That German auction site

[air-tech]

Can you continue to bid on eGun ie. raise your bid, when someone makes a higher bid than yours, like you can in a public auction?

Or are you only allowed one bid?

I would appreciate your advice.

It's just like ebay. So yes you can. And last minute, correction, last second sniping is also common, so if you really want something put in your absolute maximum bid at any time and let it be.

[Garvin]

if you really want something put in your absolute maximum bid at any time and let it be.

I would advise against doing this, because it can drive up the final price. If you give people time to think, they will gradually raise their bids so that even if you win, you end up paying much more than you needed to. Much better to come in with your maximum bid in the final seconds of the auction (as close to the end as you dare!) so that nobody knows what your maximum is and it's too late to 'test' it... I reckon I've saved hundreds of euros altogether over the years by doing this.

[Arthur John Smithsplease]

Thanks.

[Arthur John Smithsplease]

I've sometimes had trouble with the site because of the translation function, so I decided to make sure I would be able to bid rather than get an unpleasant surprise at the last minute.

I made a bid a little bit higher than the last bid on another gun, feeling fairly sure that in the 12 days remaining several people would outbid me.

If they don't then I will be extremely happy to get this gun for the low price I offered.

It seemed to work well enough, but the new price that I had bid didn't show and although I was recorded as the highest bidder, there was a zero in brackets after my name.

I had expected to see the new price published.

[Arthur John Smithsplease]

Just checked the site again. Everything working fine.

[Garvin]

I've sometimes had trouble with the site because of the translation function, so I decided to make sure I would be able to bid rather than get an unpleasant surprise at the last minute.

I made a bid a little bit higher than the last bid on another gun, feeling fairly sure that in the 12 days remaining several people would outbid me.

If they don't then I will be extremely happy to get this gun for the low price I offered.

It seemed to work well enough, but the new price that I had bid didn't show and although I was recorded as the highest bidder, there was a zero in brackets after my name.

I had expected to see the new price published.

The zero after your name is your feedback.

[Garvin]

I had expected to see the new price published.

The system won't necessarily show the full amount you bid when you become the highest bidder, it will simply increase it by one increment above the previous highest bid (ie, 1 euro or thereabouts) and show you as the new highest bidder.

Then, if someone else later bids more than your maximum, the current price will jump to that maximum and they become the highest bidder, and so on. But if they don't exceed your maximum, you will remain the highest bidder and the current price will increase to their maximum.

Two people who really want an item will often leapfrog each other days before the auction end, spending ages trying to outbid their rival, then a completely new bidder will come along right at the end with a winning bid, rendering all that leapfrogging pointless.

Obviously if you can't be present at the auction end, it may make sense to leave a bid sometime before rather than miss out altogether, but it just gives someone else a target to aim at.

Some dealers habitually leave low bids on new items when they first appear, presumably on the offchance that nobody else bids and they get a bargain.

[Arthur John Smithsplease]

Thanks Dan.

I don't know how I would have managed the site without your help.

Starting to get the hang of it now.

Have a feeling I'm going to be selling off most of my modern sporters and scopes to finance some nice old match rifles.

[air-tech]

It's just like ebay. So yes you can. And last minute, correction, last second sniping is also common, so if you really want something put in your absolute maximum bid at any time and let it be.

I would advise against doing this, because it can drive up the final price. If you give people time to think, they will gradually raise their bids so that even if you win, you end up paying much more than you needed to. Much better to come in with your maximum bid in the final seconds of the auction (as close to the end as you dare!) so that nobody knows what your maximum is and it's too late to 'test' it... I reckon I've saved hundreds of euros altogether over the years by doing this.

Yes that's also very true sometimes, but I find that with popular items that will definitely be sniped by many, you don't really go in there thinking you will grab a bargain by using any particular technique, I realised that sniping could be a pointless exercise, it's still max bidder takes all. The real offers, wayyyy over the bid level that has been static for a week, only come in within the last few seconds, so no one really knows what someone else (including yourself) is prepared to pay, and your bid will be exceeded (-if so-) only during that short period where thinking about it is useless. In a way it's good to be amongst the snipers because they all think they are going to grab a bargain by do doing... so they may put in a last second offer that is less than what the item is worth - but your higher bid that has been there however long it has been always wins, by a painful 1 Euro... and they have no time to do anything about it.

