The fallacy that is EBAY

[ouizy]

In my opinion there is something intrinsicly wrong with the model that is EBAY. Not on the seller's side, but the buyer's. I am totally perplexed when I see something for sale there with let's say 3 days left in the auction and let's say for arguments sake it is for U2 TICKETS, and there are like 15 bids on the item.

Now, I fully understand that it is an online auction over time, but what is the sense in bidding on anything until minutes, or even seconds before the item is sold.

All this does is drive up the price.

Now of course there are ways for sellers to cheat and drive up the price, but why would a perspective buyer bid on anything before the very end of the auction?

Confused and bewildered,

ouizy

 

[trojanchick99]

I hear you. I never bid on anything with more than a minute left. If people would quit pidding so soon, prices would drop.

 

[MTEdge]

I hear you. I never bid on anything with more than a minute left. If people would quit pidding so soon, prices would drop.

I disagree with your analysis. Ebay is as close to the perfect free market as there ever is. The fact that someone bids seven days in advance of the close of bidding does not mean that the tickets are not worth three times face value in the end. Vice versa, the fact that no one bids on tickets until hours bid close does not mean the ticket will go for less than what the market demands.

In fact, MSG tickets for the 3rd leg shows are very good examples of the latter phenomena. For those tickets, I've seen tons of tickets enter the final hour of bidding with dollar values far below FV. But by the close of bidding the dollar value is above FV.

At bottom, the frustration is that scalpers can take advantage of markets like ebay. My suggestion, seek a legislative remedy rather than criticizing ebay for undertaking or facilitating legal endeavors.

 

[U2WOJO]

I agree as far as never bidding early (except for Buy It Now) for 2 reasons. One you do not artificially compete againstt thy self. If you out bid someone, they are notified and in turn have a chance to bid higher thatn they originally wanted to. I learned this the hard way by outbidding someone to only have them come back and out bid me later.

Second reason to bid in the last 15 seconds is it force myself to be disciplined with what I believe is a fair price. If I bid at the end and I am outbid, I don't have time to bid again.

I do agree with ebay being the perfect free enterprise system and the ideal way to sell an item as the exposure you get can not be duplicated anywhere else.

 

[nuke126]

yeah it pisses me off how people are so stupid to bid earlier than minutes before. they are just screwing themselves and others.

 

[theedge111]

I've never understood the facination of seeing your username as the high bidder with 5 days left lol. Your just costing yourself and myself (i snipe) cash!!

 

[Liesje]

I think people who bid before the last 24 hours are either a) stupid and don't know how to use eBay b) way too excited about the prospect of getting the tickets or c) have wads of cash and set a bid so high no one will ever beat it. I think option (c) sometimes works b/c I've bid on auctions before where someone put in a high bid right away and I tried a few times until realizing I had no chance and left. Sure, I might've bid the price up a bid from where it started, but not as much as it would get if that first person had waited and let everyone else bid it up at the end and then had to bid way more to win. Maybe that's just me, but maybe others are also discouraged by high bids right from the beginning.

 

[Popmartijn]

And add d) Can't be on Ebay when the bid closes, thus have to bid in advance.

Just to be complete.

 

[ouizy]

When I said fallacy - I did not mean Ebay the company and website are bad - quite the contrary - it is the perfect example of the open market (the founder is actually an alum of mine) what I mean is how the user uses the auction. Just because you can bid one something, does not necessrily mean you should...

I have found the longer you actually wait the better deal it is that you get...

In reality - every auction could be Buy It Now or only one day long because there really is not point in bidding early...

 

[knox]

I bid on items I want early, because many people won't bid on an item if they think there will be competition for it.

 

[JohnCash]

I still fail to see how bidding early affects the final sale price. If I'm willing to pay 199 for U2 tickets and you are willing to pay 200, it doesn't matter when you or I bid, you'll still end up paying 200 for the tix.

I acknowledge that there is some weirdness in Ebay as a market (for instance, people paying way too much in the hours right after a general onsale has ended), but this thing about bidding at the last minute doesn't seem to make any difference to me at all.

The problem with the logic is that people seem to assume that they are the only one watching or bidding "at the last minute."

 

[drummerboy]

I bought tickets to the AFC Championship game in Pittsburgh last year on eBay... and saw the price go up about $300 in the last 5 minutes of bidding.

 

[u2wedge]

Bidding at the last second is called 'sniping' and is frowned upon in the eBay community even though everyone does it. It's all done by proxy bidding anyway. The auction may start out at a penny and people will bid a penny just for the heck of it, and then it gets up to a dollar, 2 dollars, etc. before you know it you have an auction going on! Also, sometimes people bid early because there is a typo in the auction title, and after you bid, the seller cannot change it. There are a lot of reasons.

 

[BWU2Buffs]

yeah it pisses me off how people are so stupid to bid earlier than minutes before. they are just screwing themselves and others.

Guess I must be stooopid then.
I bid early to gauge the market -- forget about U2 tickets and get the emotion out of this -- when I bid early, I can get a sense for what others are willing to pay for an item.

If I get outbid early, then I can re-assess and determine if I really want the item, and what it is worth to me. If it's a unique, very hard to find item, then I really re-configure my flux capacitators.

I've been sniped, no big deal.

In the end, I'd rather bid early and get informed about the overall market for an item, at the risk of being sniped, than lose out on something that I really want -- early bidding allows me to communicate what I'm willing to pay, and others must pay more to win.

I upgraded 80% of my home theater system with a unique brand of speakers hard to find on eBay -- in most of those auctions, I set my price early, saved money versus retail, and still won.

What's stoopid about that? And, why would this strategy be any different for U2 tickets? If I'm willing to pay, and someone else is not, what's it matter when I set my price for you to see? We all have our limits -- at 1 minute or 6 days.

Sniping or not, it's still a great free-market model.

 

[matt_tx00]

You should bid on an e-bay auction ONCE at the HIGHEST price you are willing to pay for the item, and as close as possible to the end of the auction. Look at other auctions if you want to gauge what the market price is.

People that bid early and often are great for sellers. It just keeps driving the price higher and higher. Sometimes, this ends up discouraging a lot of more serious buyers in the end, though. Some e-bayers will bid on items as a "joke" then quit bidding once there's only a day or two left to go.

 

[sallycinnamon78]

-error-