eBay advice - Have a look here

[Mozza]

Hi everyone. Has anyone bought from Tone Tweakers? Are they any good in terms of keeping to their word? Would like to hear from anyone who had them ship to outside the U.S. Thanks!

[Hybrid88]

Hi everyone. Has anyone bought from Tone Tweakers? Are they any good in terms of keeping to their word? Would like to hear from anyone who had them ship to outside the U.S. Thanks!

Ask him yourself, he posts here quite regularly;

http://www.vintagesynth.com/forum/membe ... e&u=100767

- seems to be a very trustworthy seller, most people that do these things as a business are very professional, reputation is everything.

[smoothcriminal]

I'm wondering if it's common practice to use some kind of automatic bidding script on Ebay or something like that? I've gotten outbid on a couple auctions at literally the last 00:01 seconds by a few cents. I don't understand how it could happen, since the current bid was quite a bit lower than my maximum bid, it just doesn't seem likely that someone could guestimate the maximum bid in the last second of the auction and bid the exactly the minimum amount higher than that before the auction ends.

[Ned Bouhalassa]

Since I'm a newbie here, pardon me if this has already been discussed...

I get frustrated when I search Completed Listings and have such a limited range of dates to read from. I tried using the Wayback Machine but that was just silly. With all the cool software out there, is there nothing that I can use to see eBay listings going back 6 months or a year?

[rschnier]

I'm wondering if it's common practice to use some kind of automatic bidding script on Ebay or something like that? I've gotten outbid on a couple auctions at literally the last 00:01 seconds by a few cents. I don't understand how it could happen, since the current bid was quite a bit lower than my maximum bid, it just doesn't seem likely that someone could guestimate the maximum bid in the last second of the auction and bid the exactly the minimum amount higher than that before the auction ends.

Just came across this thread, very good info.

Here's what's happening. When you enter a bid amount, you're telling eBay the maximum amount you'd be willing to pay for that item. Ebay's system will automatically enter a bid on your behalf for only what's necessary to win the auction, up to and including your maximum. If your maximum is below what the current high bidder has already entered as their maximum, the system will just increase the current price to your maximum and the other person will still be the high bidder. (If two people enter the same maximum, the earlier one wins.)

For example, let's say the current price is on an item $250 and you enter a maximum bid of $500. Further, suppose that the person with the current high bid has entered a maximum bid of $400 (this is, of course, known only to eBay and not to you). The system will check whether your maximum bid ($500) is greater than the maximum bid previously entered by the current high bidder ($400) and set your current bid to that person's maximum plus the bid increment ($5.00), or $405.00. (The bid increment depends on the current price; the table is listed at http://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/bid-increments.html .) If someone comes back and bids $475 as their maximum bid, eBay will raise the current price to $475, but you will still be the high bidder. And so on....

When someone bids with just one or two seconds left in the auction, it ensures that what they are bidding is their true, final, maximum bid, since neither they, nor anyone else, will have time to enter another bid if their bid isn't enough to win the auction. In the example above, if you enter $500 as your maximum bid with one second left in the auction, you'd win the auction with a price of $405.00 and the person who set $400 as their maximum bid may wish they'd set a higher maximum.

Some don't like it when they're outbid at the very end of an auction; there are a variety of opinions on whether this practice (sometimes called "sniping") is fair or not. To combat this, some auction sites use a system where if a bid comes in when there's less than, say, 5 minutes remaining, the auction end time is automatically extended to 5 minutes from the time of that bid -- this allows others to counter-bid, similar to a real live auction where there's a "going...going..." phase. There are pros and cons to each type of system -- in my view, the latter system mainly benefits the auction hosting site, who gets higher for-value fees.

[space6oy]

i'm 50/50 on sniping. guilty of it but hate when i'm outdone. it IS evil. hence my almost always asking sellers if they'll add or relist with a buy it now price.

what're the other auction sites you've found? i've been dying for someone to finally become competition for ebay, should've happened long, long ago. that's very clever how they extend the ending time due to last minute bids.

[rschnier]

what're the other auction sites you've found? i've been dying for someone to finally become competition for ebay, should've happened long, long ago. that's very clever how they extend the ending time due to last minute bids.

gunbroker.com is one site that uses this system. I don't think you'd get the widest bidder audience if you listed a vintage synth there, though.

They use a 15-minute period. Details at http://www.gunbroker.com/Support/Suppor ... &NoCount=1 and they mention at the end that such a feature is apparently the #1 most requested feature for eBay.

Personally, I believe that when placing a bid, it should be the actual maximum amount one is willing to pay...and if someone else is willing to pay more than that, so be it. One of the characteristics of "live" auctions is that people tend to get into the frenzy of "winning" the contest and end up paying more than they really intended to! One of the reasons I try not to buy stuff at live auctions. Of course, the person selling the item likes that, and so does the auctioneer (who gets paid a percentage of the haul).

[space6oy]

heh, gun auctions. i won't be hitting that site again. thanks though!

[construct09]

thanks synthacon, some good tips there. how about the inexplicable rises in postage? this morning i won a eml200, about 5 days ago i contacted the seller for postage costs to Australia from the states (as recommended by the seller). it was going to cost about $200uninsured, $230insured, appx 20kg ( i was given the exact UPS quotes just so you know ) well, whatdya know? the shipping would now be over 300 bucks cos he was gonna double box it, he didn,t think it was gonna fetch as much blah,blah...so whatdya do ? paypalebay dont give a s**t about postage, seems you havent got a leg to stand on if postage is not in the listing..

[space6oy]

that sucks. worst case could probably send the payment ebay knows you owe & then get your money back if the seller won't ship it w/o more. strike would be against them then instead of you.

[construct09]

yeah, but i want the item ,ahh to live in the middle of nowhere.....

[tryan225]

Is there anything I should do in particular when setting up my first ebay auction? I have a 606 and a 707 I want to part with and it's difficult to sell them locally because of a lack of interest. I know many are weary about sellers with no feedback, so I'm wondering what steps I can take to reassure interested bidders.

Thanks for any help.

[th0mas]

Post plenty pictures, acknowledge you have no feedback, respond to all queries quickly and with proper and complete english, tell people with questions they can call you and give a phone number on demand.

[tryan225]

Post plenty pictures, acknowledge you have no feedback, respond to all queries quickly and with proper and complete english, tell people with questions they can call you and give a phone number on demand.

These are all things I would've done anyway. Another major concern is getting ripped off. I've done a lot of reading around these forums, but basically the only conclusions I can come to are: Be wary of international buyers and be wary of buyers with no feedback. Anything else I should look out for? I'm very concerned about getting ripped off, especially keeping in mind this forum's attitude towards ebay.

[gmeredith]

@Construct09:

Make sure you always ask the US seller to ship it via USPS, not UPS. UPS is generally not for international shipping and is way more expensive then UPS to Australia.

Cheers from the Tassie devil,

Graham