devastating ebay losses

is in case you haven't heard, we are going to be building a house!
oh, so you have heard?
cuz i talk about it non-stop?
yeah..ok.
:)

well, because my dreams for the interior of the new house are BIG, and my budget is NOT, i  have been on the prowl for  a few bargain ebay goodies for my house--in particular light and plumbing fixtures.
usually when i bid on something, and i REALLY want it, i will get onto this site and put in my absolute  maximum bid. sometimes i win, and sometimes i don't. but at least i don't get roped into paying more than i wanted for something because i got caught up in the heat-of-the-bidding-war moment.

 i guess i got lazy in the last couple of weeks, because i decided i wasn't going to take the time to try and snipe the items that i wanted. after all, i have the ebay app on my iPhone, and it alerts me when something i am bidding on is about to end. i thought i was good to go.
oh, how wrong i was!
i have lost two auctions in the last few days that are seriously making me c----razy.

for our master bath, i want a faucet that rides that line between modern and traditional. i looked at a lot of faucets, and fell in love with a few from waterwork$.
they are insanely beautiful, but also very expensive. like $1700 for a bathroom faucet. thats almost as much as my entire budget for all the lights and fixtures in the entire house.

SO, i "settled" on the memoirs fixtures from kohler. the widespread fixture retails for around $450, but i found a brand new one on ebay for a starting bid of $25. i was willing to pay $100 for the fixture, but bid $65. seconds before the bidding ended, i got an alert on my iPhone that the bidding was about to end, and i had just been outbid! i frantically tried to bid again, but it was too late. someone else got MY fixture for $66!
ugh! that hurt!




then, on saturday, i spotted a PAIR of visual comfort sconces, going for $75. a PAIR! they were just like the ones pictures above , but in the "aged brass" finish. so dreamy!
these babies retail for over $300 a piece.
once again, i decided to not type in my absolute max bid (which would have been somewhere in the neighborhood of $200), and lost track of time, and lost the auction.
double UGH!!
they sold for $104 plus shipping! blast it!
i was so cranky after that.

i tell you what though....i will NOT lose another bid like these again. i am going to be FIERCE.
like a WARRIOR ninja.
ok, less like a warrior and more like a ninja.
a sneaky tech ninja.
(...and by that, of course, i mean that i am  going to go to auction sniper
and let them do the dirty work for me.)

oh, and by the way, here a few other items i am always eyeing on ebay:

do you shop on ebay?
do you have an ebay triumph you want to share?
is there something you are "always" looking for?
do tell...

oh, and happy bidding!!
(unless you are bidding against me...)