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While struggling through a hard day at the orifice yesterday, I happenned to run across an 80-400VR on eBay, with a then current bid of just $1050, and only 13 hours remaining.

And it was WA - local too.

While I'm not the greatest ebay fan, this certainly grabbed my interest. Described as "as new" I emailed the seller for a bit more information. His reponses all came back quickly, and were more than reasonable.

Except his reason for selling - moiving to Canon.

While anything below 1500 for this lens would be a bargain, with the holiday season (too) fast approaching, I was prepared to spend, maybe, 1200, at this time. This was (hopefully) going to be an opportunistic purchase.

With 90 minutes to go, the price had nudged its way to 1201 (just 4 bids, mind you).

I was already in bed by this time (2:30am) but curiosity got the better of me; I got back up and just sat and watched ...

With just 4 minutes remaining, I decided to bid a maximum of 1250; I was the leading bidder. Someone else chimed in with 1255, and in the last minute, another buyer at 1280.

While I certainly seemed to have enough time to place a further bid, we were now looking significantly beyond where I was prepared to go at this time, and so I let it go.

But a most interesting part of this was the psychology of what was happenning. While the ebay screens are designed to "help" you place another bid, at that late stage of the auction there's also a sense of urgency and excitement that accompanied the screens. It was like winning at the tables at Scar City, or when your horse comes in first at the races.

Amazing.

Congradulations for being disciplined enough NOT to continue the feeding frenzy. I've never actually used Ebay like it was supposed to be used - I usually only buy at "buy it now" prices for new items. I guess it would go a long way to explain why sometimes 2nd hand parts sell for outragesly more than new prices...

Onyx wrote:Congradulations for being disciplined enough NOT to continue the feeding frenzy.

Thanx, yes. It was quite strange, and "feeding frenzy" is not an inappropriate description.

Yeah eBay is good but you have to be very disciplined. Set yourself an amount that you won't go over for an item. Don't be tempted to go that extra bid unless you still know you're going to be getting a good deal.

KNOW WHEN TO PULL OUT!


I saw a lot of bidding going on for these items the other week. The ones that Birddog is selling for around $600.

http://www.etrunk.com.tw/en/databank_01.html

Idiots on eBay were paying $900+ for them. I couldn't believe it. That's what happens when people don't do their research.
It's like most of the shops in Australia selling the Archos AV420. They're all selling at around $1100-1200. Most chumps will come along and buy one thinking that's an OK price. However I bought mine from eXpansys (should get it next week sometime) and payed $800. Which is on par with US and European prices.