On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 1:13 PM, Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com>wrote:
However, if I'm sniping, and you've already
bid more than my maximum
possible bid, I'll drive the auction up to my maximum bid and that's what
you'll pay.
And that is exactly what I should pay. If my maximum bid is less than
yours, you'll pay my maximum bid. I fail to see how it makes a difference
when those bids were placed, beyond a psychological difference. Whether
snipers tend to win or lose is NOT an indication of whether sniping works as
a strategy. If I lose an auction to a sniper it's because the sniper was
willing to pay more than I was. That doesn't mean the sniper got a
bargain. My experience is that the majority of snipers are people who get
upset if they lose, especially if the item went for less than the maximum
they were willing to pay AND the winning bid came in the last 30 seconds of
the auction. (Meaning they might have won if they had bid their maximum.)
Let's face it. ebay isn't like other auctions. Other auctions get extended
with continued bidding. It's a different game
altogether.
And ebay could fix that if they wanted to. Have the auctions continue at
the deadline, but restrict them to people who have already bid, and then end
if no bids come in for X minutes.