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I've been buying bargains at
auctions for a long time now … real auctions … where
bidding is mano a mano, and you have to overcome not
only the competing bidders, but also the auctioneer,
in order to get a good deal. I've bought everything
from a house to a pocketknife at auction, and I can
tell you one thing. Almost none of that experience
was of any help when I started buying in online auctions.
Having always enjoyed auctions, you can imagine my
delight to find out that I didn't have to leave my recliner
to get to them now! Fire up the browser, do a couple
of searches, and you're in business. There's something
you'd like, up for bid. Pretty much all similarity with
a live auction ends there!
I have five major strategies at a real auction. (You
get a bonus here. I promised tips for online auctions,
and now you're going to find out how to get what you
want out of live auctions too!)
My first strategy is to, if possible, stand right beside
an item I'm interested in, beaming proudly. Anyone who's
paying attention knows I'm serious about it … committed
to it, and that cuts down on some of the competition
before the bidding starts. They go looking for another
item that may have been overlooked. Others, seeing that
I want it, will refrain from bidding out of politeness.
Isn't that nice of them! Does this always work? No.
But it helps out often enough to include in my strategies.
Of course, If someone else is doing the same thing,
standing by my item, I know who I'm going to
be in a fight with.
Once the auction starts, strategy number two begins.
I bid early and often when the item is at bidding levels
that I know are far below the final bid. This serves
two purposes. First, it gets the auctioneer and his
assistants used to looking to me for a bid. Later on
they're not going to close out the bidding without
making very sure I've bid my last. Second, anyone
who wasn't previously paying attention now sees that
I'm staking out my claim. You'd be surprised how many
competing bidders are scared off or intimidated just
by the fact that I show serious interest in the item!
Third, at some point I go for a 'closeout bid'. When
the price is about half of what I want to buy the item
for, instead of letting the auctioneer keep raising
the bid in small increments (which is their pied piper
way to keep the bid rising and keep as many bidders
involved as possible), I speak up and jump the bid to
about 75% of what I want to pay, all at once. Any bidders
who weren't all that serious disappear at this point,
keeping them from raising the bar out of the sheer momentum
being provided by the auctioneer. Auctioneers hate
it when people do this, but there's nothing they can
do, they have to take the bid!
Fourth, if there is still any real competition, I
bid immediately when they do. I don't let them get the
idea that I'm thinking about getting out of the bidding,
which would just give them more hope. Also, when I think
that they are considering getting out, I'll jump the
bid a bit again, and give them a higher dollar decision
to make about their own next bid.
Fifth, I have a price in mind that I want to pay for
the item. I may make one bid above that price, but that's
it. You don't get bargains with undisciplined bidding.
Strategy number five above is the only one that
carries over to online auctions! When I started online
auction bidding, it was like learning to walk again!
Luckily, since I'd been able to figure out how to handle
live auctions, I was also able to figure out how to
handle online auctions.
So now, here are my tips for success at online auctions.
Luckily, there don't have to be that many of them. This
is good, since the simpler you can keep your strategy,
the easier it is to learn and follow through. However,
these tips are extremely important to keep in mind if
you want to get your item, and get it at the lowest
possible price!
Tip #1 : Stay Organized. This is going to be
important for several of the tips here. When you've
found the same item being offered in three separate
auctions, you need to keep track of all of them, so
you know which is going at the best price. You need
to know when all your auctions end. You need to have
links to all the auction pages. You need to know if
any of the bids have gotten beyond what you want to
pay, so you can stop worrying about that auction. If
you buy an item, you need to keep track if you paid
for it. If you've bought several items, you can actually
forget one that you should be receiving! You need to
know about that too! I'm sure there's more, but you
get the point. Staying organized is key! The need to
stay organized is also why I wrote the AuctionPrime
software for my own use. It has saved me a couple of
times when I had eight or nine auctions won in the last
few days, because it gives me a list on demand of what
I haven't paid for yet, or what I have paid for and
haven't yet received.
