17 Oct
1999
17 Oct
'99
7:04 p.m.
On Sun, 17 Oct 1999, Marvin wrote:
John Lawson wrote:
Yes, which is really what "sniping" is; a user-created form of sealed
bidding.
People like me are the reason that bidding the max early is no good. I am
a fool with my money, and I don't know when to say "when." I view a dollar
as something that won't even buy me a cup of coffee most places, so it's
never a big deal to say, "Hmmm...just one more dollar..." to try to top a
bid. That's the biggest reason I bid in the final few seconds, to protect
me from myself. By the time I can reload the page after I bid, the auction
is over and I either won for that amount or lost...
Aaron
My main concern with the eBay auction algorithm is that it is
time-limited, rather than bid-limited.... the aution closes after a
fixed span **no matter what the bidding activity is**.
'Normal' auctions close when **no further bids are recieved** in an
agreed-upon span.
You are forgetting the sealed bid auctions. IMNSHO, it would be far better
for ebay to add the capability to make sealed bids (and yes, I have
suggested that to them.) That would eliminate this inching up just to see
where the high bid is prior to closing.
Ebays suggestion that you just bid your maximum and wait to see what happens
is a good thought. But making that bid early just invites "well, I'll just
bid one more dollar to see what happens" and thus driving the price up. Most
ebay buyers have educated themselves to know that early bids do not bring
the best prices. Hence the popularity of sniping. A combination of sealed
and open bidding would most likely work out better than the current mess.