17 Oct
1999
17 Oct
'99
12:57 p.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: CLASSICCMP(a)trailing-edge.com <CLASSICCMP(a)trailing-edge.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Sunday, October 17, 1999 8:38 PM
Subject: Re: EBaying; howling after an auction
they
I've seen
this, too. On one particular item that I wanted,
in viewing the "View Sellers Other Auctions", I noticed that
he had a number of them to sell. Spread out over a few days.
I would bid on one and someone would outbid me. I'd bid on
another and someone would outbid me. I finally just said forget
it, this is getting ridiculous. :-)
Certainly, E-bay does provides tools for many "commodity" type items
to compare one sale with past ones, so you know what a reasonable bid
is. There are evidently folks who don't know how to use this, and
it doesn't really bother me, I just feel kind-of-sorry for them.
Other E-bay phenomena:
1. Items (like HP C3010 2 Gbyte SCSI drives) that have been
flooding the surplus market. These are available from liquidators
like www.hitechcafe.com and www.compgeeks.com for $30-$35-$40, but
I've seen them bid up into the $50-$60 range on E-bay very regularly.
Same thing often happens for surplus PC-clone mainboards.
2. What really amazes me is when a seller makes a reserve price auction,
very plainly states the reserve price in the item description, and
there are literally dozens of bids made *below* the stated reserve
price. What the ???. Either the bidders think this is entirely a
"bidding game", where the objective is to outbid the other guy with
no real intention to buy, or they don't read the description at all, or haven't a clue period.
Easy, to track the auction and get an email with the info about the auction
(for future reference). Auction programs help you when you have a bid in.
Tim.