[Archive]

Posted By: T206Collector

The only early bid strategy that makes any sense to me is setting a number above which no reasonable person would go, and even then I find it a bit suspect because when it comes to auctions, people are not reasonable. Again, the earlier you bid, the more you are likely to pay for an item; the more you are likely to lose a bid for an item; and the more money you are giving to the seller.

Think of it this way -- if everyone had to place just one blind bid on an item, then it wouldn't matter when that bid was placed. But since we are all privy to early bid information, the only logical thing to do is to create a universe where bids are essentially blind, i.e., with 10 seconds to go in an auction, where the opportunity for increasing a bid after seeing it fall short is negligible. If everyone sniped auctions, things would go a lot cheaper because no one would be able to adjust their prior threshold bid to a new threshold bid.

All you early bidders out there, next time you bid in an auction, check the bid history after your bid is acknowledged as the highest bid. Every time you see a bidder place more than one bid afterwards is a bid that would not have been made if you and everyone else interested in the item had sniped the auction.