I mentioned that The Man's laptop had died, and I was trying to find him a used Dell Inspiron 9100 he could cannibalize. I found a few good ones on eBay. The first auction ended at 5:50 am today.
I didn't want to bid early because there were three "low count" bidders squabbling over it, bidding each other up, and if I put in a maximum bid early, they'd push my bid up. Unnecessary temptation. So I planned to snipe (in eBay talk, that's a bid placed in the last few seconds of an auction).
So I was puttering around last night, and the time got away from me, and suddenly it was 2:30 am. I didn't dare go to bed then, there's no way I'd obey the alarm. There are helper programs out there that will snipe for you, but I'd never tried one before and don't trust them. So I stayed up.
I sniped, and another sniper beat me by 2 seconds and 2 cents! Two cents!
The next suitable auction was four days out, and had already been nibbled past the amount The Man had authorized me to pay. It wasn't looking good.
So I found a "Buy It Now" (no bidding) machine that was listed for only slightly higher than the auctioned machines had been going for*, and came with a guarantee, and I bought it, and went to bed. Slept 'til noon.
This was not one of the ones I had described to The Man. I had originally found several that sounded similar to me, and he had rejected half of them as possibilities. This one was out of left field. I bought the fool thing because I was frustrated, and there was a little wounded pride in there, too, he was depending on me to come through, so it was with some trepidation that I sent him the listing. If it wasn't right, I guess I'd have to turn it around and resell it.
Luckily, his response was "This is exactly the same as mine!" Sometimes the sun shines.
(Look how much thicker it is than a normal laptop.)
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* An odd thing - people will search for a particular something they want. They'll find a few for auction, starting at $1 or $10. They'll also find a few "Buy It Now" at around $400. They figure that they can get an auction one for less than the BIN $400, so they forget about the BIN ones.
Then what happens is that the bidding gets hot, and the $1 item shoots to well over $400, and they keep on bidding!
The smart eBayers will watch the auctions, and see what the average item usually goes for. Oddly enough, it's usually right around the average BIN price. They might get into the bidding, but will never bid more than the BIN price. If they can't get an auction item for less than the BIN price, they drop back and simply buy a BIN item.
Sheesh. What's so hard about that? I don't understand folks who get so caught up in the bidding, in the idea that they can beat the system, that they forget they can get the same thing cheaper and faster.
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2 comments:
i'm still an eBay virgin. the only time i bought anything was through a friend. she did the bidding and collecting and distributing.
my old laptop that i just recently gave my brother is a Dell 8100. i didn't realize how slow it was until last night when i wanted to surf the internet and watch tv.
Yeah, the 8100 is about a third as fast as the 9100. The Man's machine is very fast - no flicker with movies, very good sound, instantaneous response with games. He and I will often be working side-by-side, and although at home I'm quite happy with my 1501, next to his it's frustrating.
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