Richard Goodman said:By your bidding strategy you might not mind losing in that way, but I think most buyer's bidding
objective is to win at the lowest possible cost.
Not *quite*: you need to add "within the limits they are willing to pay", which is an
important caveat!
Quoted message said:Sniping is more likely to acheive that than putting in an early bid for the highest you are
willing to go, and this is the reason, as Zog correctly observed, that it's often - admittedly not
always as I pointed out when he said it - that it is only in the last minute of the auction that
the serious bids start coming.
If there are serious bids going in then it doesn't really matter when they arrive: Proxy bidding
will push the actual figure up to the same number whether they arrive 7 days in advance or 7
milliseconds. All it takes is one person playing the game the way it was *designed* to be played and
sniping won't get you anywhere at all. Though having said that, sniping is the way a lot of people
are playing, so it can be worth the gamble that everyone's trying it on that way and delaying, but
even when you *are* delaying you should work out a *true* maximum and send that straight in
(effectively making a single sealed bid, but one that does not oblige you to pay the full bid if
it's over the odds). If you do this then there can't be any complaint that snipers robbed you of an
item by a single bid increment, which is a moan I often see moaned.
I will send my one bid in as late as socially reasonable: I really don't use eBay enough to warrant
special sniping software, but agree there's no reason to open as soon as you can.
Pete.
--
Peter Clinch University of Dundee Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Medical Physics, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK net [email hidden]
dundee.ac.uk~pjclinchOpen ↗