Getting A Bargain On Ebay

A lot of ebay buyers ignore the "Buy It Now" listings because the
asking price is almost always significantly above the fair market rate.
I can count the number of "Buy It Now" items where the price was right
(and I did buy it right then for the asking price) on one hand.
This does imply that the rare correctly-priced "Buy It Now" listing
won't stay around very long!

In this economy, overpriced "Buy It Now" listings and high reserves are not going to cut it!

Sniping seems to have declined a bit in recent years, because more bidders are wise to it.
You just have to bid your maximum bid right off the bat, and if you
get sniped then, that means someone's willing to pay more than
you and they'll win anyway.

I've been bidding on ebay alot this week myself! Sniping is happening but not as much as I seem to remember from my ebay days 6-7 years ago. But I wasn't doing coins back then, so not a great comparison.

I've been biding just over what I want to pay for an item. If I win, its usually lower then my max bid so its still under what I wanted to pay. But if I get outbid, then I definitely don't want to pay a price that high. Rarely does anybody bid the price up to exactly my max bid which would be a little higher than I wanted to pay. This strategy lets me bid early without having to watch the last minute for snipers. It can be exciting sniping or watching for other snipers, but aggravating when you loose the battle.

Its working so far. =)

Just got a 1916 Walking Liberty half for my set at 40% less than the Buy It Now Price with an offer. Times are hard for sellers and good for collectors.

Even if its buy it now, i'll still send an email on it to see if they would lower it. I just recently paid $165 for a $185 item after a few emails.

I also do what Dnickels does. I always bid a couple bucks over what I really want to pay then hope it doesn't get bid up to that, if it does then it was bid to high in my opinion.