Well, as it turns out eBay has an auction going on for the exact scope I want…Dragunov reticle and everything. MSRP is $700, dealer (as best I can tell) is $600. Bidding on this one starts at $299. I’m bidding $400 on it and hoping that will do the trick. I was originally going to hold off on getting rings since I wasnt sure if I was going to get a scope with a 1″ or 30mm tube but, after giving it some thought, Im going to get a set of rings for each in case at a later date I wish/need to swap scopes for some reason. Half of me is hoping I lose the auction since I really cant afford this scope right now but another part of me doesnt want my nice new shiny expensive rifle to sit in the closet all winter without getting a chance to be shot.
Notes From The Bunker
Dude. Wait and snipe it! That’s the only way to win anything on ebay.
I know how you feel. I have a nice new Savage 110FP (no sights) sitting in the safe waiting for a scope. It’s already been there a few months! It even has a bipod ready for it. I apologize to it every week when I get the other guns out to go to the range and play.
Esnipe is the only way to Ebay…
Besides esnipe, I have used auctionsniper.com… both seem to be priced about the same… your first three snipes are free from this one, too.
Of course you have to snipe an auction for a scope. It’s only fitting. 🙂
*exactly*
Why?! I do not understand these people who think eBay is a game. Despite the terminology, you’re not winning anything. You’re getting a product at a price. Put in the maximum amount you’re willing to pay, and if you get it, you got it, and if you don’t, then it cost too much anyway.
Man, you just really know how to suck all the fun out of a thread, dontcha?
Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner… the reason is because it is a game to some people… and putting in your maximum bid well before the auction expires just encourages someone else who is also interested in the item in question to find your max and exceed it…
I know at least one instance where I won an auction by about $0.76 or so… I would not have won it if I didn’t snipe it… the guy’s max bit was $65.00…. I happened to put in $65.76 for whatever reason… (which is another trick, too… adding a few extra cents because many people bid even dollar amounts, even as did… )
If you snipe, you’re doing the same thing as what you say, find your maximum amount that you are willing to pay, BUT, do so at the last minute. This way, you can’t change your mind later and decide to pay more if you are outbid by a few dollars on a major item…. You also increase your odds that the item won’t be bid up by others who don’t play the bidding game as well in the meantime.
I’m not saying that you will win every time, but I doubt the scope in question would be over $400 now if the bid wasn’t put in until the last minute.
Using a snipe site also means you’re not tied to the computer when the auction ends… you can set it ahead of time and forget about it, to enjoy date nights, holiday shopping frenzies, work, or whatever else you choose to do… but NOT sit there hoping to get in a bid at the last minute or knowing later that if you had just bid $2 more, that item could have been yours… Does that make any sense? If not, I can try to ramble a bit more on the subject…
Then I didn’t really bid my max amount, did I? Right now I’ve got an eBay bid in for a motorcycle part. I bid what I thought it was worth. If someone else gets it for a penny more, he’s paying too much. Or he needed it badly enough to spend the extra money. Either way, he’s welcome to it.
If “winning” at all costs was the point of the “game”, then I could just put in obnoxious maximum bids for things.
It almost seems like people don’t want to know the values they place on things. Like it’s an uncomfortable subject they can’t even admit to themselves. “Uncle Bob touched me down there when I was five, and I want to see Velvet Revolver for $283.84.”
He’s the one the call Dr. Killjoy.
[shrug] Yes, “winning” is a deceptive mindset for buying things on ebay or online in general.
The scope sold for $407 when all was said and done. If CZ had known that it would sell for that, even if he was stretching to afford the $400 for the exact scope he wanted, might he have bid $410 for a $600-700 scope? I’d say that he would have… or at least strongly considered it…
This week I won two items, both with bids at the last minute. One I was high bidder by virtue of having a bid in that was slightly over $1 more for a $80 item, the other I won because my max bid was $0.27 more than the other highest bidder for a <$5 item (retail price ~$19). If I had put in bids before the last second, I would not have gotten either item for the prices I paid, because it would be fairly easy for someone else to bid at their leisure until they were over my amount... assuming they had the money/stupidity to burn... [shrug]
I bid my max price, but I didn’t show my hand before all the bets were in, so to speak…
I also lost one bid because someone else had the same amount first before I put mine in, but it was for an item that was less important to me to buy right away… [shrug] I don’t have a problem with that… and I just did the minimum opening bid for that object… had I done $1 or even $0.01 more, I might have won it, too… no biggie…