BidBud.com- Bidding Strategies

Lowballing
	Lowballing is at its most fundamental form in the strategy of pure lowballing. Lowballers prefer to bid the lowest that they can and still take the lead. They will often bid the minimum over and over again, or just over it, until they take the lead or until they realize that they cannot bid more. Lowballers hope to avoid paying a high price for the item.
Nibbling
	Nibbling is almost exactly like pure lowballing with one important difference. A pure lowballer will often exercise some judgement before bidding. A nibbler, however, often gets caught up in the emotional excitement of the bidding process itself. No longer is it about the item itself, but about simply taking the lead. For many nibblers, the bidding no longer represents real money, but instead is just a meaningless number that is to be increased without consequences. In the heat of battle, all caution is thrown to the wind and the only thing that matters is to enter a higher number than the other guy. When seeking to take the lead for an item, a nibbler will bid in the same way as a lowballer, but they exercise no judgement. They do not take the time to decide if they've bid too much. They will bid in little bits, but will bid continuously, and absolutely will not stop bidding up, no matter the cost, until one of three things happen. The nibbler takes the lead. The clock runs out and the nibbler loses. Eventually, the bid becomes so high that even the nibbler realizes "Oh, my God. I can't believe I bid that much", and stops. Often, this realization comes after taking the lead or winning the auction. Many retractions and NPBs have their origins with this style of bidding.
Halfballing
	Halfballing is very similar to pure lowballing with one main difference. Instead of bidding the lowest possible, or perhaps in small amounts of $5.00 or $10.00, a halfballer bids in large chunks. They will look at the item, make a guess where the lead bidder's proxy is, then bid an amount comfortably over that. The halfballer is confident that this bid will give them the lead "for now". If outbid, they will bid another big chunk over the estimated proxy of the leader. Halfballing is almost a bridge between basic lowballing and proxy bidding. The bids approach a True Max, but not quite. They're not bidding just enough to take the lead, but enough that they hope it will give them the lead for the rest of the auction. However, their bids are not necessarily the highest they will go. I myself used to be a halfballer before I figured out proxy bidding and sniping on my own.
Auction Stalking
	This has often been called a benevolent form of Enemy Bidding. In this case, the Stalker becomes an admirer of the victim. The victim may be known as an intelligent buyer who only bids on high-quality items after doing a great deal of research. The stalker is interested in the same kind of items, but has neither the desire to research nor the ability to tell good items from bad. Rather than take a chance, the Stalker simply follows the victim around, bidding on everything he does, figuring that any item the victim bids on MUST be good. While it may be flattering to have a Stalker, the result is similar to Enemy Bidding. You will either fail to get items that you want, or you will be forced to pay more than you would under normal conditions. Again, posting id's and sniping are good tools to avoid this.
Proxy Bidding
	Pure Proxy Bidding is the method most recommended by eBay, although they tolerate the other 4. Proxy Bidding is simply the act of bidding your Max Bid one time and one time only. The key to Proxy Bidding is determing your True Max Bid. This is an amount so high that you will know for certain that you would never, ever bid more for the item no matter what. I myself often proxy bid if I can't be at a computer when an auction ends.
Sniping
	Sniping is so well-defined on my page and elsewhere that I won't bother going into much detail. :-) Suffice it to say that sniping is exactly like proxy bidding, except that you enter your True Max Bid so close to the end of the auction that nobody else can react to your bid or enter another bid based on your own.