Why do they bid? heh

I've started a ton of auctions at $0.99 for rare items that usually go for a few hundred dollars. When I do this, there are always those who bid the $0.99 opening price, and not higher.

May I ask what the pioint is? heh. Are they just hoping to get lucky and win a $200 system for $1? I mean what if someone outbids them at $2? Seems like if you wanted to hope for one in a million you might want to take out some form of insurance that someone else looking for a one in a million deal doesn't beat you by $1. Why not bid $10 instead?

Sometimes I have to wonder while watching the bids go from $1 to $1.25 to $1.75 to $2.00 to $5.50 to $7.50 to $93 to $151 to $205. The battle to reach $10 takes a while, then after that it goes up much faster. But I'm watching these under $10 people battle each other and I'm guessing that maybe they don't know what the system is? But even then why would they pay the $75 shipping from Japan for a $1 item?

Sorry, just had to rant.

 

Maybe its like the Price is Right. Oh wait, guess it doesn't work that way ;-)

 

I really don't understand why people bid at all. Bidding should take place in the last minute to mean anything. It's a fact that even if you bid your ass off , someone else is definetely going to get what you're after for about up to 70% ( an empiric number in my ebay observations, you don't need to agree with it, so don't bug me for its accuracy ;p )over what u r willing to pay

So many people do maths, yet so few understand statistics. No wonder politics work. People don't believe they're statistical results themselves ;p

 

I did it on occasion back in the day when I was buying stuff on ebay. It was more of a "Ive seen this auction and if you also want it, expect a bidding war" as people who collect these things often know of eachother.

It worked the other way around too, when I saw macwest had placed a low bid on something, I walked away (most of the time!)

Shiggsy

 

Is it shilling if you bid on an item knowing that it will be outbid towards the end but bid it enough to where it ends at a price that is more favorable to the seller if and only if you do not know the seller at all?

 

That what some people like to do. You guess how much the guy with the highest bid put down, and try to guess just under 1 cent of that to keep pushing the price up.

 

What I don't understand is why people change their bids. Why not just decide what the maximum amount you would pay for it and then bid that? eBay will automatically bid the lowest amount possible until it reaches your bid.

One observation: I've noticed that when an item has 4 or more bids on it and still has more than a day to go, the price almost always goes way up after that point. It's almost as if people judge the value of something based on how many bids it has. Idiots.

 

for me the whole point is to find a swee deal, ie one that is fairly cheaper than what found elsewhere.

When it comes to rare hardware though, I prefer personal contact rather than e-bay. Things get messy over people u dont know well.

 

The problem is that half of the "minimum" bids are just in the hope that the bidder can get the item that cheaply. The other half are protecting the item from being pulled in preparation for a potential snipe near the end of the auction.

 

sniping is as fair as bidding at the last moment in my book

 

heh But I was just wondering why they stop at $0.99? I just can't imagine the frustration if someone else outbids them at $2 and wins it. It's like saying, "I'll buy this $200 system for $0.99, but I won't buy it for $10."

I'm guessing that putting a bid on it might be easier for them to track. Or there have been times when eBay goes down and there is no chance for sniping. But the fact is the amount of time you would have to spend just finding and placing $0.99 bids will cause you to lose money in the end, even if you do win one.

I'm selling a brand new Sega SG-1000II, and one guy has bid $1.04, then $5.00, then $10. What's the point of the extra nickle on the opening bid? Do they have penny bid incriments now on eBay? He wanted to get out all of the bidders at $1.03? Or did he think someone else might bid $1.04 and he wanted to lock them out?

My brand new Yello Sega Game Gear? High bids have been $5.00, $6.01, $8.00, $9.00, $10.00, and now it's at $10.50. One guy even retracted a $10 bid, saying he entered in the wrong amount, then didn't rebid. Who are these people? heh

By the way, I blocked bidder names a long time ago. Part of the reason was to protect collectors who don't want others to see what they're buying. The other reason was to protect myself from people not bidding because they see someone else's bid...heh.

 

I prefer the system over at Yahoo Japan auctions, where if someone bids in the last minute, the closing time gets extended by 5 minutes each time (I don't know for how long). It's a good way to prevent sniping.

 

A freind of mine "retrogamer" always starts his at 99p, his mentatility is that someone will always bid at 99p and then get an outbid and off it goes.......he has 2000+ feedback so can`t be all bad!

 

Totally out of topic, but why are you using Barc0de's body as an avatar?:katamari2

Anyway, in psychological terms, bidding for nothing is called Asperger's syndrome.

 

Sometimes I start out at 99 cents as sorta just for the hell of it. It worked once. I got a debug partner n64 boxed complete that way from an ex midway tester. With shipping it was only $20. Only use it to play my Japanese games.

 

I agree with you if I was selling something. However if I were buying something I sure wouldn't!

 

MottZilla Quote:
Originally Posted by ccovell
I prefer the system over at Yahoo Japan auctions, where if someone bids in the last minute, the closing time gets extended by 5 minutes each time (I don't know for how long). It's a good way to prevent sniping.


I agree with you if I was selling something. However if I were buying something I sure wouldn't!

Thirded!!

 

I know some here have been playing videogames too long, when the age-old act of auctions going to the highest bidder has been reduced to a game of reflexes...

 

I just put what ever amount I'm prepared to spend and walk away.
Most of time I don't even have time to watch the final bidding war anyway.

If I won that's fine and if I don't well there's always another time - provided the world doesn't come to an end tomorrow that is ^__^

 

I have started to do that as well....with some things that I am not to bothered about....like last year I got a dummy 360 unit for a few £, it was £10 postage, so I thought £20 tops, so bid £10.01, just to hack off the £10 bidders and got it for about £5

But sometimes I get carried away like with the KULA WORLD review copy I have just won...thought bid £20...but got outbid with 30secs left and went to £25, and phew £24