P3D Re: ebay question

[jacob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Gabriel Jacob)]

Greg asks:
>What I don't understand is the logic behind how folks seem to use it.
>Looking at the bid history after the auction is over, it's clear
>people wait till the last hour or 1/2 hour to bid. Some _rebid_ at
>literally the last minute.  What's the logic?

The logic is because you don't want to show your hand (high bid)
early on. This will give other bidders time to reflect, if their 
initial high bid is not high enough. Given that time to reflect,
often times they will outbid you. But if you bid at the last 
moment, they don't have a chance to know your maximum bid.

One can argue that you should bid your ultimate maximum at any
time and if you get outbid, then it was probably more than you
were willing to pay. BUT this is not true because you'll often
be outbid by only a few dollars when the auction closes. Then
you'll realize that you would have bid a few dollars if you had
the chance.

Therefore in a sense, ebay type auctions don't simulate real
life auctions and the strategy has to be different. Sniping
(bidding at the last minute or more acurately within the last
few seconds!) is frowned upon but until the ebay auction
structure is changed, it is the only realistic way of winning
an auction.

For an informative Underground FAQ of everything you wanted to
know about bidding on ebay but ebay never told you, check out:
http://www.frii.com/~afs/ebay/

Gabriel


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End of PHOTO-3D Digest 3034
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