Holw late do you wait before you bid?

[RoboFlonne]

I pray that no one else sees it and immediately place my bid!

[Sparta101]

I feel bad about saying this, but I wait till the last 10-20 secs and bid my max I think that gives me the best chance of getting a cel at the lowest price which is always the goal.

[Maiko]

Well, if you're blueblade_anime, you wait until THE LAST MINUTE, as illustrated by an auction early yesterday morning that I was winning. As soon as I watched the ticker drop below 1 minute left, sure enough, *boom*! bid ^_~x However, that initial bid didn't break my max, and thankfully, they have the decency to not extend an auction for over an hour by re-bidding in tiny increments every time it gets back down to one minute. ( ya know I luv ya, Krafty ^_~x )

However, that was the case with a "Tsu-Ran" auction that had me almost pulling my hair out a few weeks ago. Sure, I had made a bid at least a day in advance and had made a very stolid, high max bid- but even when I intend to bid only once, and use the highest amount possible I'll go, I still like to come back and watch the auction's close. This one bidder showed up when the auction got down to the last minute, and bid a small amount, extending the auction and resetting the ticker to another 10 minutes. What became really infuriating was that this person refused to bid in anything but tiny increments, so every time the 10 minutes would wind back down to a minute again, they would bid again, and keep on re-extending the auction. This bidder NEVER reached my maximum, so this went on for more than an hour before they finally gave up.

I wasn't really worried that they were going to beat my max, since I had put down a one-time, large amount, but dangit, it was annoying to keep asking myself, "When is this damn cel going to be mine?"

As for me, I typically tend to wait until the last day of the auction, that way I get a chance to see how high the item has gone in the meantime. Perhaps within 2 days of it's listing, it's already above and beyond what I would ever bid for it, so that way I can forget it and move on and spend my time balancing money between other auctions I am interested in. Another reason I sometimes wait until the last day is to see who the current winning bidder is, and if they are a deputy service that I have and they have a system for internal bid wars, I will then bid on that item using that particular deputy service, in order to help save on final cost of the item, rather than countering the deputy service with my own personal Y!JP ID.

[kizu]

Usually I bid on it right away but not my max. It helps me remember the cel because I am notorious for forgetting an auction, not because I didn't want it but I get extremely busy. And sometimes it helps when I get outbid and I ask myself if I really want the cel, that's when I decide what my max will be and return for it or not. I have no qualms in fighting for something I really want.

[eddiefb3]

I Usually bid (ebay) the last 5-15 seconds. I have been outbid too many times. So thats the only way to do it