The following is a rant, provided free of charge to my readers.

I’m sick and tired of inexperienced eBayers who are jacking prices up on items I’m wanting to buy. I doubt that they are doing it intentionally. In fact, you may be among the guilty ones. Here is the kind of person I am ranting against:

You see a perfectly nice item, maybe even a perfectly nice old item. You see that it is listed for, say, $10.00. You commit and bid, thinking to yourself, “You know, I just may walk away with this beautiful 1930s tool with original box and replacement blades for only $10.00!” Let me guarantee you that you won’t. There are, no doubt, at least 30-50 (if not hundreds) of people who scour eBay every day for these old tools. They will not be troubled by your little $10.00 bid. All you have done is provoked them, along with a handful of other naive eBayers who think that they will win the tool for $10.50, $11.00 and so on.

My personal belief, and feel free to prove me wrong, is that early bids do nothing but jack up the final price of the item. Early bids get more people involved early, and will more likely result in bidding wars. All well and good for eBay and for the seller, but not for the buyer. This, incidentally, is the very same reason that when I sell on eBay, I start the bidding on every auction (no matter the item) at $1.00. I’ve only once gotten anything less than a fair price for what I sell.

I wish people would wait until the last couple of hours to place bids. I want the price to stay low as long as possible, to the extent that some people forget about the item in their ‘Watching’ list. I myself place one bid, as late as possible in the auction. I’ve already done my research and have firmly decided what my top bid will be. So if I am outbid in the end, I don’t mind.

I just hate having that bid topped with three days left in the auction, before I’ve even placed the bid. Jerks!

</rant>

P.S. I hope you all know that I really don’t take any actual offense to your eBay practices. I’m merely indulging in a little whining after seeing yet another sought-after tool go over my limit with plenty of time left in the auction. Don’t worry, I’ll pick myself off the floor in a while.