[meteorite-list] The Sniper Mentality

From: John Hendry <pict_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:08:23 -0700
Message-ID: <002f01cac63f$e4e9b040$aebd10c0$_at_co.uk>

Richard,

I always use sniping services for bidding and my reasoning flawed or
otherwise is as follows. There exists a category of bidders that do not bid
their maximum and leave it at that, but like to continuously monitor the
auction for the duration and outbid others when they lose highest bid. This
sometimes reaches a frenzy of bid and counterbid in the last 30 minutes, and
this behaviour seems more related to beating the competition than an
incremental strategy that will cease as soon as they reach the maximum they
have in mind. Here is somebody admitting this...
http://ask.metafilter.com/47433/Psychology-of-Auctions

So I don't really want to add to the liquidity in any auction with bidders
like this that start out looking for a bargain and end up in a competitive
fiscal pissing match. If I have a bid in well before auction end at my limit
I risk provoking bidders like this to bid beyond what they originally had in
mind as eBay will continuously outbid them to my maximum. If I snipe an
auction with my maximum in the last 6 seconds I can rest assured that I
haven't provoked any people to bid beyond their maximum and perhaps beyond
mine.

Regards,
John

-----Original Message-----
From: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] On Behalf Of Richard
Kowalski
Sent: March-17-10 4:58 PM
To: meteorite list
Subject: [meteorite-list] The Sniper Mentality

This mentality, waiting until the last few seconds before bidding, is
something I just don't get. Maybe someone can explain it to me.

I bid for lots on ebay just like I do when I bid at a real auction. I set in
my head what I believe the value of an item and what I have available in my
budget to bid for that item. I then bid that much and no more. If I get the
item, great. If not, someone wanted it more and we're willing to pay more
for the item...

While I will sometimes raise my ebay bid a little before the end of the
auction, I really don't understand the idea of sitting there and in the last
second or two, to try to jam in bids high enough to win the item.

Do snipers really want the item or are they just trying to screw others out
of the item? Are they just trying to get the item at a lower price, thinking
that their competitors will just rebid again, upping the price?

I see this on meteorite auctions every so often, but much more often on the
Daguerreotypes I bid on. The reason I was reminded of it was a lot I just
lost out on. There wasn't just one sniper, but two. The both bid at the
exact same time, 2 seconds before the auction ended...

As I said, it doesn't mater that I lost the lot. It went for more than I was
willing to pay, so I wouldn't have rebid even if I could.

Possibly someone can explain what is gained by bidding like this instead of
just bidding what you think it's worth and letting it go for that...

I'd really like to see ebay eliminate this foolery. It'd be pretty simple.
Any bids that occur within one minute of the closing time of the auction
automatically resets the end time by 10 minutes, or 30 minutes. The snipers
games are eliminated and the dealers (and ebay) gets more profits because
the auction remains open for the bidding to continue to higher levels. Just
like in a real live auction.

Thanks

--
Richard Kowalski
Full Moon Photography
IMCA #1081
      
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Received on Wed 17 Mar 2010 10:08:23 PM PDT