O/T: Why do people bid so early on ebay?

[treant985]

Maybe this is a little off-topic, but this is something that I've never been able to figure out: in auctions where there's no buy-it-now (where bidding soon can remove the BIN option), why do people start bidding when there are days left in the auction?

It drives up the price, it gives other bidders a longer period of time in which to outbid you, and it alerts other bidders that this item must be something special. When you bid wouldn't make any difference if people actually put a set ceiling on how much they were going to bid--and then just bid that amount; but everybody changes their ceiling as they go, so early bidding pushes up other bidders' ceilings and thus increases the price.

The only valid reasons I can think of is that someone is going to be away from their computer for days and thus must bid now--or never; the other is that, if bidders don't show some interest, they're afraid the seller might just pull the item, but how often does an item get pulled just because it didn't get any bids for the first few days? The other reason, which I don't consider valid, is that the bidders just want to feel 'on-top' and thus they must outbid this other guy--RIGHT NOW. Besides that, I think it's just one of those things that's completely illogical, but many bidders never stop to think.

An excellent example is the Pedroia bat that Chris put up; I congratulate him on getting so much movement so quickly. I just don't understand why bidders do this: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=270378441696 . It's a 7-day auction and the price went from $9.99 to $460 in the first 15 hrs it was up for sale.

Maybe this has come up before on GUU, but I haven't seen it...

[otismalibu]

We left too much time...

[Jags Fan Dan]

Sometimes I bid early if it is not a "gotta have it" type item. I will put my ceiling on it and if I get outbid, fine. If not, fine.

[UGA-1]

Yeah, if the item is something not that important to me, i just place a bid(usually low) and leave it alone to worry about items i need to keep an eye on. That way i can forget about it. If I win, great, If not,someone wanted it more than me anyway. Congrats to them.


But on items I'm really after,I pull out the sniper rifle! 3..2..1..POW!

[yanks12025]

People pay way to much for his bats. There just like Cano's when he started, prices were high and then they go down after one bad year.

[kellsox]

I saw that bat in the pickups section. He called it "a definite keeper" and then listed it a few days later. I see this quite a bit where dealers- I mean "collectors" post their new pickups then immediately list them. Weren't the mods supposed to address this a while ago?
k

[kellsox]

People pay way to much for his bats. There just like Cano's when he started, prices were high and then they go down after one bad year.

I must have missed when Cano won the ROY/was a key member of a world championship team, then won the MVP the following year-like Pedroia did. Cano's just not as good.
k

[commando]

If an item worth several hundred dollars starts off with a $9.99 bid, I'll go ahead and place a LOW bid to follow the auction easier. I'll wind up placing my "real" bid near the end.

[yanks12025]

kellsox,
I guarantee when both of there careers are over with, Cano will come out to be the better player out of the two. Dustin will be one of those players that have acouple good seasons and then fall off the face of the earth. Not just because im a yankee fan but i rather take Cano over Dustin any day of the week.

[godwulf]

Yeah, if the item is something not that important to me, i just place a bid(usually low) and leave it alone to worry about items i need to keep an eye on. That way i can forget about it. If I win, great, If not,someone wanted it more than me anyway. Congrats to them.

Are you suggesting that somebody is bidding $460 for something that's "not that important" to them?

It must be nice.