Either bid at
the end, and I mean well within the last minute if not the
last 10 seconds or so, or bid the full amount you are willing to pay for
the item.
If you're bidding on something that you really want, be prepared to be awake
and in front of your machine when the auction ends. Everyone learns this
after
a while.
Or just bid your full amount to start with. Lots of people use eBay like a
email store and just place an order, with a bid that delivers 90% of the
time. Right now I have a couple 230 MB 3.5" magneto optical drives, and a
local auction has a LOT more of them, so I would "really" like to get a
couple of the disc's that work with it (128 MB or 230 MB) to see if my
work, and if I like them. Ebay so far looks like the best source, I just
haven't tried to hard to buy some yet.