Re: This is why people (more precisely, why I) snipe on eBay... Message #3 Posted by Bill (Smithville, NJ) on 27 Sept 2006, 8:28 a.m., in response to message #1 by Han
Hi Han,
I also was watching this auction, since I’ve been looking for a HP-27S.
While I agree that this auction has a “Fishy” bidder who ran several bidders up to their maximum bid, I’m still confused on how placing a bid at the last moment (or snipe) would have made any difference in this auction.
If we eliminate the “Fishy” bidder there were still two bidders willing to bid 125 & 127.5. And it is unknown what the maximum the winning bidder was willing to go to. Maybe, and the key word is maybe, these two bidders would have only entered maximum bids less than they actually did if the “Fishy” bidder hadn’t been there. But there is really no way to know if they chose their high maximum bids based on the previous bid patterns or just because they were willing to go that high.
A last minute bid would still have had to be higher than the maximum (which is unknown) of the current high bidder in order to be successful.
There’s a certain amount of “game of chicken” or “game of bluff” that goes on when bidding on e-bay. Each bidder makes an estimate of what the item may go for, may make a “bluff” low ball bid or may wait till the last few minutes of auction, hopes everyone is “bluffing” somewhat, and places a last minute bid. If we’ll lucky, the bluff works and the item is won at a lesser amount than the original estimate of what it’s worth.
But if the current high bidder has entered a higher maximum than the final last minute bid, then we still lose.
I’m wondering if the people who claim that their success rate when using last minute bids is higher than when not are just more realistic on entering their maximum bid amount for the last minute bid?
I’m thinking that there’s a tenancy when bidding early in an auction to not enter the true maximum amount that we’re willing to go to. Then keep checking the auction to see if anyone has outbid us. If outbid, then enter new bid with higher maximum which may still not be the true maximum that we may be willing to go to. Keep repeating till end of auction. The danger here is that someone else can place a last minute bid with a higher maximum than our current maximum and we run out of time to reenter a new maximum bid. Thus, since we never bid our true maximum, we lost the auction at a lesser amount than we truly were willing to pay.
But if we’re placing a last minute bid, then the absolute true maximum we’re willing to go to needs to be entered since there may not be enough time left to reenter a new bid with a new maximum. Since the last minute bid contains our true maximum amount, we should be more successful than when bidding early with less than true maximum.
Disclaimer – Just my opinion. I’m not an expect e-bayer, don’t use special bidding software, and have several times won bids with higher maximums than I really should have placed.
Bill
|