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 23:07:14 GMT
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Viewed:
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1485 times
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In lugnet.market.theory, Frank Filz writes:
> 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).
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 their is no finality to sniping, no one kicks off the
mad bidding at the end and the seller ends up the worse for it.
>
> 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).
The SF art auction silent bidding often just forces the piece into the live
auction due to the number of bids. If the 5th bid was the one that pushed
it into live, you wanted to be bid number 4. No one could snipe you.
Others would outbid themselves to reach the limit just so they could avoid
sniping.
I suppose this exits Lego, but I keep meaning to do some drawings for an SF
art auction, but I never have the time. A quickie colored pencil test
(having not drawn in a long time). (Warning: non-lego content, bail out now).
http://briefcase.yahoo.com/bc/thecorsair/lst?&.dir=/pics&.src=bc&.view=l
One of these days when I have time (I'm thinking of suspending Lego
activities for a while to do so).
-->Bruce<--
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Message has 1 Reply:
Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Ebay sniper? you make the call
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| (...) 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 (...) (22 years ago, 20-Nov-02, to lugnet.market.theory)
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