How to Win eBay Auctions for Pokemon Cards

How eBay's automatic bidding works

When you bid on an eBay auction, you are not typing the price you will pay. You are typing the most you are willing to pay. eBay calls this automatic bidding: enter your maximum, and eBay bids for you in small steps to keep you in the lead, but only up to your limit.

Those steps are called bid increments. They grow with the price: a small step on a cheap card, and a much larger one once the bidding is high. eBay publishes the full table on its automatic bidding help page.

Three things follow from that:

• The current price is not anyone's maximum. It is only as high as it needs to be to keep the leader ahead.

• If you are outbid the moment you bid, eBay says another bidder probably has a higher maximum already in place. Raising yours a little at a time just finds their number for them.

• You'll hear about it if you're outbid. eBay tells you, and you decide whether to raise your maximum. Raise it only if your number was wrong, not just because someone passed it.

So the number that decides the auction is the maximum each bidder entered. Everything else is timing.

Decide your maximum before the auction

The hardest part of an auction is the last minute. The price is moving, and it is tempting to go "just one more step". The fix is to decide before you get there.

1. Look at sold listings, not live ones. Filter an eBay search to sold items for the exact card: same set, same card number, same grader and grade, or the same condition for a raw card. Asking prices on live listings are not what buyers paid (see Comp (comparable sale)).

2. Count shipping. eBay reminds bidders that shipping is paid on top of the winning bid, so your maximum is the card price you can live with after shipping.

3. Decide how much you want this copy. Is it the one you have chased for months, or one of many listings of a common card?

4. Write the number down. If it changes during the auction, it was not your maximum.

I use auctions for two things: getting a card for less than it usually sells for, or getting a really rare card I can't find anywhere else. Which one it is sets my number. For a value buy, I stay low. For a really rare card, I'll go up to about what it usually sells for.

eBay's own tips add two small things: bid an uneven amount rather than a round one, since a few extra cents can decide a close auction, and remember a bid is a contract (more on that below).

When to bid: early, or near the end?

eBay's own tips page says you stand a greater chance of winning by placing your highest bid in the closing seconds.

That matches my experience. I bid in the last minute or two, not early. In my experience early bids never win, because other people raise in the final minutes.

Two things to know before you rely on a late bid:

• Some auctions now extend. eBay says it is testing extended bidding on auction listings in some categories: any bid placed in the final 60 seconds resets the clock to 60 seconds, and the auction ends only when the clock runs out with no new bids. On those listings, a late bid gives everyone else another minute, and the highest maximum still wins.

• A late bid is still a real maximum. Enter the number you decided, not a guess. If someone's maximum is higher, you lose the card but keep your limit.

Bidding near the end with your true maximum and bidding early with your true maximum lead to the same result under automatic bidding, if nobody changes their number. Late bidding helps because it leaves less time for other bidders to rethink theirs.

Rules that matter for trading cards

• A bid is binding. eBay says a bid is a binding contract: if you win, you are committing to buy, and eBay does not allow buyers to cancel orders after winning an auction.

• You usually can't take a card bid back. eBay's retraction page says bids in Trading Cards categories can't be retracted. Double-check the amount before you confirm, especially at the end.

• Reserve prices. Some auctions have a hidden minimum. If bidding doesn't reach it, the card doesn't sell, even to the highest bidder. Unless the seller says the reserve in the listing, you won't know it until a bid meets it. Check the listing for a reserve before you plan around it.

• Buy It Now on an auction. Some auctions also show a Buy It Now price, so you can buy right away without waiting for the end. If that price is at or under your maximum, compare it before you bid.

• The Authenticity Guarantee covers auctions too. For single cards, eBay's guarantee applies when an auction sells for $200 or more, before tax and shipping, whatever the starting price (see Verify a Graded Pokemon Card Before You Buy).

Auction or Buy It Now?

Neither is always cheaper. They suit different moments (see Buy It Now vs auction).

With Best Offer, the seller has 24 hours to accept or decline. eBay notes that even after a seller accepts your offer, the card is still available to other buyers until you pay for it. So once an offer is accepted, pay for it.

Finding auctions that end at your price

Winning starts with finding the right auction before it is over.

• Search a few ways. eBay suggests searching with different terms, and even common misspellings, because fewer people find a listing with a typo. How to Search eBay for a Specific Pokemon Card covers card-specific searches.

• Sort by ending soonest. eBay's search can sort by "Time: ending soonest", and its Advanced Search can limit results to auctions ending within a set number of hours.

• Notice the end time. eBay's tips point out that auctions ending late at night get less last-minute competition. Keep an eye on those.

• Check the seller and the photos first. Do your checks while there is time, not in the final minute (see How to Spot a Fake Pokemon Card Before You Buy).

I don't use auctions much. When I do, it's often because I got a ChaseBoard alert for an auction at my target price shortly before it ended. I watch it, then bid, and I've got good deals that way.

That is what ChaseBoard's auction ending alerts are for: when a card on your board has an auction ending soon and its current bid is at or under the top of your price range, you get an alert before it closes, with the end time shown. A watch with no top price alerts on any auction ending inside its price range. Every watch gets these, on every plan, and you can turn them off in Settings. The bid can still rise after the alert, so your maximum still decides it.

A checklist before you bid

• Sold listings checked for the same card, set, number and grade

• Maximum written down, with shipping counted

• Seller, photos and, for a slab, the cert checked

• Reserve, Buy It Now and extended bidding noted on the listing

• Bid entered once, near the end, at your real maximum

• Amount double-checked, because card bids can't be retracted

• If you lose, let it go: another copy will come up