ebay rant (short)

[jester@westfailure.net (jester@westfailure.net)]

On Tue, 26 Mar 2002, Christian Els wrote:

> Bid sniping only plays to folks who have no sense of an item's value
> (underbidding) or no fiscal discipline (paying above its value just to win).
Christian,

hate to say it, but i have gotten some great deals through sniping.

Thing is, many people on e-bay are willign to go up and up and up just to
win something, I'm not.

What my experience has been, if i decide its worth $30 to me, and the bid
is at $15, if i put in the 30, the other guy that wants it will see my $30
and decide he's willing to go $31 to beat me.

If i snipe at $30 with 3 seconds left, and the $25 bidder had his max bet
set qat $20, he doesnt have time to go back and change it to $31, I won at
$30.

I have actually seen this happen in real life when i did my sniping at 5
minutes instead of 5 seconds.

My e-bay policy. If i kinda want it, i put in my max price & sit back and
see what turns out. if i really want it, i wait until 5 seconds left &
place my bid then. My max price doesnt change, its just kept a secret from
other bidders until its too late for them to change their bid to beat
me... In other words, a guys max price may be $20, till he's loosing then
his irrational testosterone complex kicks in & he goes to himself "ill sho
you" and puts in $40... i'm avoiding all "i'll show you" bids by sniping.

not arguing, just telling you that i truly believe sniping is better
because that way i am the only guy that can know a) i am even interested
and b) what my max bid bid is.

take care,

Steve

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