Boy,

Not a lot going on on my watch auctions, and some have only 20 mins left. Does everybody bid at the very last moment nowadays?

Guess I'll find out with either a flurry of late bids or a load of watches going for considerably less than I paid for them!

Oh, and eBay pulley two of my auctions because it decided the titles of the auctions were misleading... you can guess what I thought of that!

Misleading?

"this watch is ideal for PPL in other dimensions"

Personally I often bid late on ebay for many items.It is just that where an item has a long listing time, it seems foolish to bid early and start pushing up the bid, nomatter who wins it , chances are you'll pay more.I never understand bidders going in high and early only to suddenly stop bidding when it gets too high;surely the point of an auction is that you want to pay less for something? I guess the exception is where there is a reserve and you want to try and find what it is set to.

Good point on sniffing out a reserve.

I agree about bidding late, but the last time I sold watches on eBay – maybe a year back – only a few bid late on, now I think everyone's caught on. It gives me a few scary moments when I have watches with no reserve have hardly any bids with 2 mins to go!

Markos, hindsight is always 20/20, but I think I have an explanation for the low bidding activity: it might be a timing issue. From my experience, auctions that end on a Monday or a Tuesday fetch significantly lower prices. The optimal day to end an auction is probably Sunday.

One could think that the day of the week shouldn't matter too much, as long as people use ebay on the weekend, find your auction, decide to watch your item and return on Tuesday to bid on it. But this is often not how it goes. Often they forget about it and find out on Wednesday (with regret) that they could have made a nice bargain by bidding on your stuff. But then its too late...

Another timing issue could be that the end of the month is getting nearer. People who receive their paycheck on the 1st of the month might have spent all their 'hobby related' budget for the current month.

Of course, the exception to this rule are watches that are extremely rare. For, say, a NOS Seiko World Time (like you are selling), some people would probably set their alarm clock in order not to forget the auction's end date. And they wouldnt care about getting into debt for it...

There is a classic bidder on ebay with user id PANBOO123, who is from Japan.

quote:

I hope to win the item. Please inform me of the shipment cost to Japan. Please inform the shipment method of the cheapest air mail. If I do not understand the shipment cost, I cannot win the item. I am waiting for the answer from you.

After he/she asks this question on few different auctions, he/she usually only bid small amount ($1 on my G757) and I guess hoping to win the item.
Also, I find people who bid in small increment and inflating price and people that usually do this do it early in auction. This is good for sellers but not for potential bidders.
Auction finishing time does have a major effect on final price. I also find auctions finishing at evening ends up higher than auctions finishing in middle of the day. I guess it takes all kinds of people to make auction site work!

Nostalgia, its not like what it used to be!