gosh, I'm happy (but I must be crazy)!

[heroic_decepticon]

I won Octane from the same seller you won your pretenders from and I almost outbid u at the last minute on that Dez box too but the shipping is mental as always ... Actualy wasnt too high i guess but i guess i just flagged at the very very last second ..

Nice score HD

Seems like we go for the same stuff. Much obliged you let me win, sir.

Oooooh congrats on the Pretender set HD!! Absolute magnifique find!! Saves you all the hassle AND is really a great bargain! Ive searched and bought mine by piece so it cost me a whole lot more, and heck it came with the 2 difficult to find ones - Groundbreaker and Splashdown!

That's exactly why I went for it. Buying them separately will be potentially very time consuming and since they are each not of very high value, its not quite worth it to ship them from the US and pay US$20 per piece for shipping individually. This seller is a really nice lady and in the end charged me US$15 to ship all 6 pretenders here.

***

I think its true that's its the highest bid that wins, but, I also think there is a difference in when the highest bid is put in. I find that if I put it in early, I usually get out bid by $1 to $0.50.

That's not really abnormal bearing in mind that eBay only ups the next bid in increments. But if the difference is that tiny (as opposed to say my highest bid being $10 and the auction ending at $50 for example), then chances are that it was only me and this other person interested in the auction. If that is the case, he/she has the advantage of being there at the end, because he/she can put in one or two bids, but get automatically outbidded by me since I put in something higher. BUT in the heat of the last few minutes and being normal human competitive, he/she might decide that its no longer the money, its the challenge of winning the auction, no matter the cost.

Consequently, they will bid till they outbid me. Looking at bidding histories from the auctions I lost, I certainly see that trend. Very often, it didn't matter that I was willing to bid slightly higher or a lot higher than market price, 99% of the time, if I'm not there at the last minutes, I lose any way.

Including the above, the reasons why I will only bid in the last minutes (and thus am guilty of sniping) is:
- so that I can actually win the auction (which is my main concern);
- so that I don't put in a high bid earlier and drive the price up for all concerned; and
- erm... its actually a lot more exciting to bid last minute.