Winning is fun only within reason
Winning is fun only within reason
To me, at least, eBay is a, sometimes frustrating, candy store. For reference, in the past 6 years, I've seldom bought more than a few items a month. I don't think I win more than 10% of the auctions I get serious about bidding in. That's ok though, because I'm never burdened over paying to much for an item either. I figure my max bid ahead of time and I stick to it. If the item is something I'm really wanting badly, I may go up another 10% in the last minute, but that's it. My fun is getting something for a great price that I wanted. So much so, that I rarely even go into a brick and mortar store anymore for my electronic wants. I buy off eBay. The shipping charges are a necessary evil, but worth it to me, or I wouldn't shop eBay. Besides the attraction of low price is the ability to shop for anything vintage you could ever imagine. My realm is restricted entirely to 'electronic things', so that's all I know, but being able to buy something 30 or 40 years old is a real kick to me. There are many other ways to acquire vintage goods, but eBay has been my choice since I retired. Hey, I'm old now - so letting my 'fingers do the walking' is much easier for me
Almost all the auctions I've lost are to someone who wasn't even in the bidding until the last few seconds. Sometimes I'll bid in the last minute hopefully to shake off any bidders that are manually 'live' bidding. Of course they may be doing the same thing. It can be frustrating to lose, but it would be more frustrating, at least to me, to pay more than I wanted. That would remove the fun factor. Hey, there'll be another day and another auction for maybe an equally attractive vintage item. I keep my patience, and just enjoy the game. Getting a box in the mail to open and hoping for that item that goes above your expectations is great fun too. In my case it reduces my age factor from age 68 to 6+8=14 I still can't believe of the 163 things I've bought in the past 6 years off eBay most all have been in such pristine condition. I consider myself good at 'reading' into auctions, but sometimes it seems that items I bought have been sitting in a closet or drawer for the past 35 years, going almost unused. I received several items with protective plastic still on their metal or plastic parts even! It may be that my patience in looking for 'just what I want' has paid off. I've found that when looking at an auction, if even one word isn't to my liking, I move along to another auction. I don't want to hear things like - 'I didn't test this' or 'it should work' or 'I don't have time to check it out'. I don't want to see things like fuzzy pictures taken with a camera phone. The more pictures the better. With so many like items for sale, I simply pick the best of the best to bid on. Patience is the key.
Example - This is one of my recent acquisitions arriving in just like brand new condition, manufactured in 1985! (Info about the calc is from rskey.org about the Casio version.)
I won this calculator on eBay for $2.25 - not bad, huh
Winning is fun only within reason
To me, at least, eBay is a, sometimes frustrating, candy store. For reference, in the past 6 years, I've seldom bought more than a few items a month. I don't think I win more than 10% of the auctions I get serious about bidding in. That's ok though, because I'm never burdened over paying to much for an item either. I figure my max bid ahead of time and I stick to it. If the item is something I'm really wanting badly, I may go up another 10% in the last minute, but that's it. My fun is getting something for a great price that I wanted. So much so, that I rarely even go into a brick and mortar store anymore for my electronic wants. I buy off eBay. The shipping charges are a necessary evil, but worth it to me, or I wouldn't shop eBay. Besides the attraction of low price is the ability to shop for anything vintage you could ever imagine. My realm is restricted entirely to 'electronic things', so that's all I know, but being able to buy something 30 or 40 years old is a real kick to me. There are many other ways to acquire vintage goods, but eBay has been my choice since I retired. Hey, I'm old now - so letting my 'fingers do the walking' is much easier for me
Almost all the auctions I've lost are to someone who wasn't even in the bidding until the last few seconds. Sometimes I'll bid in the last minute hopefully to shake off any bidders that are manually 'live' bidding. Of course they may be doing the same thing. It can be frustrating to lose, but it would be more frustrating, at least to me, to pay more than I wanted. That would remove the fun factor. Hey, there'll be another day and another auction for maybe an equally attractive vintage item. I keep my patience, and just enjoy the game. Getting a box in the mail to open and hoping for that item that goes above your expectations is great fun too. In my case it reduces my age factor from age 68 to 6+8=14
I still can't believe of the 163 things I've bought in the past 6 years off eBay most all have been in such pristine condition. I consider myself good at 'reading' into auctions, but sometimes it seems that items I bought have been sitting in a closet or drawer for the past 35 years, going almost unused. I received several items with protective plastic still on their metal or plastic parts even! It may be that my patience in looking for 'just what I want' has paid off. I've found that when looking at an auction, if even one word isn't to my liking, I move along to another auction. I don't want to hear things like - 'I didn't test this' or 'it should work' or 'I don't have time to check it out'. I don't want to see things like fuzzy pictures taken with a camera phone. The more pictures the better. With so many like items for sale, I simply pick the best of the best to bid on. Patience is the key.Example - This is one of my recent acquisitions arriving in just like brand new condition, manufactured in 1985! (Info about the calc is from rskey.org about the Casio version.)
I won this calculator on eBay for $2.25 - not bad, huh
