On 5/31/07, Allan Streib <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
"Zoltan Finks" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> So tell me, what is my best plan of attack? We keep getting outbid by $10
> automatically.
about 30 seconds before the auction ends, put in the absolute maximum
bid you'd be willing to pay.
As I've said before, this doesn't work.
The problem has to do with the definition of "willing to pay"---it
isn't black or white, and eBay's (broken) auction model forces you to
pretend that it is.
Say you put in $500 as your maximum bid, and another bidder snipes you
at the last minute with a bid of $501. If the item was worth $500 to
you, it was probably worth the $502 that you would have had to have
bid in order to win. It probably wasn't worth $1,000 (which is why
you didn't put that down as your max bid in the first place). In
between is a gray area where the higher the price, the less your
desire to pay it.
eBay should extend the auction time limit as long as there are higher
bids coming in. The system as it stands is just plain broken, and
encourages sniping to the extent that in effect the "auction" idea is
a joke---it's really a "buy at a fixed price but you have to wait and
guess what that fixed price is going to be at the last moment" system.
That's how I treat it---and I'm much more likely these days to buy an
item at the "Buy it Now" price than play eBay's silly game.
Alex Chamberlain
'87 300D Turbo
'93 Isuzu Trooper
'86 Lincoln Mark VII LSC
