eBay bidding analysis - my experience with six similar auctions ending in a 30 minute period

esquiresports

My dad graduated from Auburn, so I grew up a big fan of the team. An eBay seller put up a run of Auburn team-signed helmets and one football covering 2005-2011. The most popular year - the 2010 National Championship team - was missing, so the values should be relatively the same. The six auctions were spaced about five minutes apart each.

I placed my bids with five seconds or less left in each auction. Here are my winning bids, in order of close: $76, $108, $128, $141, $171, $203 (for the football - ouch).

Here are the gaps between the second and third highest bids, in order of close: $2, $3, $15, $17, $49, $121.

I imagine there were likely a few things at play here: bidder(s) rolling money they weren't spending early into the later auctions and bidder(s)' desire to at least win one helmet. Maybe a little anger/frustration thrown in.

Looking at the patterns, it reinforces why I think you definitely save money overall by placing bids only at auction end. I believe that if you give people time to rethink their bids (by bidding early), they may decide to increase their bids multiple times.

FYI - because I thought there would likely be an increasing bid price pattern, I raised my max bid with each successive auction. That wasn't an issue because I was estimating an average cost of about $150 per item.

WhiteTornado

<< <i>My dad graduated from Auburn, so I grew up a big fan of the team. An eBay seller put up a run of Auburn team-signed helmets and one football covering 2005-2011. The most popular year - the 2010 National Championship team - was missing, so the values should be relatively the same. The six auctions were spaced about five minutes apart each.

I placed my bids with five seconds or less left in each auction. Here are my winning bids, in order of close: $76, $108, $128, $141, $171, $203 (for the football - ouch).

Here are the gaps between the second and third highest bids, in order of close: $2, $3, $15, $17, $49, $121.

I imagine there were likely a few things at play here: bidder(s) rolling money they weren't spending early into the later auctions and bidder(s)' desire to at least win one helmet. Maybe a little anger/frustration thrown in.

Looking at the patterns, it reinforces why I think you definitely save money overall by placing bids only at auction end. I believe that if you give people time to rethink their bids (by bidding early), they may decide to increase their bids multiple times.

FYI - because I thought there would likely be an increasing bid price pattern, I raised my max bid with each successive auction. That wasn't an issue because I was estimating an average cost of about $150 per item. >>



Very much agree about only bidding near the end. It is why I only use snipes when bidding in true auctions on eBay.

bounce

sometimes depends on what you're trying to accomplish

i do the same thing you did when bidding on multiple items, if i win the first cheaper than expected i start rolling dollars to the next to make sure i win

anyway, i will sometimes place an early bid at maybe 75% of what i think FV is just to get some of it over with, and there are some times where i go ahead and place a max early just because i don't want to mess with keeping up with it

but most of the time, i bid at the end - and i lose a TON of auctions - but i win my fair share too