Ebay purchase advice sought
A few EN'ers have recommend I look to buy a used power meter on Ebay. Well, here's my ignorance...I'm not sure what to look for. I just saw a Power Tap Pro (wired) complete with DT Swiss wheel Joule 2.4, for $285.00. Is that something I should go after? Oh, and the ad also says I need my own cassette Shimano/Sram 9 or 10 speed compatible. I don't even know what that means.
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Good luck!
Thanks David!
1) First start doing a lot of searches and "watch" as many of them as you can find. Over the course of several weeks you will have your very own history of where things trade and you will start to see where things trade. For what you're looking for I would search for things like "Powertap", "Power tap", "Powermeter", "Power meter" in te range of $50-600. The reason you search for many different variations of what you think you want is that sometimes you will find a gem that someone listed a bit wrong and not many people will see it and therefore you might steal it for a good price.
2) When you find one to watch, read the description very closely and make sure it works, etc.
3) Make sure to scroll all the way down on the listing you click on, because eBay will show you "People who viewed this item also viewed" and "See what other people are watching" and often there are gems there that don't come up in the normal searches.
4) Search "completed listings" to see where other similar items have traded. In your case, do a search for "wired powertap". Then after you run the search, just to the right of the search button is a thing you can click on called "advanced". Scroll down and in the "Search Including" section, click the box for "Completed listings". For this particular search I would also set the price range to be from $100 to $500. When you do this, you will see that they have traded as low as $178 and as high as around $400. Make sure you don't forget to look at the shipping cost and consider the "full price" of the item. You'll notice that some of the cheaper ones were older and some of the more expensive ones came as full sets with front and rear, etc.
I would say that that particular wheel 'might' trade at $285, but it might also go as high as $350 or so. I would guess it's worth on the higher end because it is a really good wheel, it is a newer version of the wired powertap (actually I think it is the newest wired wheel they made), it comes with everything incl. HR strap, computer, hub tool, tire, and the freehub isn't even chunked up like they normally get. Also, the seller has a 96 feedback rating and 100% is positive and has sold a lot of things, so there's a very high probability that you will get exactly what you think you are getting.
Now, here's how you should buy things on eBay. First make sure you tell everyone here that you are going to bid on that wheel so you won't be competing with other people who might see this thread...
Most people don't know that you will win the item at the 2nd highest bid + 1 bid increment (or the opening price if you are the only bidder) even if you bid $1,000,000 for it... For example, I once won a bike that I bid $1,813.57 on and I won it for $1,225.
I also always bid some weird random number. For instance, if you're willing to pay $350 for that wheel, then bid $353.27. You won't miss the extra $3.27 and many people might bid something round like $350. If you tie on a bid, the person who bid first wins, so may as well spend a couple dollars or cents higher than a round number to win the tie.
If you can't be there when the auction ends, there is a website called www.esnipe.com that you can sign up for that will bid on your behalf in the last couple of seconds of the auction. It's super easy to use and the first few are free and it's pretty cheap thereafter.
Summary, that's a great wheel. You might get lucky and win it at the opening price. But I wouldn't be surprised if it trades as high as $350 or so. If it trades much higher than that, I'd wait for a better deal because there's always another one that will trade the next day or next week. Good Luck and happy bidding!
x2 - great advice, John! That's a really good trick to bid marginally higher than your upper limit price.
X3 on Johns advice...I love e*bay....and think I have only lost out on one item I wanted over the past year using similar model!...good luck....Oh and let us know if you decide not to bid on it as well.
Jess read this and told me she was a still bit confused about bidding, so let me try to clarify in a little more detail.
When you bid on eBay, the amount you put in for your bid is NOT the price you pay. The bid price you put in is the MAXIMUM price you are willing to pay if other people bid up the price of the item to just below your original bid price. Also, NOBODY can see your actual maximum bid price. Other people bidding can't see it and the seller can't see it. It is hidden by eBay, so only you know what you bid.
So in this wired PT example from above, lets assume there are only 2 people in the world interested in this wheel, you and some other guy. If the opening bid price is $285, and you bid $400, 5 days before the auction closes, your bid will show up as $285. Lets assume in this example that the standard bid increment for this item is $2.50. Well if this other guy sees this and thinks to himself, "self, I'd pay $290 for that wheel"... He then bids $290 and is immediately out bid by you and your bid is now shown as $292.50. Well the next day that guy thinks about it and says "self, I don't want to lose this wheel over a couple of dollars, so I'll go ahead and bid $300." Well after he bids $300, your bid will be automatically raised by eBay to $302.50. The next day he skips his daily Starbucks coffee and decides to up his bid by that $5 and bids $305 and again your bid now shows up as $307.50. He skips another coffee the last day and after talking to his wife decides to skip a week's worth of Starbucks and goes all in and bids $345 and your bid immediately shows up as $347.50 and that is the price you win the wheel for (even though your original bid was $400).
Now lets play this out the way I bid... The other guy sees the wheel with no bids on it and says to himself "Self, I would pay $285 for that wheel" and bids $285 on it. The guy checks in every day and sees that nobody else is bidding on the wheel and is happy that he will win it at his original $285 bid price. Well 15-30 seconds before the auction closes you finally bid $400 and your bid shows up as $287.50. Presumably the other guy isn't sitting at his computer waiting and you have effectively sniped the wheel at $287.50.
Since most people don't really know how eBay works, they just bid a few dollars above what it takes to be the best bid. And if they are outbid, then they will bid a few dollars more than this new bid price, etc, etc, etc. That's why you will see the prices of things gradually go up over the 5 days or so before an auction ends. Well by waiting until the last few seconds to bid and bidding as high as you would possibly pay for the item, then you are really only competing against the handful of other eBay'ers that are serious and know how the real game is played. The people who don't know what they are doing won't have the time to rebid higher (multiple times) to run the price up in your face. You will still win the auction but you will win it at a better price. Mo' money in your pocket is mo' better!
But if the price creeps up above what you were originally willing to pay, don't raise your price... simply find another similar item next time. There's always another wheel...
Good Luck!
But when selling, there are a couple of methods I think are useful:
1) Do searches for the item that are currently listed or that traded in the last couple of months or so and list the item with a "buy it now" price slightly below these prices to just get rid of something quickly.
2) list it auction style with a starting price of $0.99 and do a 10 day listing so people have slightly longer to actually find it. Then (don't tell eBay about this part because it is certainly against their policy), but get a couple of friends to bid on it over the first 5 days or so to get the price up to just below your "real reserve price", then let the auction take it's course...
This message is for John and Jess Withrow...thank you so much for all your advice on buying on Ebay. In the end a friend of mine stopped me from buying the Power Tap I was looking at because she knew someone who had a Quarq for sale. I ended up buying the Quarq. However, I know your tutorial will come into use in the future so it was not in vain.
Also, per Jess' advice I signed up for Rev3 Quassy so I will meet you both there as well as IMLP. I look forward to it. Thanks again.
btw, this might be a good thread to read: http://members.endurancenation.us/Forums/tabid/57/aft/10477/Default.aspx
My secret weapon was www.gixen.com
Shhh.