The strange ways of eBay buyers

I noticed a cheapish digital kitchen scale on Lightake a few days ago. Checked out DealExtreme and wasn't any better price. Then moved on to eBay and quickly found it quite a lot cheaper. I'm thinking of getting one but was hoping to wait for one with a low start price+shipping and get it cheaper. I did search complete listing and didn't think I really had much hope but watched a few things anyway. This isn't really the first time I've seen this sort of thing but really some buyers are just so strange/incompetent. Take a look at this

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270604461601

Total price $10.23

Unless you think 2 probably fairly crappy cheap Chinese AAA batteries are worth about $4 why would you spend that much total when there are 3 people selling with BIN for less then $6.00

http://cgi.ebay.com/5kg-5000g-1g-Digital-Kitchen-Food-Diet-Postal-Scale-/250607227760

http://cgi.ebay.com/5kg-5000g-1g-Digital-Kitchen-Food-Diet-Postal-Scale-379-/250607366180

http://cgi.ebay.com/5kg-5000g-1g-Digital-Kitchen-Food-Diet-Postal-Scale-/220634763932

The sellers don't seem much better and I know it's been that price for the past 4 days or so. There are a few more like

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150465745655

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150465354001

Okay this time other then including the AAA batteries they also claim they will test each item although I would still question the merits of spending twice the other cost for that. In fact unless that's an alternative account for http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270603932374 they appear to have just copied the listing details anyway so who knows if they even really test the item.

I haven't looked in details in the exclusions etc so perhaps there's some places they don't ship or other things like alternative payment options, willingness to ship to non confirmed addresses or whatever but I'm going to guess it's more likely just buyers who didn't bother to research properly and were caught with a rush of blood to the head so spend way more for no good reason... Great for sellers for us buyers hoping to get a good deal not so good (on the other hand incompetents like this do help ensure sellers can make a decent profit while offering some good bargains)

Yeah I've seen that a lot too when I research for items. People sometimes even spend more than the MSRP of the item when there's a bidding war going on. It's all a competition to beat the last guy that outbidded you! I think they are just focused on the thrill of winning the bid that they lose track of how much money they are actually putting in. Also because you can raise your maximum bid slowly, people may have a perception that it isn't much of an increase from their last bid and then the whole cycle continues. Kind of like gambling away your money at the casino.

I'm also looking to buy a small scale to weigh small stuff like envelopes for postage and also weighing my hobby R/C parts. Have you found a good price for a decent scale?

As you say I guess some people get caught up in the excitement or just don't have the time but me being the cynical person I am I suspect occasionally some sellers use dummy accounts to bump up the bids.

I know ebay have implemented measures to stop this but with the amount of free email and anonymous proxy services available it would be impossible to stop.

There have been a few items I've bid on where I put in a starting bid which was beaten by another bidder, I then kept putting in bids even over the amount I thought the item was worth but never exceeded the other bidders top proxy bid which I thought was odd.

Sure enough I get an email the next day saying the winner had backed out and they offer it to me as the next highest bidder, I always decline.

I admit I am overly suspicious but that does seem a good way for the seller to find out the absolute most someone is willing to pay.

I have thought about that conspiracy theory too. Sometimes the bids get so high it just seems ridiculous. I just Buy It Now instead of messing around with bids. Bing Cash Back is awesome! I wish it was 30-40% like in the old days instead of the 8% now, but 8% is still worth it. I am going to be very sad when BCB is over

I tend to agree with midieval10, I almost always only look at the "Buy it Now" listings, I don't have the time or the patience to be messing around with bids and checking to see if I managed to win it and then looking for another item if I lost it.

The thing I like about buying from eBay is that the sellers are extremely eager to please their buyer, since in eBay the Seller Rating is king. So they will often go to great lengths to ship almost immediately or even send free replacements. The same can not be said of the likes of DX, KD, etc, who seem to view their customers as a bothersome afterthought instead of a priority.