Hi All,
Need advice on winning an auction on ricardo...
I can see an item on ricardo.ch that i really like.
I havent really bought anything on ricardo till now but would like to buy this particular item.
The item is on auction and there are about 5 days left for it to end. Currently the price looks like a real bargain.
There have already been about 12 bids... 4 of which are from someone who has bought about 4000 items already this year.
I was thinking of putting in a higher bid at the last moment (a bit cheeky), but on reading some of the older posts on EF, it seems that this will just extend the auction.
Any tips from the experts on the forum on how to go about the auction
The auction will end 5 minutes after the last bid...........not at any set time, it's not Ebay.
as above, sniping doesn't work on ricardo (thank god)
I don't think I'm an expert on Ricardo... but have bought a few items. I usually bid at the end... watch the last 10 minutes and then bid in the last lets say 30 secs (yes .. I'm one of those ). I put in the "max bid" to see how far up other people are ready to bid, kinda gives me an idea if its worth it or not (in this case it will only go as high as another bidder's "max bid" and not how high you are willing to go). It will extend it but there are few people that keep on top of it, hehe! Another thing about the 4000 some bought items... doesn't mean you are not getting it. They tend to buy at lower cost so they can sell it again... for you it might just be worth a couple of extra coins
Good luck!
This is what we have so far...
- If i bid in the last 10 mins then there is no extension to the auction.
- If someone bids in the last 5 mins then the auction gets extended by 5 mins from the time of this bid.
I am trying to get my head around the Max bid thing but dont seem to understand.
What is
"Aktueller Preis" - seems to automatically come up
"Ihr Gebot" - seems editable
Thanks for the help
just noticed another bidder who has about 1000 items to his name and also tried about 4 times for this item.
"Aktueller Preis" = current price
"Ihr Gebot" = the bid you want to submit. The website will then automatically bid on your behalf, from the current price up to this maximum if necessary.
For example, say that the current price is CHF25.00, and the person who made that bid actually entered a max of CHF40.00. (You have no way of seeing what his maximum bid is, only the current bid.)
If you bid CHF35, then his CHF40 bid will still beat you, i.e. he will be top bidder and the new current price will be CHF36 (just above your maximum.)
If you bid CHF50, then you will be top bidder and the new current price will be CHF41 (just above his maximum.)
Another thing that works good is to put in uneven numbers... if you put in your max bid 41 or 42 instead 40, you are more likely to get it cause the majority of the bidders, I have noticed, bid even numbers...
man.. I hope I don't have to bid against you guys soon..
Thanks for this clear explanation. Just thinking if i should put in a maximum bid or choose to enter it myself.
I find the explanation MathNut gave excellent. I think if you really want to get something, decide what is the maximum you would pay for it and put it in as your "maximum bid". This discourages other bidders because their (lower than yours) bids keep getting knocked down as insufficient to be the "maximum bid".
If on the other hand they manage to bid more than I, then I feel better because i know, on some level, I wasn't ready to pay so much. I hope this was clear, but I have a feeling it wasn't. Good luck biddin!
I know that most would prefer putting in their max bid and letting the system sort it out.
I think that I am going to opt for the option of a manual bidding.
My strategy...
-Put my bid in the last 10 minutes
-If another bidder happens to increase his bid then i increase my bid after a couple of minutes
-I stick to max limit that i have set in my mind and quit if the cost exceeds this limit.
Logic for not opting for max bid...
When other bidders put in their bid, they will not have to spend a lot of time going beyond my bid. They just have to up their bid till they surpass mine. None of their time is wasted
So i am banking on the thought that someone else may not want to spend as much time as myself on this auction
Though i am still intimidated by the number of items bought by the other bidders for this item.
Your strategy could work. I wouldn't worry about the number of transactions one has to their name. They include purchases as well as sales and like you say, maybe they don't want this item as much as you do.
If you put a super high bid, then you will be guaranteed to get it and it will cost just more than what the 2nd highest bidder would pay.
The only negative thing about bidding manually is that if you are bidding lower then the other has his high bid set (that you can't see) you might run out of time, because if you underbid one that has a max bid, time doesn't get set back!
@wdpris...You are right! Maybe i will start 15 mins early and increase my bid by incremental amounts (5,10,15 and so on)
One query... I will be in Ukraine on the last day of the auction. Will there be any issues in bidding if i am outside Switzerland?
I may have done that if i was dealing with normal bidders.
I have had to come up with my approach to try and beat the professionals.
Phil,
The whole point is to buy at a super low price..........
The magic number to start bidding is 3 min to end of auction. This way there will be almost no interruption to the first end time.
If there are many interested parties in a high profile item you might as well forget it, items like that go much more than their normal price, yet alone below.
Have you registered yet? You cannot bid until you have a password, which will be posted to you (And this makes the auction a bit safer)
Also look at the fixed price sales (Ricardo Kleinanzeige) and on www.tutti.ch