[meteorite-list] The Sniper Mentality

From: Shawn Alan <photophlow_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:30:44 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <903959.95054.qm_at_web113604.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>

Hello list again,

I have been bidding and watching an item on eBay for the past few days and I wish I had gotton the 46g Norton Meteorite at $600 or so but that wasn't the case. Before I went down in the subway to go home I got on my phone to watch the clock tick on the eBay item I was wishing I could get but I knew It wasn't going to happen.
?
As the clock went down the price stayed steady for the remaining 4 minutes. But it wasn't till the last few seconds that the price went from $800 to $850 and I thought to myself, WOW the winner is going to make a killing. In the back of my head I was wishing I was him/her but I don't have the leisure to spend that much on a meteorite. But when I thought it was over it wasn't and when the clock stopped the auction was over and the winning bidder got the Norton County meteorite at $1,225 not to mention its from Dr LaPaz estate, what a deal. Here is a link of the auction.....

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=230447906846&showauto=true

At any rate the winner got a great meteorite and did it smart. If I had money and I knew I would do anything to get it, I would place my bid at $3000, that's a guaranty that I would get, but again, it could lead to high costs if I have someone else that wants it more then me.

So the morel to the story is, if you want the item, then you will do anything to get it. If this means you wait to the last seconds to?bid, or hire a third party to bid for you, or put a max bid in a day before the bid ends, you do what ever it takes :) But?at?the end of the day what?comes down to it is?who placed the highest bid?in the allotted time.

Shawn Alan




[meteorite-list] The Sniper Mentality
Richard Kowalski damoclid at yahoo.com
Wed Mar 17 19:58:00 EDT 2010

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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 Thu 18 Mar 2010 12:30:44 AM PDT