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Posted By: 30sNonsports

Personally I have never ended an auction early and don't plan to. I do understand the reasons set forth in favor of the practice but I think the cons of doing it outweigh the pros. The practice does cause a problem for all bidders, though. I rarely, if ever, bid early on an item. If I see something I like, I set my esnipe to come in just before the end. The reason is that if I didn't snipe the other collectors of my genre (vintage nonsports cards) would just use me as one of their bird dogs to find things without searching. In my area of collecting, there are a number of folks who search all day long and put in bids immediately on items in which they are interested. Other collectors make a daily scan of their bidding page just to make sure they haven't missed something good. Sellers who end an auction early because "they're not getting the bids they want" might miss a bonanza as two heavy hitters would be sniping against each other at the end. Knowedgeable sellers are less vulnerable to this as they know about what the going rate for their product is and can make an informed choice to end their auction...its the amateur sellers who fall prey to this whole situation, as they happily pull an auction for lowball amounts. They think a $1000 card is worth $5 and are happy to get $50 for it.