Subject:
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Re: Proxy ratcheting: How do auction systems work?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.market.auction
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Date:
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Wed, 21 Apr 1999 19:53:33 GMT
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Viewed:
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908 times
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> > About the issue of whether new bids have to beat the proxy by the • increment
> > amount, I say this: as long as I can't be sniped at the last minute, I
> > don't care. If someone beats me by a small amount or a large amount, if
> > I'm still willing to bid higher, I will. But if I don't have time to • make
> > another bid, I (and the seller) are effectively screwed.
Now wait, screwed by who? To blame the auction system is just a way of
shifting the blame - you knew before hand when the auction would end and
could at any time have raised your proxy, if you were willing to pay more.
You are aware that its likely someone will at least attempt to outbid you in
the last few minutes of the auction. Maybe you "screwed" yourself and the
seller, but the auction system is not to blame.
> Really?
> Consider this scenario that could happen at SeriousCollector
> You have an item won, sitting at 400, and your max proxy is 500. Someone
> outbids you with a hard bid of 500.01 (lucky guess on their part) which
> gets rounded to 500.50 under the rounding rules (as I understand them)
> The bid increment is 15%. Are you willing to take the item to 575 or
> thereabouts to win it back? Why should you have to spend 75 bucks to top
> them if they only spent 50 cents to top you?
> Remember, SC uses fixed percentage bid increments. It's early in the
> life of the site, Bev is sharp and Derick is eager to please. Let's
> thrash this out now.
I just wrote a very long spiel about the error in forced minimum
increments. The above example illustrated by Larry is accurate on eBay,
except the high 15% increment for SC is only $5.00 on eBay. A bidder very
well may be willing to bid $525 or even $550, but perhaps not $575, as
needed to reaffirm the high bid. For the seller to see the highest bid,
which is needed to get and retain sellers, this increment is too much. In
the above scenario, with SC, the seller is in jeopardy of losing $10, $20,
maybe even $50 and that could add up to quite a bit if the seller has many
items in that price range. I am not 100% clear on the way SC works, and
don't know if the above scenario is accurate or not.
> > So the problem with eBay once again come back to the fact that it is • based
> > on fixed ending times.
> Well, that's ONE of the problems.
Some see it as a problem, however, if you place your bid before the auction
ends, in the amount you are willing to pay, you should either get the item
or someone else will get it for a higher price. Thats how all auctions are,
right? To some, especially sellers, the beauty of eBay is that they know
when the auction will end. There will always be varied opinions on this,
since you can't have it both ways. I tend to look at it more like a live
auction. You go to an auction, hang out til what interests you is being bid
on and then bid on it. You don't bid a week in advance, and you don't call
in a new bid every couple days. Its much simpler and faster this way. Most
eBay auctions go for a week, so you have a whole week to browse, decide what
to bid on and then, near the end, place your bid. Fortunately, if you
aren't going to be able to bid at the end, you can place a proxy ahead of
time, which is exactly like leaving your friend in the auction house to bid,
in case you have to go outside for some fresh air. So, as you see, I don't
feel that the fixed ending time is a big problem. I liked it better for the
short time that eBay allowed 14 day auctions, which gave (more) people a
longer browsing time, and a better chance of finding the item they want to
bid on. I like the longer length auctions being offered by SC and some of
the other new auction sites.
For the other point about retracting a proxy, and replacing it with a
firm bid, I still disagree. I do not understand the advantage of having two
types of bids in one auction. Somebody enlighten me. Anyway - again, on
eBay, it does say you can never retract a bid as you place your bid.
However, if you have a dire emergency, and contact the seller prior to the
end of auction, the seller himself can cancel your bid. Even if the auction
has ended, the majority of eBay's (and other auction's) sellers are human
beings, and understand the plights of fellow men, and will work with a
person who has sudden financial distress. :-) So, the reasoning behind
being able to remove a prior bid seems useless. I can't say that its a
better or worse method, just different, but would like to know how others
see it as a better method.
> --
> Larry Pieniazek http://my.voyager.net/lar
> FDIC Know your Customer is wounded, thanks to you, but not dead...
> See http://www.defendyourprivacy.com for details
> For me: No voyager e-mail please. All snail-mail to Ada, please.
> - Posting Binaries to RTL causes flamage... Don't do it, please.
> - Stick to the facts when posting about others, please.
> - This is a family newsgroup, thanks.
--
Have fun!
John ( jdiri14897@email.msn.com ) remove NOSPAM:
John's Lego Web Trade Page:
http://www114.pair.com/ig88/lego/index.htm
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Message has 3 Replies:
 | | Re: Proxy ratcheting: How do auction systems work?
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| (...) I don't know about other people, but I tend to go into an auction (more often a parts auction than an auction server, but the principle still applies) with two things. A maximum budget, and a list of things I want. so if I'm looking at A and (...) (25 years ago, 21-Apr-99, to lugnet.market.auction)
| | | Re: Proxy ratcheting: How do auction systems work?
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| (...) But live auctions don't end after the first 5 minutes (or however long) of bidding. They run until the bids stop coming in. That's what the typical online G1/G2/Sold auction does, just at a slower pace. You'd have better luck comparing eBay to (...) (25 years ago, 22-Apr-99, to lugnet.market.auction)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Proxy ratcheting: How do auction systems work?
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| (...) Really? Consider this scenario that could happen at SeriousCollector You have an item won, sitting at 400, and your max proxy is 500. Someone outbids you with a hard bid of 500.01 (lucky guess on their part) which gets rounded to 500.50 under (...) (25 years ago, 21-Apr-99, to lugnet.market.auction)
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