AuctionPrime
also helps you keep organized in two other important
ways:
First, it lets you save your searches. This is a simple
but effective way to help you consistently keep track
of what auctions are available for the items you want
to buy.
Second, it lets you enter buying Missions. You can
link the Missions to your saved searches, and link them
to groups of items so that you always know what upcoming
auctions you're interested in for that Mission. This
leads directly to ...
Tip #2 : Find them all. When you run across
an item you're interested in, don't stop there. Use
the auction's search feature to find all the
items like it currently offered. Keep track of them
all. Having all the alternatives gives you the best
chance of getting a low price.
When you search for items, search for misspellings
of the item name. You don't always find these, but when
you do, there's an excellent chance you'll be the only
bidder.
Also, look at all the pictures for items in your search
results. Last year I was trying to find an old Henry
Mancini record album, "Mr. Lucky Goes Latin". I'd been
looking for this literally for months. Commonly I searched
on "Mr. Lucky", "Mr Lucky", and "Mancini", including
descriptions in the search. Finally, on one search for
"Mancini", there were no results that looked like they
included "Mr. Lucky Goes Latin", but I happened to look
at a couple of the items that had pictures. Lo and behold
… there it was! A seller was offering a lot of 7 or
8 Mancini albums, and he listed them by showing pictures
of the album covers! Never mentioned in the description,
there was a picture of the "Mr. Lucky Goes Latin" album
cover! Since his auction didn't search well due to his
lack of description, I had no competition. I bought
the entire lot, including shipping, for less than half
of what I would have paid for the one album!!
Tip #3 : Know what a good deal is. Do
history searches on the auction site to see what this
type of item has sold for in recent weeks. If you're
collecting something (I collect comic books, and my
wife collects crystal figurines), find and buy a current
price guide … they're available for pretty much every
type of collectible. In these cases, its essential to
know what the right price is, so that you never bid
that high! I see a lot of bargains had on eBay,
but I've also seen people buy second hand items for
more than retail (or more than the collectible value)!
Incredible! Just don't be one of those people.
There are other items that, obviously, you can't know
a 'right' price for. In these cases, determine a price
that you know you'd be comfortable paying for that item,
and try to get it for less.
I made a place in my AuctionPrime program to
keep up with this. When I'm looking through auction
items that I've saved in my program, I can easily see
what the real value of each item is, and what the current
bid price is. If the bid gets higher than what I've
entered as the value, I just delete that item from the
program!
Tip #4 : Be patient. If you don't find the item
in your price range this week, odds are that you will
next week or next month. The one constant thing about
eBay (in particular), is that someone else will be selling
the same thing again soon. (OK, OK, I just admitted
that it took me months to find that record album, but
that's the exception to the rule!) Just don't pay more
than you should because you're pretty sure its the last
time ever in the history of mankind on computers the
item will ever be up for auction, and then see someone
else get one next week for half the price. This very
thing happens all the time on eBay! I'm sad to
say, it happened to me a time or two when I was still
wet behind the online auction ears, and I didn't yet
realize just how good a deal I could get.
Tip #5 : Don't Bid!! That sounds a little unproductive,
doesn't it? You've found ten auctions of the camera
you've been wishing for, you know what the right price
is, you're keeping track of them all, and one of them
has been overlooked. It seems that it will sell for
an incredible bargain … and now I tell you not to bid
on it?!?! Well, don't bid on it until the very last
second. Make one bid and one bid only in an online
auction. There is a very simple reason for this; the
more bids on an item, the more its price will go up.
There will be plenty of other people making competing
bids for an item, and thereby driving its price up.
Don't help them to do this!
You should be making one bid, and that bid should be
made anytime in the last 90 seconds before the auction
deadline. (AuctionPrime
autobids at 15 seconds before auction end.) AuctionPrime also
makes bids for me in the middle of the night, or when
I'm in a meeting. This way I don't miss out on any
opportunities to get my bargain. Believe me, that greatly
increases my odds of getting said bargain!!!)
By doing this, you accomplish three things.
