bsmart wrote: |
Every time I put in my 'true max bid' someone came in with minutes (or seconds) to go and topped it by just enough. After that happened several times in a row I figured it was more than just luck. |
But his true max bid was probably more than that. Here's how Ebay works... Lets say for the purpose of discussion, the bidding starts at $100. You put down a "max bid" of $150. At the beginning, your actual bid is just $102.50 (ebay generally increases the price in increments of $2.50). If someone else bids a max bid of $125, your bid increases to $127.50, because your max bid was still more than his. Now, if someone else comes in with a max bid of $175, they will initially top yours by just $2.50 - ie $152.50.
If your max bid is bigger than his max bid, you cant lose. And there's no real way to predict what someone's max bid is, except for rebidding (upping your supposed max bid each time) until you finally beat them. Thats part of the problem, people double-think their max bid when they get beat...
Again, was the price you got beat by more than the cheapest one on abebooks? I doubt it...
Neil