eBay auctions have become too commercialized for me to care to deal with them anymore. Everyone knows how to exploit the system to sell the item for more; they auto-bid on an item just to raise the price for someone else, or bid on your own item with a different account so it sells at a higher price, or set the reserve so high that you're pretty much forced to pay the "buy it now" price if you really want it.
It's just not fun. People set up bots to automatically bid higher than the last bidder on the final minute of the last day of the auction...etc
Most of the time I'll just buy things in bulk and combine shipping, this way I at least know what I'll be getting. There's nothing worse than bidding for 5 things hoping to merge shipping, and then win only 1 or 2 of them and have to pay shipping separately on the 3 other items later down the road.
Much of the time the Buy it Now price is only a few bucks higher than the final auction price depending on what you buy. Most importantly, there are so many people on eBay now that you have an absolute ZERO percent chance to ever get lucky on winning an auction at a really low price.
It's just not fun. People set up bots to automatically bid higher than the last bidder on the final minute of the last day of the auction...etc
Most of the time I'll just buy things in bulk and combine shipping, this way I at least know what I'll be getting. There's nothing worse than bidding for 5 things hoping to merge shipping, and then win only 1 or 2 of them and have to pay shipping separately on the 3 other items later down the road.
Much of the time the Buy it Now price is only a few bucks higher than the final auction price depending on what you buy. Most importantly, there are so many people on eBay now that you have an absolute ZERO percent chance to ever get lucky on winning an auction at a really low price.