Buying on eBay – How much and when should I bid?

Here is the next part of my guide to buying antiques and collectables on eBay.  How much and when should I bid?

There are four types of sale to consider here:
- buy it now
- buy it now with best offer
- auctions
- auctions with buy it now

 Remember this applies mainly to antique, vintage and collectable items where the seller will rarely have more than one of each item.  Different strategies apply for new items. 

1. Buy it now

Things to consider: Are you prepared to pay the asking price plus the shipping for this item?  If so I would tend to just buy the item immediately. If you don’t someone else might get in first. You can contact the seller and ask if the will accept less but that is probably best reserved for Buy it now with best offer

2. Buy it now with best offer

Here think about how much you are really prepared to pay including postage. If this is within 20% of the sellers asking price I would make an offer. Offering a really low amount is unlikely to get accepted and will most likely upset the seller so that they don’t want to accept any offer from you at all.

With “buy it now” and “buy it now with best offer” it is probably best to act quickly before someone else gets the item.

3. Auctions.

The best strategy here is bid late and bid high. Perhaps if you spot a real bargain it is worth e.mailng the seller to see if they have a ” Buy it now” price – if you don’t someone else might.

So how high should you bid – enter the absolute maximum you are prepared to pay for the item taking into account the postal costs you are going to have to pay. I say determine your maximum and bid once only. The eBay system will only allow you to pay a small amount more than the bidder below you. To help prevent yourself being outbid I suggest leaving the bidding to the dying seconds of the auction and I use an auction sniper tool to help with this. The tool I use is AuctionSniper which you can find here:

Full service eBay Sniper.