So by all means put in an offer within the last minute, but make sure it is the max you want to pay, not a "bargain" offer, and just let it be!

My secret, shared only with the hundreds of BBSers... bid on auctions that close on Xmas Day, New Year's (especially) and any day and time everyone else is hung over or in the process of becoming so

[Arthur John Smithsplease]

Lost it.

I lost my nerve and put in my bid just a few seconds too soon.

I bid 400 euros (within seconds of the end it was still only 269), and the b......d who got it must have had more nerve or experience than me. He pipped me with a bid of 401 euros.

I need to buy a stop watch so that I can be confident of the time when I next bid for something.

I'll be very lucky to get a chance of a FWB 65 in that kind of condition again.

Still, there's always the bottle.

I might not be made for this lark. Perhaps I should go to the sites Mr Jochum mentioned and just pay the price people want.

[Arthur John Smithsplease]

Talk about nail biting.

I was practically creaming my undercrackers in the last 30 seconds.

[Garvin]

I lost my nerve and put in my bid just a few seconds too soon.

I bid 400 euros (within seconds of the end it was still only 269), and the b......d who got it must have had more nerve or experience than me. He pipped me with a bid of 401 euros.

If it's any consolation, it's highly unlikely that the winning bidder actually bid 1 euro more than your maximum. It could have been 100 euros higher, but it will show up on the system as one increment (ie 1 euro) higher than your maximum.

bid on auctions that close on Xmas Day, New Year's (especially) and any day and time everyone else is hung over or in the process of becoming so

This is true! And auctions that end on a weekday morning often have nobody placing last minute bids.

[Arthur John Smithsplease]

Dan I have received a message from eGun advising me to use their bidding service in future.

Apparently if you tell them from the off what you are prepared to pay, they will bid on your behalf. I just don't understand how that works. Lets say I put in a bid of 500. Would the bidder keep that amount quiet and just keep bidding a euro or two above other bids until my bid was met? And how much would I have to pay for this service? I assume that I would have to pay the full 500 even if the last recorded price was 401.

A public auction is completely transparent. There is no time limit, and you can keep bidding until you can't afford to go any further.

The problem with internet auctions is that there is no transparency and you just don't know what is really happening.

Lets say the man who outbid me paid a lot more than the final price of 401 euros. Why can't that price by published? Surely the bidders have a right to know what the item went for.

[Garvin]

Dan I have received a message from eGun advising me to use their bidding service in future.

Apparently if you tell them from the off what you are prepared to pay, they will bid on your behalf. I just don't understand how that works. Lets say I put in a bid of 500. Would the bidder keep that amount quiet and just keep bidding a euro or two above other bids until my bid was met? And how much would I have to pay for this service? I assume that I would have to pay the full 500 even if the last recorded price was 401.

A public auction is completely transparent. There is no time limit, and you can keep bidding until you can't afford to go any further.

The problem with auctions is that there is no transparency and you just don't know what is really happening.

Lets say the man who outbid me paid a lot more than the final price of 401 euros. Why can't that price by published? Surely the bidders have a right to know what the item went for.

I don't know about the eGun bidding service, so can't comment with any knowledge. I expect it just automatically bids in the last seconds, so you don't have to. I'm sure you wouldn't end up paying any more than 1 euro above the next highest bidder if you won. It might not cost anything to use the service, I don't know.

The man who outbid you won't pay more than 401 euros, but his final maximum bid could have been a lot higher, meaning he would have paid more if someone else had bid higher than you. But they didn't. Only you bid and your maximum was 400. So he wins and the system just adds 1 euro to seal it.

Some time after the auction, maybe an hour on a busy Sunday evening, all the bids show up in the auction listing, so it's quite transparent who bid what, apart from the winner's maximum, which only he knows.

Danny

[aimless]

lets say: a DIANA was "sold" at egun for 500,- to Mr. A. Mr. B´s bid was 499,- within the last second of the auction.

Result: Mr. B made the price of the DIANA - not Mr. A.

Mr. A would have probably payed 600,-.

So 500,- is the price of this DIANA at that day. Not more.

And three people have to agree to this: the seller, the buyer (Mr. A.) and the "looser" of the auction (Mr. B).