25 Apr
2003
25 Apr
'03
2:58 a.m.
On Thursday, April 24, 2003, J.C.Wren wrote:
As a seller, there are two advantages that I can identify. First, it
promotes customer satisfaction, which leads to a more profitable long-term
relationship with the customer. Second, people who make rash decisions are
less likely to pay, and nonpaying bidders are a real pain. It may be worth
it to reduce the probability of experiencing that pain.
As both a seller and a bidder, eBay is a great tool for discovering the
approximate values of things. Last-minute auction psychology, IMHO,
artificially inflates these prices (though generally not by much). A
sealed-bid system, by decreasing the last-minute effect, would make eBay's
market values for things more accurately reflect the market values outside
of eBay. Thus, eBay would become a better value estimation tool.
As a bidder, it's currently inconvenient. The way eBay works (and I'm not
really a big eBay basher; I have lots of fun with it), if you really want to
be competitive, you have to snipe. You have to be paying attention when the
auction ends (I wouldn't trust a sniping service IMHO). That's difficult to
do for a great many people and depends on work, weather, and a virtually
infinite number of other factors. A sealed-bid system would enable people
to bid -- competitively -- at their convenience and then go on about their
lives.
My favorite
idea is simply to have sealed bids. That is, you don't know
the high bid until the auction closes. Doing it that way prevents
last-minute psychology from causing bad decisions.
Out of curiosity, why is it in my best interest as a seller to prevent
people from making rash decisions? It's not my moral or social responsibility to keep
others from making
stupid decisions.
I do not have the following view, but some may say that it is unethical to
take advantage of people by exploiting their psychology.
--
Jeffrey Sharp