Have you ever noticed how prices for apple notebooks, pc notebooks, computers, electronics and many other popular items jump to extraordinary heights early on in the game? I have been a member of ebay for approximately 6 years and have learned early about the whole bidding process. But, for some reason, others just don't understand how to keep prices low on ebay.

For example, if you wanted to buy a new camera and it starts at $400 and has 5 days to go, should you bid now or wait until later? My advice is to wait. For this reason only, if you bid now and show interest, others will be attracted to know what your bidding on. Say you are Bidder 1 and bid a maximum of $550 on the item and it has the 5 days left. By the last day, Bidder 2 may have decided to bid (by my opinion, still too early) and has kept bidding until they now exceed your maximum and it sitting at $550. In the last hour or so you decide to bid and you win because you have exceeded their maximum of $600. In reality, you bidding early helped push the price of the item up. If you had waited until the last hour or minutes, Bidder 2 may have put in a realitively low bid and you could have exceeded them easily.

You should always wait until the last hour or minutes to bid! These people that bid when the item has 5 days to go is rediculous. It's like you are pushing the price up just to see your name there temporarily.

The scenario that aggrivates me the most is seeing a little pride compeitition going on. When the item has 1 day to go and there has been 14 bids, and you realise that two of the bidders keep pushing the price up just to be infront of the other bidder temporarily. People on ebay have no idea anymore and it is coming to the point where not many bargains are found when the prices are reaching similar to your local shops.

Give it a go! Wait until the last couple of minutes or hour. Unless ofcourse, you can't be there to watch it end and you put in one early. If everyone learnt, it would be as cheap as chips. Don't pay more than you have to!

Good Luck! :-)