Ebay - OT

[Matty F]

A minute would give the OP time to decide whether to oubid the nasty dealer who made a bid with 10 seconds to go. Problem solved.

[John Williamson]

We don't know or, by and large, care, whether you're male, female, a dog, a cat or a little green alien from the planet K-Pax. All we know about you is what you type.

From this side of the screen, it looks as if you're trying to generate controversy.

You post in a newsgroup that has nothing to do with the subject of your post, and get annoyed when people disagree with you.

That's normally called trolling.

Your typing needs proofreading, too.....

You might like to try alt.anti-ebay or alt.anti.ebay

They're a bit more relevant to what you're trying to say.

[Steve Firth]

Yes, yes, of course you don't.

No, no, of course you don't.

Please yourself either way. Perhaps you could explain the relevance to diy of buying a plate on ebay before the door hits your arse on the way out?

On usenet you could equally well be an asexual slime mould, no one can tell the difference or, I suspect, care. If you want to pose as Amy the Squirrel Killer by calling yourself "sweetheart" and acting as if you're dumber than a rock you go right ahead.

[Steve Firth]

Yeah? Why don't you make a fortune then?

[John Williamson]

Where do you draw the line between bids, though? Ten seconds, a minute, two minutes, five, an hour, a day.....

In each case, someone might lose out if they're a bit slow bidding. At least the Ebay system has a known-to-all, fixed, cutoff time.

[sweetheart]

I am not anoyed with anyone here. I am really surprised you say that. I had understood and maybe I was wrong, that even though I can be a bit dim and OK, this time off topic ( I did say so in my OP title) that it would be OK. In a sense it is DIY to me because I have to do my own bidding on e bay and dont know how.

Others here do and have cleared up my mistakes. How is that so bad? I had thought I was welcome and that if people didnt want to answer they wouldnt but obviously not. Sorry. I did say I was ranting at the beginning .

[sweetheart]

People here did say it would be Ok for me to ask dim stuff once. Sorry.

[John Williamson]

You come across as annoyed, but I'll leave that point.

Do it yourself here refers more to building and repairing domestic equipment and homes. Everybody bids for themselves on Ebay, except those that use software to do it for them. We all had to learn how it works. There are groups that carry stuff relevant to Ebay, and you're more likely to get help there.

You've generated a lot of heat, certainly.

[Bob Eager]

It's what people do, and have done for thousands of years, in the real world.

Then you are naive about eBay - which is fair enough. That's the way it works. It's a way of getting stuff for less and not driving the price up.

[John Williamson]

Ask away, you've got your answers. There's no such thing as a stupid question, but sometimes they get asked in the wrong place.

[Bob Eager]

You did, but you hadn't read the instructions. You bid the maximum amount you are willing to pay.

And wait. You either get it for that price (or less), or you are outbid. It doesn't matter when.

[Bob Eager]

Or someone here, knowing your max bid, now bids £99.....

[John Williamson]

That'd be cruel. Fun, but cruel....

[chrisj.doran]

Possibly true. The prices quoted in The Antiques Roadshow are frequently way in excess of what I've seen similar items go for in eBay. But bricks & mortar shops cost more to run.

I'm afraid life is such that there's a learning curve for everything.

eBay isn't the only UK auction site, and the less well known ones can often offer bargains with no competing bidders; indeed I often feel guilty that I've ripped off a seller. There are currently 76 wall plates on eBid beginning at 60p starting price.[*]

Chris

-- [*] Sign up using this link:

I'll get a Buddy Point. But I won't cry any tears of you don't -- I'll never collect enough to spend them.

[newshound]

The other good thing about eBay is that it does let you very easily find out the market price for really obscure stuff, the sort of thing which (even with the internet) might take you quite a lot of research through special interest groups, etc.

I have all sorts of stuff, for example a Weston 5 exposure meter, which I'm never likely to use again but seems somehow too "good" to throw away. When I have to downsize, eBay is almost certain to deliver me a better price than anything else.

But if you are buying, it's also likely to be cheaper than going to dealers, especially for items which come up reasonably regularly. If you let a few of them "go" you are unlikely to get the very lowest auction price, but you won't pay the prices that someone else has either.

[Tim Streater]

And then you get dealers who sell that on eBay, selling lots of different items, but who are prepared to haggle. I got some memory chips that way recently - BIN $25 or make an offer. So I made an offer and it was accepted. They had a number for sale and I bought four. Once they accept then that's it - rather like a bazar I suppose.

Course I then had the import duty and Royal Mail's rip-off £8 "handling" charge.

[tim....]

Possibly true. The prices quoted in The Antiques Roadshow are frequently way in excess of what I've seen similar items go for in eBay. But bricks & mortar shops cost more to run.

I'm afraid life is such that there's a learning curve for everything.

eBay isn't the only UK auction site, and the less well known ones can often offer bargains with no competing bidders; indeed I often feel guilty that I've ripped off a seller. There are currently 76 wall plates on eBid beginning at 60p starting price.[*]

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More fool the people that try and sell there then

tim

[Alan]

In message , tim.... wrote

You only have to watch some of the other daytime crap TV shows where the same experts valuing the items have to either sell the items themselves or offer advice others about what to buy to go to auction.

In the majority of cases the items never fetch their valuations (and are worth even less when commission and charges are taken into account).

[sweetheart]

You know what I am bidding for then? How did you work that out, in the thousands of plates on e bay? It could happen.

[John Williamson]

It was a joke, as was my response to it. I hope it was a joke, anyway....