I am excited… I just bid on a P2K on E bay like the one I ordered last week. This is my first time to bid on anything there. The auction is over at about 10 pm tonight so maybe I will have 2 BN P2K locos to run in a few days. Those of you that do the E bay thing, is there anything I especially need to look out for. Mike
Don’t bid more than you can buy it for new.
The bid in the last 5 seconds is the one that wins.
Are you sure that what you are bidding on is what you will get? Quality tends to be below what is advertised.
If it is new from a real dealer, why is it up for auction?
What are the shipping costs? This can be a BIG issue.
How will you send the money. You may not get the item for weeks.
Good luck, I have been burned and I got two good brass engines this way.
I love Ebay, some people think its just a big waste of time. The things you should watch out for would be shipping costs and people with bad feedback. I always ask before bidding how much shipping will cost and I stay away from sellers with bad feedback. If you follow these two things then you will probably never have a problem. Most people when they get screwed over on Ebay have nobody but themselves to blame but they blame Ebay anyways, don’t listen to them.
Yeah, decide how much you want this thing first. Start watching about 15 minutes before the bidding closes. A lot of people (and I mean a lot) will “snipe” you in the last couple of minutes, putting in a bid just above yours, but not leaving you enough time to respond. The trick is to set your own bid high enough to cover potential snipers, without making it so high that you might as well have bought the thing from a full-price LHS. eBay will only charge you enough to cover the sniper’s bid, plus 50 cents or whatever it is these days.
It’s fun. I’ve got an old Athearn F7 B-unit I payed way too much for. But, I can’t buy one of those in a store or online, and I had fun winning, too.
Thanks for the input, The seller has a 100% feedback and the shipping is $7.05 I will be watching it tonight. Mike
Good advise Mister B. My philosophy, don’t complain about snippers, beat them at their own game.
I tend to snipe, or bid more ahead, depending on the time window of the auction ending. If I know I can’t be at the computer around that time, I’ll bid higher, otherwise sniping is good too. Though keep in mind, there aren’t really that many snipers in eBay (to my experiance), that are model rail roader snipers. Never know, though.
I used to snipe ebay auctions with about 3 seconds remaining. I update my computer’s clock with time.nist.gov before bidding.
If I cannot be at the computer to snipe the bid when it closes I pass on the item.
Dailup bidders can submit a bid until about 34 seconds before close of sale.
Slow DSL bidders can submit up a bid about 16 seconds before sale end.
Really fast computers and connections will get to about 3 seconds, some will use automated sniping software to narrow that down to one second.
Have the bid window open, bid entered and your mouse button over the submit bid button ready to click at three seconds prior to end of sale. Usually bidders dont see you coming… literally. (As long you have not made a bid on that item.)
Decide your max bid and bid that. Some rich bidders will slam 500 dollars on the table and walk away regardless of the true value at retail of the item… more later in this post.
To bid on a item early signals to the entire community your interest in that item and makes it valid for someone else to bid on or worse… slowly bid you up by 50 cents or one dollar to sweeten the sale for the sellor.
I always paid postal US money order. Keeping the reciept ensures ability to trace the MO via the local postmaster if the seller claimed that they did not recieve payment.
Using the PO box is a pretty safe way to ship and recieve items/money.
I never purchased from sellers with one neg feedback. They must have at least 10 sales total with all of them positive.
I always add shipping cost to the item, I usually tie into Postal Priority Mail and visit that website to check the weight of the item against the shipping rate the seller is asking for. I have sold items so I know what HO scale items should cost in shipping.
I always check with both of my Local Hobby Shops to see if I get a better price for the same items being offered on Ebay. Lo and Behold, I have consistently found items for about the
I buy and sell quite a lot on eBay. At first, I was irritated with snipers also. However, I’ve also attended quite a few conventional auctions. And guess what? People continue bidding there too when they want something badly enough. I don’t enjoy being outbid at the last minute, but it’s the way the game is played. I guarantee you that when I want something enough, I jam in bids at the last second. As was mentioned, smart bidders not wanting to play that game simply place an early bid that equals the maximum amount they’re willing to pay. This is the only way to outfox a bargain-hunting sniper.
Another tactic that works occasionally for me is to look for items that have been misspelled and/or categorized incorrectly. There’re so many items placed on eBay that some items simply get lost. I collect antique china and I’m always on the lookout for hard-to-find handplanes (Stanley Bedrocks, No. 45s and 55s, and other specialty planes). You’d be surprised how often these are listed by sellers who don’t know what they have (or how to spell it). Wildcard searches and patience are the secret to locating extraordinary bargains on eBay.
