Does Anyone Care When An N Scale Auction Closes?

I'm selling a lot of my collection on E Bay right now. People used to sit by their computers and bid at the last possible moment before the auction closes.

Does anyone do that anymore vs. using a Snipe program and coming back later to see the results?

There have been so many auctions that I have missed because I forgot to get my bid in near closing time.

It used to be that auction closing on Sunday night had more activity. Is that still the case?

What are forum opinions?

 

I stopped caring a long time ago, I just bid whatever is the most I will pay for the item, if I win it, then I win, if not, its not the end of the world.

 

Pete,
I use my I-phone with an ebay app. to let me know when the auction is about to end .

 

Hi Pete,

Mate, I'm an old school snipe bidder.. I'll sit at my PC and wait until the last possible second to bid.. I bid to what I feel the item is worth, plus another few dollars and thats it..

Very rarely will I bid early on an auction, and then only if its less than 12 hours to go, and the current sell price is what I consider to be excessively low..

From my experience, auctions ending in the range of 6 - 9 PM in the evening have better sell prices than those finishing at odd hours, like at 10am on a weekday when many people are at work..

Mark..

 

Many years ago I always put in a bid at the last second and I usually won the item. I havent bought anything on ebay in several years and I don't even look there anymore. Someone in another Country tried to bid on an item using my ID information and my registration was suspended until I reapplied with new info. But I never did.

 

I don't care anymore. I am WAY more likely to buy a "buy it now" that is reasonable. otherwise, I bid what i will pay and oh well. there will be another opportunity In O scale, I just had to wait until this week to get the "elusive, rare, discontinued" Peanuts Christmas car, for less than MSRP, even though it still has higher priced auctions . However, history repeat itself, I'd imagine there are always new modelers and folks new to ebay, so you should get the bidding hype.Unless, the ebay model is mature, that is, you really aren't getting the huge user influx, you once did.

 

Old school sniper. I'll bid on some items early if it is something I really want and the price is reasonable. I prefer ending times in the evenings, 6-9 pm US Central time.

Scott

 

I don't bid on much unless it something I can't find in a store, but I never bid until the last possible moment becaue if you bid to early it can run the price up!

 

When I sell, I find my results are usually better when the auction ends on a Saturday or Sunday, typically mid afternoon. It also seems to be better to end them soon after the first of the month. I personally miss a lot of auctions because I get busy at work (duh) and forget what I am watching. I could probably solve that with a smart phone and reminders but I prefer to keep my phone dumb

 

Colonel, you can set an auction to end anytime you want to if you schedule it. Selling on eBay, I have had very mixed results with true auctions; they use to say that having an auction end on Sunday night at 7PM Pacific Time was the best but anymore, I have them end on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday at 7PM Pacific. I think people are busier on weekends. Just my opinion.

 

FWIW, I do not care when an auction ends. I cannot be bothered to go to the trouble of setting up sniping software (in fact, I object to sniping), and I sure as heck won't sit around at the PC waiting for auctions to end so I can try to outsmart someone else. I bid what I consider fair the minute I find an item of interest; then I move on.

 

If it has been difficult for me to find the item and I catch it at the last minute, for sure I'll "camp" that item until I win or the price becomes too unreasonable. I probably went into the "unreasonable" realm a couple of times this weekend, but I couldn't find either item anywhere online.

Then there are a couple of items I have put bids on and if I get beat by a darn nickel then oh well. If I "have" to have it, then I will pay close attention.

As a seller, I like to see the last-minute bidding action, but it's been a few years. As a buyer, I generally won't place a bid within 30 minutes of closing.

Now there are a couple of expensive "lot" auctions up right now that I'm slowly taking apart to see if I can make a profit reselling the pieces, keeping what I want. So far, it doesn't look promising.

 

I'm a sniper.I bid the absolute maximum amount I'm willing to pay for the item at the very last possible moment,probably around 25 seconds to go.I almost never lose.I prefer weekends or later at night.I positively hate it when someone has a 6 day or longer auction on something that's ten bucks..I think if you drag it out,people lose interest..

 

If you're concerned about getting the maximum amount of bids, I recommend setting your auctions up to end on weekday nights, as some people do not monitor auctions at work, it makes sense that when people are at home, they have time for that sort of thing.

I can't see getting top dollar for anything on an auction, these days, with the economy the way it is. My personal opinion, the overwhelming majority of stuff being auctioned is easy to find, and most sellers have starting bids that, let's just put it this way, they're not exactly attracting extra sales.

Your results may vary....

 

I should think quite the opposite; I think it has the potential of attracting more interest. I can't be checking the listings every single day, so an item up for a short auction may get missed by people like me who are otherwise offline.

 

From the responses it seems that not to many people are using Snipe programs (E Snipe for instance). That was an underlying question. How do you bid?

I notice a lot of bids at the end of auctions. People are either waiting at the end, or have Snipe programs.


Many are bidding he maximum and see what happens. A few are bidding at the last minute.

Most are concerned when the auction ends. Many don't seem to be available for auctions closing during the day.

 

My observation has been that there are more items closing later in the week than earlier. This is straight auctions only; I ignore "Buy It Now" only items.

There also is not that much closing during the day Eastern Time as in the evenings, and there's almost nothing in the middle of the night. This is exclusive of my "ignore list" of auctions from sellers that list items of either no interest or with unrealistic prices and/or shipping charges. I'm constantly adding to that list and that brings the number of auctions down from 65000 to less than 10000 in a typical week.

 

You don't want to know how I feel about all this...................................!

I prefer to negotiate a price down, not up.