why do people bid days befoe an auction finishes

[dvdmadchick]

why are buyers so stupid bidding on items days before an auction finishes, do they know what a auction is? you bid just before it finishes that the thrill of bidding, then you whinge when you have paid $100s more than normal, start bidding 5 mins before the auction finishes then you might get a bargin,

[garcullu-0]

The only good thing about early bidding is it will keep the item there because sometimes the seller will pull the item if no bids are made before the last 12 hours and most bidders will place a bid before that time line, but the main disadvantage of early bidding is ( and here's that word! ) stupid bidders will feel attracted to an item that has a bid just like two kids fighting over a toy that no one was playing with, it's just human psychology that someone must have something if someone else wants it, this behavior drives up the price and in some cases creates a bidding war which is by far very stupid indeed, if you get outbid early then just ignore it and rebid on the last couple of minutes to get a jist of where the highest bid lays and then get ready for another rebid on the last seconds.
I once had to bid on an item 2 hours before it ended because i was at work and had to risk it out hoping what i bidded was enough to win and i didn't but i got offered a 2nd chance offer which u believe the seller kept rebidding until he reached my bid and won then offered the item to me, i knew this because there was 14 bids in a row to reach my target, i was a victim of shill bidding and after that i rather prefer to snipe so that these seller sharks can't rebid until they reach my bid, sniping can be fair in this case and all these auctions with the private listings are very suspicious as we know the seller family and friends can be in on it and I've always been ripped off bidding in these auctions, so remember early bidding way too early is indeed stupid as it can incourage shill bidding and stupid bidding wars and if you're going to bid early don't bid a ton of money just bid a little to claim you're stake then go for the throat using a snipe but be aware others may put in a high snipe so be prepared to pay more than you think and be careful of shill sniping too.

[lyndal1838]

Just because "someone" made a series of small nibble bids it does not automatically mean it was shill bidding by the seller.

I have often seen members come to the boards complaining about shill bidding which as often as not turns out not to be shilling at all.

The best way to avoid any chance of shill bidding is to place your bid as close to the end of the auction as possible.  I usually place my bids at 5-10 seconds, depending on how fast my internet is on the day.

[go-tazz]

---

@gutterpunkz05wrote:

  Ebay should be like genuine auction sites with last minute bids adding extra time

---

That's the easiest way to get less bids and members leaving as it actually promotes shill bidding where the

seller or a "friend" tries to push the price up,

[k1ooo-slr-sales]

sorry, but I find large slabs of text without full stops hard to read .  Probably because I use full stops as a trigger to breath.  I used commas as my triggers when I read your text, but then it didn’t make as much sense as it should.

So I guess I’m saying I am not able to properly reply to whatever it is that you have posted.

[imastawka]

Me too Slr.

First paragraph - 8 lines before a full stop.

2nd paragraph - 11 lines before a full stop.

My lungs don't hold that much breath.

All too hard.

[k1ooo-slr-sales]

before I start to read a post, my subconscious scans slabs of text for upper case characters, it gives me a hint about how big a breath to take.  That’s why I found the vampire’s posts a little hard to cope with . . . . . that, and all the talk of bigger lawyers FGS!

[garcullu-0]

Well this is the internet not finishing school, and unless you can't read English i can't see the problem, now back to the issue at hand, not grammar lessons 😒

[k1ooo-slr-sales]

**pass**

Spoiler

almost Marchworthy

[zanadoo_56]

---

@garcullu-0wrote:
Well this is the internet not finishing school, and unless you can't read English i can't see the problem, now back to the issue at hand, not grammar lessons 😒

---

We can read English.  Can you write in English?   The main issue IMO is not grammar - it's punctuation (or the lack of it).  Put simply, little or no punctuation can blur the meaning and purpose of what the author is trying to say.  To the person who wrote it there's no problem....but to outsiders it may be unclear, or it ends up just blah blah and more blah. *shrugs*

Back to the topic....in the olden days sometimes placing a bid earlier than the last few seconds can give you an idea how popular the item is by the number of watchers.  Not that all bid of course, but if there are say 30 watchers then it's likely you may have serious competition for the item.  Now of course you can check on watchcount.  I  think another good reason is purely to show interest as some (especially new) sellers don't realise there might be a rush at the end...and so they close the auction early or accept a BIN offer (where there wasn't that option  in the original listing).  Don't laugh - I've encountered both examples.

[davewil1964]

As said, it's punctuation, not grammar, that's the issue. They ARE different.

If an auction listing has a BIN price, a bid will eliminate the BIN.

So there's one good reason to bid early. There may be many others, which are valid for the people doing it.

It's all about perspective - from the outside those who bid early may seem like idiots to some, and those who can't/won't punctuate may seem the same to many.

I hardly see why, from your perspective, it matters when other people bid.