Subject:
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Re: [DISC] Shortcircuit eBay?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.market.auction
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Date:
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Wed, 28 Apr 1999 03:38:56 GMT
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Viewed:
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591 times
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R2 wrote:
> If your buyer was willing to pay $50 above the last bid amount, he/she
> SHOULD have made their maximum bid" higher - $50 dollars higher!!! ...
> When I bid, I know what I am willing to pay for something. Therefore, I set
> my maximum at that level. If someone is willing to pay more than I am
> LET THEM HAVE IT!!!
I think you are assuming that consumers are more rational then they actually
are. If you carry your assumption to it's extreme, ebay should not need to
keep track and publish the current high bid and bidder of an auction in
progress. Each bidder would submit his/her maximum price and at the close
of the auction, the software would announce the winner and the winning
price - an increment above the second highest bid.
I would imagine that such a system would depress selling prices, make
bidders unhappy and lower the popularity of the auction house. Purchases
on ebay, as in real life, are often spontaneous, and the desire for an item
will often wax or wane over time. I surmise that the average bidder
experiences an increase in his/her desire for an item over the course
of an auction, especially when holding the highest bid. This may not be
strictly logical, but I suspect it is human nature. While you might claim
that a traditional going-1-2-gone format takes advantage of this weakness
in human thought I don't think most successful bidders are constantly
disappointed with the outcome
One of the biggest virtues of an auction is fairness - the idea that each
bidder will walk away having won an item or having lost it to someone
who wanted it more. (Money is a crude approximation of desire, but its
the best one we have.) Similarly, a seller should leave with the confidence
that his product was sold at a price no other bidder was willing to exceed.
Sniping is effective at undermining this conversion of supply and demand.
It disturbs the basic fairness of the market. If sniping did not work bidders
would not practice it, and others would not complain about it.
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Message has 1 Reply:
Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: [DISC] Shortcircuit eBay?
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| -----Original Message----- From: John DiRienzo <jdiri14897@email.msn.com> Newsgroups: lugnet.market.auction Date: Tuesday, April 27, 1999 12:33 AM Subject: Re: [DISC] Shortcircuit eBay? (...) STOP WHINING! If your buyer was willing to pay $50 above (...) (25 years ago, 27-Apr-99, to lugnet.market.auction)
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