A lot of people have time to waste sitting at a computer trying to buy a game for 20 they can flip for 35 and make an 8 dollar profit for a couple hours of work.
Let them have that shit.
Thats basically where I'm at with this. If people want to waste hours to save $12 more power to them.
they are saving a lot more than $12 dollars relative to ebay prices anyway. Although admittedly ebay prices are outragously high, so anything that sells for close to game value now prices looks like a steal on most games. This usually doesn't affect loose carts as much as it affects boxed gameboy games. Since there are so many loose carts for every gameboy, only the rarest title gets sniped the way I'm talking. But BOXED games, oh my lord - since you may not find a similar box listed for who knows how long, if the prices are normal and not inflated, it's gone as fast as it's listed.
Although timing is also an issue: I bought a sealed gameboy advance and spent $40 more than one that got listed less than a week after I bought mine. At the time, the one I bought was $70 less than any other one listed. The problem is you don't know if another will be listed for a lot lower price, so you have to buy it when you can.
Relative to ebay prices are irrelevant. If you are going to be a dirty reseller, at least make money. If you want to buy things at market value because “its cheaper than ebay prices”, it seems like nonsense. Im not going to tell people how to spend their time, but I will for sure make fun of them for it!
I'm not buying anything on ebay to resell, but I have bought items on ebay that I've made money on reselling. If you are going to flip games usuing ebay, it's probably best to scour the "lots", most people that don't know the prices of games throw their entire collection up on ebay, so if you use search terms to find those lots you could find a rare game and buy it with a lot. I almost bought jimmy connors tennis at a gameshop for $3, until some dude that worked their got wise and looked it up. In hindsight I should have masked that purchase with another game or two so they wouldn't be wise to it, but I got greedy.
A lot of people have time to waste sitting at a computer trying to buy a game for 20 they can flip for 35 and make an 8 dollar profit for a couple hours of work.
Let them have that shit.
Thats basically where I'm at with this. If people want to waste hours to save $12 more power to them.
You guys are being to stereotypical with how you see it. It takes seconds to refresh eBay, and it can be done literally anywhere. Who uses a computer to search ebay!? I assume close to no one. The effort is very minimal and once your get good at it the payoff can be immense.
A lot of people have time to waste sitting at a computer trying to buy a game for 20 they can flip for 35 and make an 8 dollar profit for a couple hours of work.
Let them have that shit.
Thats basically where I'm at with this. If people want to waste hours to save $12 more power to them.
You guys are being to stereotypical with how you see it. It takes seconds to refresh eBay, and it can be done literally anywhere. Who uses a computer to search ebay!? I assume close to no one. The effort is very minimal and once your get good at it the payoff can be immense.
Buying is easy. Listing, packing and selling stuff is whats time consuming.
I know ebay used to be you put a maximum bid and thats what it would jump to (regardless of what others put), but doesnt really work like that now (or for a while)
When? I’ve been using ebay since before paypal and I don’t remember ever seeing it work like that. Are you sure it wasn’t just displaying your max bid FYI?
If all a person cares about is the price, they won't be here long. Like, look at retro game prices over the past 5-10 years. You'd be better off buying market value and holding than taking your sweet I'm combing and scheming on the perfect deal.
If you don't have a lot of expendable income, maybe try collecting something else besides 30 year old piece of cardboard because the cost of finding a nice one is just accurately reflected in their current prices.
Also, unless you're paying a dollar for a $50 game, no one is impressed by your ability to comb through 200+ eBay listings for 4 weeks to save $20. It's just time value of money. Just work an extra shift and buy a handful of games w your next check?
I know ebay used to be you put a maximum bid and thats what it would jump to (regardless of what others put), but doesnt really work like that now (or for a while)
When? I've been using ebay since before paypal and I don't remember ever seeing it work like that. Are you sure it wasn't just displaying your max bid FYI?
I could be remembering it wrong but I seem to recall it being that way when I first used eBay (late 90-early 2000). Should not of stated it so definitely (I know vs I remember). Maybe I just remember it showing your max bid (and not it actually being at your max)
I know ebay used to be you put a maximum bid and thats what it would jump to (regardless of what others put), but doesnt really work like that now (or for a while)
When? I've been using ebay since before paypal and I don't remember ever seeing it work like that. Are you sure it wasn't just displaying your max bid FYI?
I could be remembering it wrong but I seem to recall it being that way when I first used eBay (late 90-early 2000). Should not of stated it so definitely (I know vs I remember). Maybe I just remember it showing your max bid (and not it actually being at your max)
It seems strange to do it that way. I guess whether it was or not, shall be a mystery for the ages
I use sniping tools for when i'll be asleep or at work. I used to lose a lot of sleep or stuff i'd want because life is a thing. I've never heard of buy it now snipers though, how do you even know what you're getting without looking at it first?
