The Strategy of Bidding at 4:30 AM?

[doug.goodman]

Originally Posted by travrosty

It's only a psychological thing, the person who is willing to pay the highest price wins, no matter when they place their bid. You can place your very max bid 5 seconds after the auction opens, and if no one wants it more than you do, you will win. People check late and bid late because they think of it as an advantage, but there is none, it makes people feel good.

That's not exactly true.

Yes, you can place your "very" max bid 5 seconds after the auction opens, but it gives other bidders the entire auction to bid, and possibly bid again if their "max" bid wasn't enough. Auction fever. And if they do bid more than you, it gives you time to consider upping your own "very max bid, due to auction fever.

If you bid at the latest possible moment, then on ebay the other bidders have less time to out bid you (assuming that their snipe bid was less than yours), and in AH auctions, you have potentially outlasted the other bidders.

Yes, the person who wants to pay the most wins, but sometimes the person who wants to pay the most is pay more than they originally wanted to pay. The less time they have to think about it, the less chance there is that they will do it.