First, as I discussed, you don't help drive the price
up.
Second, it keeps your bidding disciplined. If you bid
at the last moment, and your bid isn't high enough,
then you don't have time to bid more than you really
wanted to! And believe me, if you make a bid that isn't
high, and have time to make another one, the temptation
is very great to do so. Just say NO!
Finally, if your bid is high, your competition
has no time to respond! Does this sound unfair? That's
not possible, it's the rules by which these online auctions
operate! You just have to play those rules better and
smarter than the other bidders.
Now here's one last bidding note. You'll find some
'online auction experts' advising that you make one
very high bid just before auction close.
The idea here is that any bid that happens to be made
a few seconds after yours will fail, since there's no
way it will be higher than yours. This is a bad strategy.
What it really accomplishes is to make sure that if
some really ignorant or idiotic person makes a high
bid after you, which only forces up your bid, then you're
stuck making a bid higher than an idiot's bid. Doesn't
sound very appetizing, does it?!? The be patient
strategy is far superior!
Tip #6 : Know your seller. Always read the seller's
feedback. Don't keep track of the item if the seller's
feedback is bad.
Never buy a high dollar item from a seller with no
feedback points, or if the seller has just a few feedback
points, but they are all for buying items.
When the seller has very few feedback points, look
for 'Feedback Circles'. This is where a group of IDs
all join, and give each other a couple of positive feedbacks.
Feedback Circles are pretty easy to spot if you know
to look for them. I'm always suspicious of people who
do this, and I do not bid on their auctions!
If you feel you must consider bidding on an item when
the seller's feedback is suspect, Email the seller first
and explain that you'll bid on the item, but only if
the seller will agree to ship COD. If the seller agrees
to this, keep their Email saved in case of a possible
dispute if you win the auction, but they won't follow
through on the agreement.
Tip #7 : Keep your Feedback clean.
When you win an auction, always send your payment immediately
upon receiving payment information. When you send shipping
information, make sure your Email is clear and friendly.
Always wish the seller good luck in their future auctions.
Sellers will love you for this, and they'll make you
sound like a saint in their feedback notes about you.
If you have an unpleasant encounter with a seller,
think carefully before you post a negative feedback.
They could post one in retribution, and then your clean
slate is gone forever. This does not mean that you should
let a complete bandit off the hook just to safeguard
your feedback. It does mean to extend the benefit of
the doubt, keeping your feedback record in mind as you
make the decision.
Finally, to keep your Feedback climbing, always enter
a positive feedback for the seller as soon as you receive
an item. Then check to see if they've entered one for
you already. If they haven't, send them a nice note
telling them that you received the item and are very
happy with it. Then tell them that you've just posted
a nice feedback for them, and would appreciate it if
they'd post one for you. Provide your user ID and the
auction number in the Email.
Tip #8 : Reserve auctions with no bids.
You can save some real money on these, and there are
two strategies.
Strategy one involves auctions with a reserve,
but a minimum bid that is less than the reserve. Particularly
on higher priced items, you'll find quite a few of these
auctions that don't get a bid, or the high bid is under
the reserve. Here the strategy is to make a last second
bid that is as low as possible, is under the reserve,
but is the high bid. Sometimes the seller will offer
you the item for your bid price (or somewhere in between),
even though it is under the reserve. I've had this happen
for me many times. The thing is, the seller is ready
to get rid of that item, that's why they put it up for
auction. They don't want to go through the whole thing
again, they want to sell it! You can help them
accomplish this goal, and still get a bargain for yourself.
If you don't hear from the seller, Email and ask if
the seller is interested in selling to you for your
bid price (unless the bid price is too ridiculously
low, then make a somewhat fair offer.)
Nowadays, online auctions are almost online malls for
many retailers and etailers, some of whom do all
of their business on eBay. These sellers are less likely
than individuals to make such deals, but they still
do at times. I've got a top of the line Sharp video
camera that proves they will, and I got it brand new
for half of the street value price.
