>Speaking of Ebay...I watched a 13.8v bench supply get "sniped" --
>someone else bid a few dollars higher than the highest bidder in the
>last few seconds of the auction.
>
>I was outbid twice on a different item by an automated bidding process
>on behalf of someone else.

As far as I can work out eBay have a system that will put on your bid
automatically as it closes the auction, allowing one to do a delayed bid so
the price does not get pushed up early on.

>The seller of the bench supply didn't respond to a question I had. The
>other item was sold by a dealer. A lot of the sellers on Ebay are really
>dealers it seems.

This is certainly the case in some areas, and I suspect happening more and
more. In many cases it seems that dealers are using eBay as a clearing house
for excess stock that they have bought to get purchase quantities up to get
bulk discounts from suppliers.

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