Shian Kiri

I used to be a heavy EBay user a long time ago when I was having difficulties in getting games that I wanted in person.

I normally exhaust all the Retail Stores, Trade-In Stores and Flea Markets before I go to EBay. I just find that the novelty of finding an item is a lot more fun when you go on a quest to get a game.

In accordance with this thread: http://www.anime-forums.com/showthre...uld-Tweet-More

I swore that I was going to purchase both games. Unfortunately, I could not find a copy of Dead Space, so essentially, my money did not fund the developer directly. I still wanted to get the game before I played Dead Space 2. So eventually, I resorted to EBay.

When I say I used to be a heavy user, heavy user I was. Actually, a lot of people who claim to be "guru's" of EBay are full of it. It's very easy to enter a number into the system, and let it do the work for you. However, your bid's can be guessed and this can cause you to pay more than you would like. Also, if you can't cause the other person to deter from bidding, then you basically paid more than you would've liked.

I always set a "max" limit to an item, but I never straight up, put a "max" bid right off the bat. I actually queue up bids over the course of a day.

Say, I wanted a game that is worth $150. I'm willing to put up to $200 for it because I want it that bad.

If the starting price starts at 0.99, then obviously it's going to ramp up rapidly.

I always put bids in based on my own system of bidding, not based on EBay's auto bid system. Most people will put 50 cents more, or put even amounts. I never do that because it's not a good enough deterrent.

What I ultimately do is I put in $10.51 and hope that it jukes out a bidder. You have no idea how often this works since people will do auto bidding until they hit a max or they get discouraged because they constantly keep getting out bid on items they want.

I've stopped people who are just bidding for giggles at $10.50 all the time and end up winning lower end items at $10.51 or beat them out on a single penny.

Then you have the people who understand the bidding process and they will take your estimated bid and add another $20 on top. That one sucks, which is why you only increase an item's worth by a lot only on item's that you truly cannot get anywhere else.

An example of this is Sony's Pocketstation. It's like a Dreamcast VMU, only it's for the PlayStation. It's Japan only and also, there are different kinds of items associated with Sony's Pocketstation such as the Card Captor Sakura edition.

It's only worth $50, but there are times where you'll have to pay more than expected because someone else wants it a lot more than you do. In one particular instance, I wanted one and lost at $125.51 because previously, I had told myself my max bid will be at $130.

Someone put their max bid way higher than I was willing to put in. I put bids at $10.51, $22.51, $50.01 and $70.51

Eventually I realized that this guy's bid was super high, so I was like, "well, let me try my max bid."

I put in $125.51 and it STILL didn't beat this guy. I knew it was time to stop because it wasn't worth beating this guy.

This also reinforces my point, do NOT put in your max bid as your starting bid because someone like myself will cause the price to go up higher than you would like.

So this is where Dead Space comes in. I haven't been on EBay for ages, but it's still interesting to see people make the same mistakes. I set my max limit to $35 and I stopped 7 people by my simple bidding process.

I stopped people at $10.51, $11.01, $15.51 and $20.51
Then within the last 10 seconds, I put my max bid right away when someone out bid my $20.51

I put in $35.01 and won at $35.01

The final bid against me was $35.00

Moral of the story: If you use EBay, set a max bid you're willing to pay. Play with other bidders and try to discourage them. Never put in even amounts or amounts that can be used in the auto-bid system. Finally, the point is to win efficiently and effectively, if you cannot afford the item, simply let it go and look for another deal because now that the big player is gone, you can get the item cheaper.