Strategy two is similar, but you
never make a bid. When you see the auction close with
no bids, just Email the seller and make an offer. Be
polite. I bought a Minolta APS film scanner this way,
and made another half price coup. The online auction
hosts don't technically like deals to be made this way,
but it's a free country!
Now, how do I keep track of all these auctions,
and see whether they've had bids, when they close, etc.,
without it taking up all my time? (time out for
a word from our sponsor … me) I use my very own AuctionPrime
program!
Tip #9 : Sell things too. Literally,
before you throw anything away, or give it away, consider
listing it for auction on eBay first. I was literally
halfway to the door last year to throw out some old
programming manuals. I thought about listing them for
auction instead (luckily), and sold them for $75!!
The thing was, these manuals were actually sort of rare,
if old. Someone else was still using that version of
that programming language, and didn't have a good set
of manuals!
When you sell something, use some salesmanship in your
description. Explain why someone would really benefit
from buying your item. However, be scrupulously honest
about describing the item. If it has a flaw, list it.
If its out of date, say so … but then follow up with
a reason why someone would want it even if its out of
date.
When you sell it, ship it no later than the day after
you receive payment, unless you're holding a personal
check to clear.
Not only will you get some extra cash out of the deal,
but you'll get more feedback points too, and better
rounded feedback, since you'll have some from both sellers
and buyers. People actually pay attention to that.
Tip #10 : It's a buyer's market.
Online auctions are the yard sale of the 21st century.
You are much more likely to get a great bargain (particularly
on eBay) on something you buy, than you are to make
a killing on something you sell online. This is important
to keep in mind. If you've got that antique German clock
of your great great grandmother that you've finally
decided to part with, don't sell it online. You'll be
lucky to get half of its value. If you list it with
a reserve that meets its value, odds are you won't even
get a bid. But you might get an Email from me asking
if you want to deal!
Since you can generally get good deals in online auctions,
expand your thinking about what you might buy online.
I constantly buy DVDs on eBay for prices far below retail,
even counting shipping. You can find books, home electronics,
cameras, art, computer software (including computer
games), collectibles … you name it, you'll find it!
(Whenever we look, we find currently selling crystal
figurines on eBay at well below retail prices. I won't
even consider buying them in a retail store.)
On some items like DVDs, I try when possible to buy
two or three from the same seller. This essentially
results in getting the shipping on the extra items for
free. That means I'll pay a seller from whom I'm winning
multiple auctions a dollar or two more than buying the
same (one) item from a different seller, and I still
save money on the shipping!
Wrap up : The tips above are pretty
easy to learn, and certainly take no great talent to
implement. You just need to be familiar with them and
remember to keep them in mind when you're buying things
in online auctions.
As I mentioned earlier, keeping track of these things
is why I wrote AuctionPrime.
When I first started, I just bookmarked auction pages,
and moved them to a "Bought" folder when I won an auction.
I'd rename the bookmark when I paid for or received
an item. It was a pain in the behind to do, wasn't at
all reliable, and took up too much of my time. So I
wrote AuctionPrime to do
these things for me. About the only things it can't
do is send the payment, and carry the box in after UPS
comes to my door.
If you're ever going to buy more than a couple of things
in online auctions, you need a program like AuctionPrime.
If you don't use it now, you'll find out the hard way
one day, and you'll get it then!
Using AuctionPrime has
saved me literally hundreds of dollars on things I've
bought on eBay.
It has bid and won items that I wouldn't have gotten
otherwise, because I couldn't be at my computer when
the auction closed!
It one time saved a $125 item that I'd forgotten about,
and the seller had lost track of shipping. However,
AuctionPrime didn't forget
it, and when I next listed items "Paid for and not received",
there it was. I Emailed the seller, who apologized profusely
and shipped the item overnight, at his expense, to make
up for the oversight.
So please use the information above to become more
successful in your own online auction bidding. If you'd
like to have AuctionPrime
in your corner making sure everything goes right, then
I'm very proud to have helped you in that way too!
Good luck in all your auctions!!
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