worth and more importantly, I haven't allowed anyone the chance to bid emotionally above me. Another positive point is that I'm already online and so I can pay for the item within a minute of the auction ending, which always makes sellers happy!

On the other hand, I might bid £40 and the previous guy actually had a higher bid and it sells for £45 and I have no opportunity to increase my bid. That's fine, it's more than I thought it was worth, and he had obviously also previously assessed the value and bid £45 or £50 or whatever and got it for a fair price. I'll just wait for the next one. You've got to be pragmatic though when the auction completes for the just bid increment above your maximum bid. It could be they just pipped you at the post, it could be that they were prepared to pay far, far more. You've just got to accept that the price was more than you previously decided it was worth and wait for the item to come up for sale again.

What also often happens, as in this case is I'll decide it's worth £50. I wait until the dying seconds to place my £50 only to discover that by the time I click confirm it's already above that and the bid isn't even recorded.

Sometimes (actually more often than I'd care to admit), I've forgotten to actually log on to place my last few seconds bid. Or more annoyingly, the ebay session timed out and it decides you need to log in which takes longer than the time left, etc. In those cases, an automatic sniper would have helped out, but even though I like to take the emotional aspect out of bidding, it's definitely exciting to find out instantly if you've won or not.

Either way, I'll rarely put a bid on early an item unless it's just to remind myself I'm interested (actually, I won a PS3 and a 6128 that I didn't really want because the starting prices were lower than I thought they'd sell for but nobody else bid). Because all you're doing is giving people longer to think about a higher value for the item. The only time when it's actually a good strategy is if something has a definite worth of maybe £20.50 and the bids are already up to about £16. If you bid £20.01 then you'll beat a later bidder of £20 by a penny, but due to the bid increments, the next bid will need to be £21 and so most people won't bid further because they can get it cheaper elsewhere. That said, there are a lot of stupid buyers on ebay who'll happily pay more than the buy it now price from other sellers or even from a normal online shop, because they've got emotionally invested in an auction.

The other interesting thing I've noticed is that a high starting bid will put people off - e.g. often things remain unsold where the starting bid is £40, even though the 99p auctions often go for a higher final price. Again, this is usually when you have 2 emotional people outbidding each other over several hours before the end of the auction.

MaV

Yes, the emotional aspect is the driving factor of biddings.

Whenever I'm outbid I also ask myself if I'm willing to invest just as much time searching for the same item again and risking again to be outbid. Because let's face it, Ebay auctions steal a lot of your time (mainly searching, but also waiting, communication, fetching the package). For uncommon items this usually means that I'm willing to bid a bit more on the item I'm currently looking at.

But prices in the last few years have exploded beyond reasoning.

One of the last auctions for a CPC 6128 with colour monitor I've seen went up close to 140 Euros. A day after that the next (private) seller sells the same configuration with a starting bid of 100 Euros, unsurprisingly it did not take long and one bid on the auction which had still 9 days to go.
If there's two or three more auctions like that, 100 Euros will be established as the entry point for such an item, and even reasonable buyers will eventually have to accept the high price to have a reasonable chance of acquiring one.

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steve

The disadvantage of bidding early or using a sniping program is that you are commited to buy if you win the auction, whereas I can watch an auction and have until the last few seconds to decide whether I really want that item.

ralferoo

Quote from: MaV on 13:45, 17 January 13
Whenever I'm outbid I also ask myself if I'm willing to invest just as much time searching for the same item again and risking again to be outbid. Because let's face it, Ebay auctions steal a lot of your time (mainly searching, but also waiting, communication, fetching the package). For uncommon items this usually means that I'm willing to bid a bit more on the item I'm currently looking at.
Actually, I have a couple of automatic searches, so every day ebay emails me if anything with 664, 6128 or GX4000 appears in the title or description. So, I get 2 emails per day, usually both with the same few games for 464/664/6128, but it's easy to to glance at that when I'm checking my mail to see if there's anything of interest.

I'm maybe interested in the email once a week, and maybe bid as a result once per month, but I don't actually have to spend much time searching for anything.

Actually, I'm not sure €100 is massively overpriced for a 6128 with a good condition monitor. The base units are typically £35-£50 in the UK and certainly usually over £50 with a screen, so I'd say €50 without monitor has been the starting point for almost 2 years, and monitors are definitely relative scarce (compared to the keyboard), especially as in the UK most colour monitors don't have 12V output. I've got 11 CPCs and between that lot I've got 2 working monitors and 3 broken ones. Of the working ones, only one has 12V out.

That said, keep looking for bargains. I've paid around £35 (€50) for all but one of my 6128s - all without monitors and only one of them has a working drive. However on once occasion, I won a boxed 6128 and monitor with £10 (€15) because it was collection only. It's obviously not common, but it does happen if you make bids on things that people don't spot (or don't want to drive to if it's collection only).

ralferoo

Quote from: steve on 14:31, 17 January 13
The disadvantage of bidding early or using a sniping program is that you are commited to buy if you win the auction, whereas I can watch an auction and have until the last few seconds to decide whether I really want that item.
I thought sniping sites did allow you to cancel your bid. I can imagine it maybe not working if you cancel in the last few seconds, because they have a whole load of servers all trying to place a proxy bid for you, and they might not all get the cancellation message, but certainly I believed they used to advertise the fact that you could change your mind because the ebay bid hadn't been placed as a benefit. I guess you'd probably still be charged the snipe fee though.

beaker

Quote from: ralferoo on 15:04, 17 January 13
I thought sniping sites did allow you to cancel your bid.

Gixen is free and will allow you to cancel the bid up to 2 minutes before the listing ends.

Quote from: ralferoo on 14:59, 17 January 13
That said, keep looking for bargains. I've paid around £35 (€50) for all but one of my 6128s - all without monitors and only one of them has a working drive. However on once occasion, I won a boxed 6128 and monitor with £10 (€15) because it was collection only. It's obviously not common, but it does happen if you make bids on things that people don't spot (or don't want to drive to if it's collection only).

Ah I remember when I used to get those sort of conversion rates being paid in Sterling and living in Euro-land. Memories....  :laugh:

Bryce

Quote from: ralferoo on 14:59, 17 January 13
I've paid around £35 (€50) for all but one of my 6128s

I know you guys are proud of your pound and all that, but £35 is currently around €42, not €50! :D

Bryce.

db6128

Quote from: ralferoo on 12:55, 17 January 13Usually, there's some psychology involved though. People decide to increase their bids more the closer it is to the auction end, because it then becomes the need to make a snap judgement and by then they're emotionally involved because they've already placed 3 bids. In reality, though, they're actually bidding £50 for something they initially thought was worth £20. And they might actually get it for £45 in this scenario and think they've got a bargain, but they've still paid more than double what they thought it was worth and more than everybody else thought it was worth.

[...] there are a lot of stupid buyers on ebay who'll happily pay more than the buy it now price from other sellers or even from a normal online shop, because they've got emotionally invested in an auction.
Yes, this. 'I MUST not lose, even if I pay twice as much! My PRIDE is at stake!'  :laugh:
Quote from: Devilmarkus on 13:04, 27 February 12
Quote from: ukmarkh on 11:38, 27 February 12[The owner of one of the few existing cartridges of Chase HQ 2] mentioned to me that unless someone could find a way to guarantee the code wouldn't be duplicated to anyone else, he wouldn't be interested.
Did he also say things like "My treasureeeeee" and is he a little grey guy?

ralferoo

Quote from: Bryce on 15:45, 17 January 13
I know you guys are proud of your pound and all that, but £35 is currently around €42, not €50! :D
Sound as a pound mate, sound as a pound.

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