Lynda
I would tend to agree with what Safety Valve wrote. Buying, and selling, on e-Bay can be fun or it can be painful and expensive. You must “do your homework”! Find out what the item has been selling for, see if it’s even available at the LHS and at what price, check the seller’s feedback (don’t just look at his rating - READ his feedback!), and plan on losing often if you’re not sniping.
To Lynda, and others who mentioned snipers: it’s all part of the game. There are free or low-fee sniping programs out there that will increase your chances of winning a bid. The problem with bidding the maximum you’d pay for an item is that SOMEONE is ALWAYS willing to bid the extra $.50 or $1.00. If you snipe with your maximum bid amount, you may win the auction for a lot less than your maximum. If you don’t win, you wouldn’t have won with that bid anyway. Sniping is just a way to bid anonimously, especially if you can’t be at your computer when the auction ends.
Just my opinion, your mileage may vary.
Darrell, quiet…for now
Been buying on ebay for years 1. take your time, the same item will come up next week or two, except for some very rare peices 2. use paypal but only with a credit card, that way you can always dispute the charges 3. always find out shipping $, one got quoted $100.00 to ship some balsa within the U.S. 4. shipping to your home is fine 5. if they say they don’t know about an item, who cares, it is up to you to do research on what you want 6. look at the pics and make sure that what the box says is in it, is whats in it 6. look at how long they have been a member, some one thats been a member since 2001 but has few transaction is ussually fine as long as his score is 100% but sometimes you have to look beyond feedback score ( once went to buy something but was not going to bid because he had feedback of like 86% which is bad so I looked at the bad transactions I found they all came from the same person and you could tell he was a nut, wanted to combine items for shipping when the ad clearly stated NO COMBINDED SHIPPING )
I think Ebay is a great place. Like it was said before, the things to look at are: good feedback, shipping, actual value, and MAKE SURE THE ITEM IS IN GOOD CONDITION AND IS LIKE IT DESCRIBES IT. Don’t forget that you can ask the seller questions.
Interesting, because I just watched TWO Bachmann Spectrum HO K-4’s being advertised on Ebay for over $100 apiece(plus shipping) when you can buy them all day long from many dealers for $79.00 or less!
I bought two of them (NIB) several years ago for $49 apiece.
TheK4Kid
Working on the Pennsy
Main thing Mike is make sure you know what you are bidding on. I won a NIB PK E-6 for $62.00, was a local seller so I picked it up. Turns out new and no gas I could have got it from LHS for $70.00 so I saved a little.
Off the wall search that is HO related cen yell great finds. Score 5 Athearn Rolling stock and BB FP-45 and Dummy for $22.00 with shipping.
As far as being snapped, I was shoot in the head a few times. Then I went cable and have a 50 power scoop and a 50 cal rifle! If it is a Santa Fe War Bonnet, you might look to see if there is a red dot on your for head.
Cuda Ken
The theme of the advise here is to educate yourself on what you are buying and who you buy it from. As both a seller and buyer I have seen all types of problems crop up. Most auctions go off with out a hitch. Every once in a while you will find something that does not make sense. If it looks fishy to you, ask questions. If it is a ligitimate mistake the seller will correct it. Be wary of the auctions that claim an item to be rare, out of print, or hard to find. I recently saw an auction for a set of Champ decals that the seller claimed that champ was out of business and these were the last ones available. I did a quick check and found the same set of decals on the champ site for 1/2 of what the bid was at (did I mention to educate yourself?). Feedback is important. Don’t just go on the number though. There are a lot of people who won’t bid with 1 neg. with out even looking at what caused it. I have 1 neg on mine from a guy that wanted a refund. I agreed to the refund even though it was his mistake. I asked hime to send me this item, which he never did. About 4 weeks later he left me a negative feedback. So, read the feedbacks before you judge. Sometimes there is a good explanation as to what it was caused by. also keep in mind that someone with several thousand feedbacks will over time eventually get some negs. I generaly don’t get too exited over these after I read some of them. If you “play” the game long enough you will find out who the good sellers are and be able to spot problems with the bad ones.
Dan Pikulski
So, Mike, did ya get it? We all wanna know.
I’m guessing not. Otherwise, he think he would have reported back last night.
Tom
[Correction: Looks like I was wrong! See I WON I WON I WON]
Tom