On Wed, 31 Jan 2001, PAUL STENQUIST wrote:
> I've also wondered why anyone would bid before the last minute of
> an auction. It seems to me that it only serves to drive up the price.
> Am I missing something here?
Nope. For the most part, bidding before the end of an auction is pretty
much useless, IMO, unless you're doing it for one of the following
reasons:
(1) to track an item (though there are other ways of doing this)
(2) to find out the reserve price so your final bid doesn't miss it by a
few bucks
(3) to place your maximum bid so you don't have to look at the auction
again.
Anything else is just bidding up the price, but so few people seem to
realize it. If I decide that I'm willing to spend $200 on something,
waiting until the closing seconds to buy it gives me the best chance to
get it for that price. Bidding earlier just gives everyone else an
opportunity to think, "hey, I want that enough to bid $210", while they
might have earlier only bid $180 if they didn't anticipate
competition. The only time I make an exception to this rule (well,
usually the only time) is when I'm bidding on a whole whack of items that
I don't want to have to keep tabs on. Then I'll bid my maximum right from
the start, and if it goes higher than that, so be it. I'll find out after
the auctions end. The problem is that bidding early makes people eager to
put their bid in just over mine, which causes me to bid just over theirs,
and it usually escalates past what I could have got it for had I waited
till the end to bid and avoided the price war. Just my 2 cents, but I do
win most of the auctions I'm seriously bidding for.
chris
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