Phantom Bidders on eBay

[Soonerorlater]

I prefer to snipe "manually"

 

[Don Hills]

If I was a seller that's the kind of auction I'd want

Brgds Bill

Higher success fees for the auction site, too, assuming it does actually result in higher final bids.

Auto-extend is optional on Trademe. You can judge its popularity by looking at the number of auctions with versus without it. You can argue that sellers are biased towards using it, as it may result in a higher winning bid, but equally you can argue that if it were unpopular with buyers they wouldn't bid on those auctions.

As for eBay being a "real" auction, shall we revisit that when eBay adds auto-extend?

 

[stratus46]

In a "real" auction, the bidding closes when there are no more bids in a certain time (decided by the auctioneer). This makes the Trademe system closer to reality, where the winner is the person prepared to pay the most, rather than the gamer with the high-speed network connection and auto-snipe software.

True, but in a real auction you see the other folks and can get a feel for what's happening. The one time I fooled with uBid, it dragged on the point of 'who cares?'. When there is a fixed time to end, you know precisely what the game is. I usually use eSnipe as I forget (or am unable) to be around for an end time. When I snipe manually, it's a little bit of a rush.

G²

 

[wrenchone]

I only snipe on things I really need (not too many of those). Otherwise, I just put in what price looks good to me, and if I don't get it, no really big deal. I have too many things as it is.