P3D Re: eBay bidding

[jacob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Gabriel Jacob)]

Mike K. writes:
>>>If the other guy is willing to bid higher, then he'll win sniping
>>>or not.  :-(

I wrote: 
>> True but at least you get the CHANCE to bid! With sniping you don't!

Mike K. replies:
>Not true at all.  In most ebay auctions one has a full week to ponder
>one's bid and to bid it.

Yes but your missing the point that I have mentioned before. By doing
this you are showing your hand early on and give other bidders time
to bid accordingly. If there were no snipers your stratedgy would
make sense but as you know this is not the case. 

>If you're not familiar with their mechanism, you bid the most you're
>willing to bid, and ebay automatically bids the least amount of your
>bid (really a "max bid") needed to win.

Yes I know exactly how it works and how to work the system to my
advantage, and hopefully other's advantage by this discussion! 

>So if a sniper bids higher than your bid, it's only because (s)he bid
>higher than you were willing to bid anyway.

The fault in this logic is that most people on ebay are looking for
a bargain. I think you would agree that they will bid a maximum that
they feel will be a good bargain or in other words because of greed,
as even you mention. This being the case, someone beating your
maximum bid doesn't mean the price is not a bargain anymore but
rather progressively less a good deal. Therefore that is another
reason using this mind set to your advantage.

Even if if you bid your ABSOLUTE maximum bid early, it still is a 
loosing strategy. By doing this, your giving other bidders TIME to
reflect and contemplate increasing their maximum bids till they
overcome your maximum bid. Why give them that chance?

>If your bid is higher than the sniper's then ebay will re-bid
>almost *instantaneously* in your behalf!!!  You're faster than a
>sniper if you actually put in a max-bid higher than the sniper's!

Problem is you'll never get this far by bidding your maximum bid
early.

>In a live auction, the "going going gone" period is the only time
>allowed between somebody else's last bid (which could be their ONLY
>bid as well) and your chance to think about it.  Usually a matter
>of seconds at most auctions that I've been at -- they usually are 
>trying to move things along quickly.  And there you don't have ebay
>around to do it by proxy, you have to be there at that time and in
>person!

Yes but as I mentioned before...
It is a level playing field for ALL bidders in a live auction. Not
the case in an ebay auction.

The best winning strategy is bid your maximum bid (whatever that is)
at the end. Mike you mentioned you snipe sometimes (or often?). Why,
if it is not a good strategy? :-)

Gabriel


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