Bid vs. Buy

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Darolyn
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Bid vs. Buy

Post by Darolyn » December 17th, 2014, 1:03 pm

Obviously, Buy Out is the way to go for that pet you just have to have NOW.

But when someone has a really low starting bid on a pet that normally goes for way more, do you ever chance it?

It's nerve wracking, wondering if you're going to win it, but honestly, if you get it for 10% or less of the going rate, is it worth the pain?

What do you guys think? To bid or not to bid, that is the question...
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Re: Bid vs. Buy

Post by Peanutty » December 17th, 2014, 2:30 pm

I bid all the time. I have an amount in my head that I am willing to spend on each particular pet, and if the bid is below that (but the buyout above) then I will only purchase it via bidding. Once the bid goes over my limit, I stop. You can get great deals that way.

Obviously if a pet is a "must have" for you or just very rare, and/or the buyout price isn't that much higher, I would not risk bidding.

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Re: Bid vs. Buy

Post by Kpb321 » December 17th, 2014, 2:43 pm

Personally, I have no problem bidding on something as long as it won't tie up a substantial portion of my available gold. I generally only do it when there is a fairly significant difference between the Bid and Buy out price. I'm not going to try to save 500g on a 10k pet by doing a bid rather than a buy out. But bidding 5k for instead of a 10k buy out is something I'll do.

I'll do this both on pets I'm looking to get for myself or pets I'm looking to flip for a profit. For pets I'm looking to flip it is often the difference between having no real profit available on them and having room to make a good profit. I never assume I'm going to get the pet for the bid price and I don't generally stress over trying to watch the bidding and make sure I win it. I will sometimes try to swing things in my favor by trying to bid late a night before I go to bed or try to remember to check it in the morning in those cases where I suspect it's going to end late a night or during the day.

If it's something I really want enough to think about "camping" the ah I'm more likely to bite the bullet and do a Buy Out, assuming that is a option, than I am to spend a bunch of time trying to make sure I win the Bid. It helps that I've got gold on 3 other servers than my home server, including Illidan H, so I can be fairly confidant that I will see any pet again and usually will see a good deal sooner or later. As an example I managed to get a hatespark for 10k as a buy out so I didn't have to keep running MC. I'd definitely try bids on him too around that price to pick up an extra or two to sell or trade later once MC is gone.

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Darolyn
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Re: Bid vs. Buy

Post by Darolyn » December 17th, 2014, 2:52 pm

I don't have MUCH gold on servers other than my own yet, but TImeless Tokens are helping out with that. Mail them to the toons on other servers and vendor them for 5G each.

That, of course, will end once I have the last few Timeless Pets I need, but until then...

I check the remote AH all the time, so I'm always aware of where my bids are sitting. I don't feel like I'm "Camping" when I'm just checking it on coffee break.

I'm not addicted...no, I'm not....

Is there a 12 step program for pet collectors?

Do we really want to stop?
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Re: Bid vs. Buy

Post by Kel » December 17th, 2014, 2:55 pm

Yup, I too will bid on something if I see a chance to save a decent amount. But it depends on the pet. If it's something I can't pass up, I'll buy it. But most the time, if the starting bid is considerably lower, I'll place a bid and see how it goes. Take for instance Hatespark. He's been rather scarce on my server, but there's been 2 up at a time pretty regularly and they've been hovering around the 30-35k mark. I saw one for an opening bid of 19k, so I placed a bid, and I won it. That saved me a ton!
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Re: Bid vs. Buy

Post by Rendigar » December 17th, 2014, 3:09 pm

Darolyn wrote:Is there a 12 step program for pet collectors?
Step 1. Collect a pet (Yay! Your first win!)
Step 2. Collect an uncommon version of a pet (oh, this is FUN)
Step 3. Collect a rare version of a pet (wow, that was awesome, dang they hit hard...)
Step 4. Begin collecting every pet you can find (sleep? what's that)
Step 5. Remember step 3 and return to get rares of all the ones you missed in Step 4
Step 6. Read a guide on the various tamers and realize you don't have the right breeds, go back and collect rares of all of those (seriously, sleep is for the weak)
Step 7. Start levelling up all the pets you'll need for the tamers around the worlds...

Wait, you wanted a 12 step process to stop? Sorry, can't help you there. :twisted:

Step 12. Collect all the pets (spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars and gold, plus hundreds of hours), get them all as rares (by stone or by capture), level them all to 25, finish 5000 draenor pet battles, win 5000 PvP battles (cuz why not?). Check into a clinic, you are officially cured of any desire to pet battle (until they release another pet).

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Darolyn
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Re: Bid vs. Buy

Post by Darolyn » December 17th, 2014, 3:24 pm

You missed the step about joining WCP to further fuel your love for the collection. And the chase. And to cry over the ones you just can't get.

There has to be tears in there somewhere...
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Re: Bid vs. Buy

Post by Graven » December 17th, 2014, 3:33 pm

I bid if it's a fair bit cheaper than the buyout price, but I don't like to miss out on things I would have bought at the BO price just because I was too cheap and tried to save a few gold. It's happened to me a few times, and it's annoying. :)

If it's a really low bid amount though, I sometimes just put a bid on for a laugh, totally not expecting to actually get the item. Occasionally I'm pleasantly surprised the next day, but I never invest time logging on and checking up on the auction or anything like that. If I get it, it's just a bonus.

The one I really hate though is when you log on the next day to see if you won an auction, and you get the "This auction has been cancelled" message. It's like, seriously, if you don't want to sell something for a certain price, just bloody list it higher in the first place! Sheesh.

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Darolyn
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Re: Bid vs. Buy

Post by Darolyn » December 17th, 2014, 3:44 pm

Annnnd

It just worked out for me. 3K saved on a Ghastly Kid. Yes, I KNOW I can get that one in other ways, I just wanted to see if I could get it.

Can't wait to get home and retrieve him in-game.

Daro
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Re: Bid vs. Buy

Post by Kendrah » December 18th, 2014, 11:52 am

Darolyn wrote:But when someone has a really low starting bid on a pet that normally goes for way more, do you ever chance it?
Unless the price of the BO is much lower than the other ones up on the AH or I need that pet like OMFG now, then I generally bid on it. Sometimes I lose a bid but the prices for pets generally go down all the pets the longer they've been out. I think the DMR is the only pet that hasn't gone down a whole ton. So it's not as though I'm not going to see it up on the AH later and it'll probably be at a better price.

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Re: Bid vs. Buy

Post by Kendrah » December 18th, 2014, 11:54 am

Darolyn wrote:There has to be tears in there somewhere...
Oh, there is many a tear I shed when I think of how much I spent on TCG pets to only see them drop like 50k ~ 100k in price after I bought them. Many, many tears. Why, I'm positively crying right now. :lol:

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Darolyn
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Re: Bid vs. Buy

Post by Darolyn » December 18th, 2014, 12:00 pm

I have two bids in on pets right now, with less than 2 hours to go on each auction, wanted to keep an eye on them, but it's telling me the remote auction house is down... :(

Are they doing rolling restarts on some realms? I know they were a few hours ago, but are they doing them again?
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