How to Win on Ebay: Snipe

grammar fascist writes "A study by South Korean physicists confirms what some of us have taken for granted for a long time: a single bid at end of auction nets the most wins. From the article: 'Plugging all those data into the model and testing the outcome in terms of how the auctions turned out, the team found that the probability of submitting a winning bid on an item indeed drops with each bid. "Our analysis explicitly shows that the winning strategy is to bid at the last moment as the first attempt rather than incremental bidding from the start." The study appears in the current Physical Review E journal.'"

Comments

Say WHAT?

[justkarl]

Is this really the most valuable work a TEAM of physicists can be doing? What about global warming, finding efficient fuels, etc.

Re:And this is indeed a serious problem with EBay.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am amazed that you've been modded flamebait,...

He called people dumbasses, dumbass.

Re:And this is indeed a serious problem with EBay.

[It'sYerMam]

You've ignored even the introduction, haven't you? (I know, I must be new here.) If you bid early, you are increasing the amount you have to pay later, and increasing the likelihood of someone outbidding you, since they can see your bids. If you bid the same maximum at the very end, then the worst that can happen is that someone else has outbid you, or you get it for the same price as before. The best that can happen is that, without information on your bids, other bidders have bid lower than they may otherwise have done, and you get the item for less.

Technically, if everyone were immune to psychological influences and bid precisely at their unwavering maximum, sniping would have no effect. As it stands, this is not the case, and sniping is a better tactic.