I know, right?

I have saved searches for many terms related to my prototype railroad. The disparity you point out between identical items happens more frequently than on would ever imagine. Makes you wonder how many people stop at the first item they search for and never look at the remainder of the search results.

Just last week and the week prior two identical NIB pieces of rolling stock (ACY 40' OB boxcar Proto2000 HO) sold by two different sellers. One sold for the usual $22.00. The other sold for $77.00!!!!!!!! The bid listing showed two people fighting it out manually, not with automatic bids. Makes no sense at all.

You are right, it can be entertaining at times. 

The nature of auctions

Impulse Buying!

These are mostly impulse bidders and get caught up in the "game" and hate to lose.  Good for the seller as long as he or she get's paid!  I find that when I get a bidding war on an item, it's usually between 2 bidders where one has to "out bid" the other at all cost's!  A lot of times the item sells for 2 to 3 times it's value and sometimes even more than brand new!

Last week

Ic pullman diner went for 86$.  4 days later I got the same thing for 27$.  Though some of the difference was the second one was offered as a buy it now.  Always be patient, it always comes around again.

Athearn semi trailers

There were two different auctions for these trailers that were run up to $72 recently. Nuts. Link to auction.

It has been interesting of late...

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I always bid a random number to beat out the person who bids the even number.  $21.78 is a far better bid than 21.00, because the person sniping with 21.00 will not win if the high bidder is $21.78.  Ancient Ebay bidding tip, never bid a whole value.

I have been known to up the bid on something I want going all the way up to what I know is a fair price, if it's a ridiculous price and I don't think there will be much activity and I don't feel like sniping.  Bidding high early is a recipe for paying far more than what you might have if you sniped or even if you just entered a low bid.  If you put a wall up, people will pick at it until they go $1.00 above it; if you only build a low wall, you still have your reserve wall to drop later when they're not suspecting it.

And yes, I use sniper software, happily!

There is a seasonal nature

I have been using E-bay for many many years

And I have come to the following conclusions:

1.  Know the value of what you are bidding on and set your "willing to pay price accordingly"

2.  Never, ever bid before the last few moments of the auction.  If it is already past your willing to pay price, let it go.  Another of the same article ALWAYS comes along.

3.  Buy it now works good, if your price is higher then that being asked.

4.  Bidding before the last minute does nothing but drive up the final price.  Doing so is foolish.

5.  Entertain second chance buys.  If that is under your "willing to pay price", take it. 

Snipe

I use Esnipe and never look until after the auction.  If I get it, great.  If not, it will come up again.

Pete Steinmetz

E Bay Shipping Charges

There are some real idiot sellers on E Bay that use shipping as a profit center.  Don't they realize how many people won't bid on their auctions because of high shipping?

I figure "Total Cost" of an item which is the amount I am willing to pay including shipping.

For many sellers, the high shipping figured into the total cost takes their item out of consideration.

Pete Steinmetz

Patience can pay off

I won something this week that I have been trying to get for that price for probably 10 years.

I am one who usually puts my price in when I see the item, and don’t look back.

INSANE

Wow this insane 265 dollars for a building kit that you can get for 50 bucks at a train store. No way I would buy that for that price. Ebay isn't the way you should go if you want something cheap everyone will just bid it up.

I completely agree with you

I completely agree with you on that.

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You guys just don't know how to bid...

Who cares if someone bids it up - don't ever enter a high "I've Got to have it" bid days in advance in the first place, they will nick it up to that rate or better.  All the bidding advice ebay gives you is purposely set to help incur a higher final value.  [Bid early, bid high!]

And shipping, take a five pound box over to USPS and see how far you can ship it for ten dollars!!!!  Nobody's getting rich off shipping!

Don't be surprised

E-bay is doing a number of things to discourage auctions

 I don't see anything anti-auction on there?  The shipping is never free, it is either added into the price or billed separately , Ebay has no control over shipping costs, they are are set by the USPS, UPS, Fed Ex, etc. Don't overthink it, ebay is  just a market place to buy and sell stuff....DaveB

i talked to e-bay support recently (Jan 2014)

They want to become another amazon and get away from auctions.  They want everyone to put their credit card up and paypal it now.  For example, did you know that since Jan 2014 that a buy it now does not notify the seller until your pay with your credit card?  I hold one of the last ids that still is not hooked to a credit card.  And I won't do paypal, so e-bay is becoming a real pain for me.

a buy it now does not notify the seller until your pay

The seller can check that option or not, but there's little incentive for a seller to not use that feature since it cuts down on the time they have to wait for payment and it filters out the kooks who wanna buy it now and send some sketchy payment later . Despite what you might hear ebay is not going to stop having auctions as long as they make  big bucks off them and sellers are not going to stop using ebay as long as it has the best liquidity of any auction site.....DaveB

It is no longer an option as of Jan 2014

I was talking to one seller on the phone when I hit buy it now.  Then after he canceled the "auction" I bought the item via credit card on the phone.  (beat someone else to the item by mere minutes too).  E-bay support on the phone tells us tha tthis is a new feature of what they envision becoming.  Too bad.  E-bay died this year.

It is no longer an option as of Jan 2014

Maybe they don't know where to look, the option check box was was still there this morning. I think a lot of ebay misinformation comes from folks who don't know how to use it or just want to make it look bad for their own reasons. Before believing what some seller on the phone tells you I'd suggest checking into it yourself. Maybe he just doesn't like paying the auction fees and told you something he made up? Like any segment of society ebay has a mix of weird and normal folks so take some care and know what you are bidding on and the history of the seller and 99% of the time things will be fine....DaveB