eBay Hacks

Keep Track of Auctions Outside of eBay

Use eBay’s auction-tracking tools, or create a flexible auction-watching tool better than anything eBay has to offer.

If I bought everything on eBay I wanted, I would’ve gone broke long ago. But I’m also a collector, and as such, I routinely track many auctions in my various fields of interest, whether or not I actually intend to bid on them.

I would argue that keeping track of auctions is among your most important tasks as a bidder — especially for items you’ve won — if for no other reason than to ensure that you eventually receive everything you’ve paid for. Tracking auctions is also an essential part of sniping (see [Hack #21]) as well as selling (see [Hack #33]). If you’re really after something specific, you may want to track completed auctions that didn’t sell so you can find them easily when they’re relisted. And sometimes you may want to keep track of an auction’s progress purely for the sake of curiosity.

Using eBay’s Tracking Tools

The Bidding/Watching tab of My eBay is where most people turn to track their auctions. The Items I’m Bidding On list and the Items I’ve Won and Items I Didn’t Win lists are all updated automatically whenever you place a bid or an auction on which you’ve bid closes, respectively. These lists include all the vitals, such as the auction titles, amounts of your bids, end dates, and closing prices.

By default, the Items I’ve Won and Items I Didn’t Win lists show only auctions that have ended in the past few days, ...