Example: say you are looking at an auction that is currently sitting at $9.87 with 2 bidders for Kid Dracula loose cart (mint condition). There is 1:36 seconds till the gavel. You want to beat the bots and whoever else is willing to bid. SO:
you judge that you'd be willing to pay $88.65 for the cart. You feel if you can get it UNDER $90 then you got a bargain. With this number in mind, you decide to put a final bid of $90 on the cart and cross your fingers.
At 5 seconds left to go, you unleash your bid: $90. At the same time, the bots and other humans who are trying to get it release their bids, and here's where ebay makes it FAIR and why the bots aren't better than anybody else bidding.
Ebay's bot system is sorting through all of these bids at a lightnighing pace. It does 3 things.
First it looks to see what the current high bidder's maximum bid is. When the high bidder put in his bid, he had the option of putting a number that HE was willing to buy the game for. So for example, let's say that the current high bidder put in a $50 bid, and so he outbid the person who was the previous high bidder's mark, and was sitting at $9.87 as his CURRENT high bid. Remember, that when HE placed the bid, he did not BID $9.87, he bid $50. So in order to beat his bid you need to go over that amount.
So now comes the more complicated part. At the end of an auction, everybody is putting in last minute bids and say you do the same. Say you bid $10, and then look to see you have been outbid to $10.50. The important part here is that the person who bid $10.50 did not have to do anything. Ebay's bot saw that he has a bid of $50, so ebay took your bid, and increased the high bid accordingly. This concept is important. Because let's go back to your $90 maximum bid. If you bid $90 at the end of the auction and no one else bid anything, then you WIN that auction and your final bid would not be $90, it would be $50.50, or just over the maximum bid that came in or was already in.
So see, the bots don't have an advantage on you other than the fact they are willing to bid more than you.
(That actually made no sense so I'll basically disregard the "you're not paying the maximum" comment because you clearly are/HAVE to pay the max to beat a bot)
Hey bud... they're called "tools" for a reason. And people utilize bots to work for them when they don't want to/can't.
So there's a big "advantage".... the fact that it's a self reliant program and not some dude sitting at his computer.
Back in the day you had to rely on being at home, wondering who else out there in the world was looking at that item and ALSO able to be home to bid on it. It was like the wild west.... and it used to be exciting.
Now everyone has computer programs doing the "work" for them. That's a huge advantage, haha.
Comments
A lot of people have time to waste sitting at a computer trying to buy a game for 20 they can flip for 35 and make an 8 dollar profit for a couple hours of work.
Let them have that shit.
Thats basically where I'm at with this. If people want to waste hours to save $12 more power to them.
they are saving a lot more than $12 dollars relative to ebay prices anyway. Although admittedly ebay prices are outragously high, so anything that sells for close to game value now prices looks like a steal on most games. This usually doesn't affect loose carts as much as it affects boxed gameboy games. Since there are so many loose carts for every gameboy, only the rarest title gets sniped the way I'm talking. But BOXED games, oh my lord - since you may not find a similar box listed for who knows how long, if the prices are normal and not inflated, it's gone as fast as it's listed.
Although timing is also an issue: I bought a sealed gameboy advance and spent $40 more than one that got listed less than a week after I bought mine. At the time, the one I bought was $70 less than any other one listed. The problem is you don't know if another will be listed for a lot lower price, so you have to buy it when you can.
Relative to ebay prices are irrelevant. If you are going to be a dirty reseller, at least make money. If you want to buy things at market value because “its cheaper than ebay prices”, it seems like nonsense. Im not going to tell people how to spend their time, but I will for sure make fun of them for it!
I'm not buying anything on ebay to resell, but I have bought items on ebay that I've made money on reselling. If you are going to flip games usuing ebay, it's probably best to scour the "lots", most people that don't know the prices of games throw their entire collection up on ebay, so if you use search terms to find those lots you could find a rare game and buy it with a lot. I almost bought jimmy connors tennis at a gameshop for $3, until some dude that worked their got wise and looked it up. In hindsight I should have masked that purchase with another game or two so they wouldn't be wise to it, but I got greedy.
A lot of people have time to waste sitting at a computer trying to buy a game for 20 they can flip for 35 and make an 8 dollar profit for a couple hours of work.
Let them have that shit.
Thats basically where I'm at with this. If people want to waste hours to save $12 more power to them.
You guys are being to stereotypical with how you see it. It takes seconds to refresh eBay, and it can be done literally anywhere. Who uses a computer to search ebay!? I assume close to no one. The effort is very minimal and once your get good at it the payoff can be immense.
A lot of people have time to waste sitting at a computer trying to buy a game for 20 they can flip for 35 and make an 8 dollar profit for a couple hours of work.
