Subject:
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Re: Ebay sniper? you make the call
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.market.theory
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Date:
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Wed, 20 Nov 2002 21:28:35 GMT
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Viewed:
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1387 times
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David Eaton wrote:
> For Ebay's sake (and for the seller's-- and those who want to change their
> minds) I'd LOVE to see Ebay instigate a system wherein auctions don't have a
> set-in-stone end time. IE, if a bid is received, the auction extends
> time-wise another X mintues. Furthermore, successive bids must be for, say,
> 1-5% of the item's currently bid price, so you can't extend the auction by
> outbidding someone by a penny. Also, might be nice if the longer past the
> original end time it gets, the higher the 'necessary bid' percentage gets.
> So if you outbid someone 5 minutes past the auction end time, you only need
> to outbid by 1%, but if you're 6 hours past the auction end time, you need
> to outbid by 50% or something (such that it would shortly get ridiculous
> enough that people wouldn't bother unless they REALLY REALLY wanted it--
> which I'm sure Ebay and the sellers wouldn't mind...
Interesting idea. Escalating the bid increment would definitely help
bring the auction to a close. Also, you're probably right that a few
minutes is really all the auction has to be extended. Making the
escalating bid increment be based on the total time from the scheduled
end of the auction would allow "worthwhile" fast paced bidding by
smallish amounts but eventually you have to get serious. In real live
auctions where an item is hotly contested, you will often see a sort of
slow start, then the few serious bidders quickly jump the price up
enough to drown out the non-serious bidders, then the bidding settles
down for a while, then there can be a final frenzy which finally settles
down to a closing bid. An end game which lasts a modest amount of time
(a few minutes or so) is good for the overall process (all you bargain
hunters remember - auctions need to reach a fair price or they aren't
worthwhile - you shouldn't be getting yardsale type prices at auctions).
Hmm, I just remembered a non-online auction format which has the
equivalent of sniping. That format is the "silent auction" where the
items are displayed for some set period of time, with a bidsheet beside
each item. At the last moment, you stand beside the item with your
pencil ready. I liked the slight variant on this that many science
fiction conventions used in their art auctions. Each bid sheet had 3-10
rows (depending on size of the artshow). Any bid sheet which was filled
caused the item to be entered into the live auction. They closed down
the silent auction by having proctors move through the room (in a large
room with vertical panels with art hanging, it would be impossible to
see that no one cheated by bidding after the time limit). This format
even had a variant which eliminated some sniping. At one auction, a
friend and I were both bidding on the same item, and standing next to
it. When the proctor reached us, he was happy to sit for a few moments
while we debated our last bids (the item only needed one or two more
bids to go to the live auction). I finally decided to end the stalemate
by bidding on another item which had no bids (certainly not earning the
auction as much as if we had gone into the live auction [where I have
seen very small items jump from a few bucks to over $50], but still
getting more money). The items by the way were one of a kind painted
name tags by Kevin Siembieda of Palladium Books, though I think this was
before he started the company. Of course this leads into a real funny
story. One of my friends in college decided to enter some crayon
scribbles into the art show at Boskone (one of the biggest SF cons at
the time). One of his scribbles won an award. He overheard a couple fans
in deep discussion about the piece. Later, at other conventions, he
actually raised tens (or maybe hundreds) of dollars for the cons with
his art (though in that case, the buyers were buying for the fun of it,
but I somehow have this feeling that one of the pieces went for $50 or
more once).
Frank
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Ebay sniper? you make the call
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| (...) Yahoo! auctions has the 5 minute extension as an option, if the seller wants it. If a bid comes in during the last 5 min, the auction is extended. I rallied for it as an option at BrickLink, but no-go. Julie >Frank (22 years ago, 20-Nov-02, to lugnet.market.theory)
| | | Re: Ebay sniper? you make the call
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| (...) One would think that eBay would like the bidding to go on if the bids were coming reasonably fast, but at the moment the emphasis is on getting the auctions to cycle through quickly. Who knows? Maybe they have done tests and determined that if (...) (22 years ago, 20-Nov-02, to lugnet.market.theory)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Ebay sniper? you make the call
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| (...) Definitely agree-- For the sake of the buyers, snipe. It WILL result in lower prices, even though it shouldn't. That way people don't have a chance to change their minds and make the price go higher. For Ebay's sake (and for the seller's-- and (...) (22 years ago, 20-Nov-02, to lugnet.market.theory)
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