Bidding above the BIN
 

Thought this was fun.

There was a card for auction with a BIN that I was willing to pay. But I was also feeling cheap and thought I'd try to win it in the auction and save a few bucks. Auction ended late at night, so I went to set a snipe rather than stay up late. But I realized that once you've decided that you're not going to hit the BIN, that it has a BIN is irrelevant to your decision. The rational thing to do is to just bid whatever you're willing to pay for the card. So I put in my snipe above the BIN price. I figured that I would win it for less than that, but if I'm not going to use the buy-it-now option, it doesn't make sense to bid less than what it's worth to me.

Anyways, I woke up the next morning to find that I'd won the card for a nickel above the BIN price. I suspect that the underbidder and seller woke up the next morning and were confused.

And being cheap cost me a nickel.

At least it only cost you a nickel. I have done that also and ended up paying WAY more than my cheap ass would have paid by hitting the BIN.

There are some auctions I spot with way-under-market BINs right as they're listed, that I would feel guilty if I bought and actually purchased at that price. So I bid the minimum on the item to get rid of the BIN and then let the seller be pleasantly surprised when it sells for a price 10x what they set the bid for.

Those tend to be the auctions that are ended early by the seller. Then you will kick yourself for being stupid enough to have been the “good guy” when there are 10 other guys out there without those same morals who convince the seller to cancel all bids and sell at 3-4x what they thought they’d originally get.

Oops.

Not the ones I've done it on. They've all run to the end.

I’ve bid over BIN price several times,
 

each time eBay will remind me I’ve bid more than BIN, am I sure I don’t just want to BIN. No, I don’t and all three times I’ve won the card for less than the BIN because no one else bid it up.

An item I was watching on eBay sat with a $180 BIN for over a month. The seller then just listed it as an auction starting at $9.99. It ended last night at $225. That's the power of auctions on some folks!

I have had it work both ways. I am not 100% convinced auctions are the way to go. It is a nice bonus where it works out like that, but I have also seen too many instances where it happens the opposite way.

How about this one?

Yesterday I saw a card offered on eBay with a BIN of $99.99. That was a good, but not jaw-dropping, price. I would have paid it, but as a Chicago resident, as of Jan. 1 I'm paying 10.25% tax on every. single. card. I buy, thanks to our politicians. So I offered $90 to offset that. Figured it would either get accepted or a counter at $95, and done deal. Or, of course, someone could pull the trigger on the BIN.

What I did not expect was to see an email that the card had sold at $87. I contacted the seller to ask if he got my (higher) offer. Yeah, he said - but the other guy offered first, and they were close enough, so I just sold it to him.

Fair enough, I responded, but I hope you can understand how that's frustrating from a buyer's perspective. He said he understood that it wasn't logical, but essentially that's what I get for not taking the BIN. "You left it in the judge's hands."

OK, but so did the other guy, and you rewarded him for making the lower offer??

That's odd....did it show as being sold on Ebay for the $87?? Or was he just telling you that??

The price was in the email alert I received saying that it was no longer available (it was on my watch list).

To me it makes the seller a stand up person. They accepted the first offer that was high enough for them to sell.

I've had the complete opposite happen. It's happened twice but the first time it was only like a $10 difference. So there was a modern card I wanted for a front color run. The seller listed the card as an auction with a best offer. He started the auction I think at 99 cents. I made an offer of $200 that lasted for 48 hours. I got no response from the seller and the 48 hours ran out and the card still had no bids. So a day passed and still no bids. So I made a second offer for $200 again for 48 hours. Still no response but then 40 hours into my second offer, someone placed a bid, so it canceled my offer. So it's already 5 days into a 7 day auction. I placed a last second bid of $150 on the card and won it for $90. I'm sure the seller was not feeling too happy while packaging up the card to send to me. I didn't feel bad about the situation because I made 2 very fair offers that I felt the card was worth, based on similar card sales.