A combination of things, but items set to close on Sunday evening (when everyone is home putzing around on their computer), prices are highest. If you can follow things that close mid-day on week days, those tend to have less attention and go for lower prices.What is your bidding strategy?
Specific things that I'm interested in, I try to watch over time to see how average trading prices are trending. Or, you can use the advanced search feature to see what similar items have sold for.
If I have a strong yen for it, I follow it to conclusion. But if it's something that I can live without but it might be nice to have, I pick a number, post that as my bid and go away. If I have it when I come back, okay. If it sold higher, that's okay too because I didn't want to exceed the number I had in mind in the first place.How do you prevent yourself from overpaying by getting caught up in bidding competition?
My advice is absolutely to use a credit card when buying from a dealer. Do not be tempted to save the 3-4% CC fee. It may seem counterintuitive, but I am more comfortable sending a USPS money order to a private, occasional seller than an FFL dealer. But that private seller must have an established, spotless feedback history for me to do this.
I'm starting to see $65 shipping fee for some long guns. Which I consider excessive, even in our current times of increasing shipping costs. BUT: I've also noticed that items with a high shipping fee like this often bring lower bids, at least on the relatively common items I look at.
Bid early or late? It doesn't make much difference, because Gunbroker has that 15 minute rule that potentially keeps the bidding going on indefinitely. So bidding early only drives the price up early, which isn't a deciding factor. If you wait too long to bid, you might forget, the auction ends, and you may (or may not) have missed out.
Yeah, some of these guys have really fascistic "additional terms of sale." Some sound like such A-holes that you loose any interest in dealing with them.I will also pay close attention to the fine print and search out those sellers who charge reasonable shipping and who don't ding me for using card for payment.
Absolutely check feedback ratings. Where there is smoke, there is fire. My observation, it's certain FFL dealers who have tarnished feedback scores rather than private, occasional sellers. Don't assume that the FFL guy is golden just because he's a dealer. He's likely doing it for a living and every nickel and how gotten is important. As compared to a private seller who is doing it as a hobby and doesn't need to skin people on GB for money. One way of looking at it, anyway.I look for the proportion of reviews total to 'F' ratings.
Sad but true. In Wash. state, a $100 gun becomes a $150 gun after all is said and done. Not to mention the fee for the receiving FFL on your end.Though after paying shipping and transfer cost those great deals tend to become just ok deals.
This causes me to grind my teeth.And I would be remiss if I failed to mention that the 10% use tax gets applied to the total of the entire transaction: price of item, shipping charges, AND the credit card fee!!!