First ebay experience

When I first discovered ebay it took me sometime to get my head around their bidding system. My brother is an ebay fanatic and would tell me and the other half about the wonderful things he found on ebay at cheap prices. I can be a bit of a tight ass so this idea of getting a bargain sounded good. So the other half set up an ebay account and would hog the computer each time, hence I never got an opportunity to use it myself. Of course now we both are prone to the occasional purchase from ebay..within reason of course.

The first time I received an opportunity to log on by myself I thought well, I’ll just look around. Within minutes of surfing ebay BAM! I found IT. I didn’t need IT, wasn’t really looking for IT, but I WANTED IT. IT was also going for much cheaper than I would have paid retail. Plus, bidding was finishing in about 45 mins. So after coming up with my strategy for bidding, ie. stop when it gets to $XX amount, I put my bid in. CRAP! I had been outbidded straightaway. Never mind, still got a while to go. So put in another bid. DOUBLE CRAP! Still outbidded. Another 3 bids later I was starting to get annoyed. Who would want IT so much that they’d put in a higher bid than me? And how much did they bid for IT anyway? Not only was I annoyed that my bids were not being accepted I was fustrated because this was my virgin ebay bid and I HAD TO WIN. So, 7 bids later I found myself as the HIGHEST BIDDER. Yippee! So now I knew - $XX was the other bidder’s maximum bid. Well, hopefully someone else will now put in a bid and I will be on my way. 10 minutes to bidding end I was still the HIGHEST BIDDER. That’s ok, there’s still 10 minutes left, surely someone else will bid for this item. 5 minutes to go and I AM STILL THE HIGHEST BIDDER. By this stage I was starting to get worried. So I called the brother.

RING RING
Brother: Hello?
Me: Errr…You know this ebay thing, well I was just trying it out to see how it worked and I saw IT and thought I’d bid for IT and now I am the highest bidder with 2 mins to go. Do you think someone else will put in another bid and beat me so I don’t have to buy IT? *Thinks of excuse* I was only bidding to see how much this other person’s limit was.
Brother: Okkkaaayyyyy....How many other bidders were there?
Me: Well, someone else put in a bid 2 days ago but now its just me and the other person that I outbidded.
Brother: And how much time left?
Me: About 1 min now.
Brother: And how much is your highest bid?
Me: ……….$XX
Brother: $XX!!!!!!!!!!!! HAHAHAHA….$XX for IT!!! You are going to be the new owner of IT…hahahaha
Me: Hangup the phone.

30 secs..20 secs…refresh page, refresh page, come on! Someone else bid for this thing dammit…refresh page 10 secs.. refresh page…CONGRATULATIONS, YOU ARE THE WINNING BID.
Me: Oh shit!

RING RING
Me: Hello?
Brother: HAhahaha…did you win it?
Me: YES!....its not funny. What am I going to tell the other half?
Brother: I dunno…that’s your problem, you can tell him you were trying to figure out how ebay works.
Me: !!!!!

So…lessons learnt = Ebay can be addictive which is a BAD BAD thing. It promotes consumerism and encourages you to waste your hard earned $$. However once you have your competitive nature under control and realise its NOT ALL ABOUT WINNING, it’s a great place to find good bargains.

Now I m happy to say I am a regular ebay and have my competitive nature under control...most times anyway.