Let them have that shit.
Thats basically where I'm at with this. If people want to waste hours to save $12 more power to them.
You guys are being to stereotypical with how you see it. It takes seconds to refresh eBay, and it can be done literally anywhere. Who uses a computer to search ebay!? I assume close to no one. The effort is very minimal and once your get good at it the payoff can be immense.
Buying is easy. Listing, packing and selling stuff is whats time consuming.
I know ebay used to be you put a maximum bid and thats what it would jump to (regardless of what others put), but doesnt really work like that now (or for a while)
When? I’ve been using ebay since before paypal and I don’t remember ever seeing it work like that. Are you sure it wasn’t just displaying your max bid FYI?
If you don't have a lot of expendable income, maybe try collecting something else besides 30 year old piece of cardboard because the cost of finding a nice one is just accurately reflected in their current prices.
Also, unless you're paying a dollar for a $50 game, no one is impressed by your ability to comb through 200+ eBay listings for 4 weeks to save $20. It's just time value of money. Just work an extra shift and buy a handful of games w your next check?
I know ebay used to be you put a maximum bid and thats what it would jump to (regardless of what others put), but doesnt really work like that now (or for a while)
When? I've been using ebay since before paypal and I don't remember ever seeing it work like that. Are you sure it wasn't just displaying your max bid FYI?
I could be remembering it wrong but I seem to recall it being that way when I first used eBay (late 90-early 2000). Should not of stated it so definitely (I know vs I remember). Maybe I just remember it showing your max bid (and not it actually being at your max)
I know ebay used to be you put a maximum bid and thats what it would jump to (regardless of what others put), but doesnt really work like that now (or for a while)
When? I've been using ebay since before paypal and I don't remember ever seeing it work like that. Are you sure it wasn't just displaying your max bid FYI?
I could be remembering it wrong but I seem to recall it being that way when I first used eBay (late 90-early 2000). Should not of stated it so definitely (I know vs I remember). Maybe I just remember it showing your max bid (and not it actually being at your max)
It seems strange to do it that way. I guess whether it was or not, shall be a mystery for the ages
Is this thread about auction sniping or BIN sniping? I feel like there are 2 different conversations happening here.
I agree. The OP seems to be about BINs.
You actually don't pay the maxium.
Example: say you are looking at an auction that is currently sitting at $9.87 with 2 bidders for Kid Dracula loose cart (mint condition). There is 1:36 seconds till the gavel. You want to beat the bots and whoever else is willing to bid. SO:
you judge that you'd be willing to pay $88.65 for the cart. You feel if you can get it UNDER $90 then you got a bargain. With this number in mind, you decide to put a final bid of $90 on the cart and cross your fingers.
At 5 seconds left to go, you unleash your bid: $90. At the same time, the bots and other humans who are trying to get it release their bids, and here's where ebay makes it FAIR and why the bots aren't better than anybody else bidding.
Ebay's bot system is sorting through all of these bids at a lightnighing pace. It does 3 things.
First it looks to see what the current high bidder's maximum bid is. When the high bidder put in his bid, he had the option of putting a number that HE was willing to buy the game for. So for example, let's say that the current high bidder put in a $50 bid, and so he outbid the person who was the previous high bidder's mark, and was sitting at $9.87 as his CURRENT high bid. Remember, that when HE placed the bid, he did not BID $9.87, he bid $50. So in order to beat his bid you need to go over that amount.
So now comes the more complicated part. At the end of an auction, everybody is putting in last minute bids and say you do the same. Say you bid $10, and then look to see you have been outbid to $10.50. The important part here is that the person who bid $10.50 did not have to do anything. Ebay's bot saw that he has a bid of $50, so ebay took your bid, and increased the high bid accordingly. This concept is important. Because let's go back to your $90 maximum bid. If you bid $90 at the end of the auction and no one else bid anything, then you WIN that auction and your final bid would not be $90, it would be $50.50, or just over the maximum bid that came in or was already in.
So see, the bots don't have an advantage on you other than the fact they are willing to bid more than you.
(That actually made no sense so I'll basically disregard the "you're not paying the maximum" comment because you clearly are/HAVE to pay the max to beat a bot)
Hey bud... they're called "tools" for a reason. And people utilize bots to work for them when they don't want to/can't.
So there's a big "advantage".... the fact that it's a self reliant program and not some dude sitting at his computer.
Back in the day you had to rely on being at home, wondering who else out there in the world was looking at that item and ALSO able to be home to bid on it. It was like the wild west.... and it used to be exciting.
Now everyone has computer programs doing the "work" for them. That's a huge advantage, haha.
Bots take the fun out of it.
I'm old fashioned and I like the rush of the clock. I put my own bids in manually. GET OFF MY LAWN!
Manual bids ftw