Why do people place early bids on Winebid? Question/Rant

[Bryan_Price]

As a general practice I think it’s best to bid early if you know your own intrinsic value. You won’t be emotionally swayed by the frenzy of the auction and overpay.

[David_K_o_l_i_n]

@J a y H a c k

@Michael Martin

There is no “strike” price. There is only market pricing. IMHO if you bid early, you end up bidding against yourself more times than not.

you need to read up on auction theory. You only bid against yourself if you are a moron or if the auctioneer is a cheater.

Exactly. And I have much better things to do on a weekend night than to hover over an online auction.

[ERPark]

I occasionally check out K&L’s auctions. Have seen plenty of instances of higher value bottles hammering at a price I would’ve been willing to bid, but I would not have been willing to bid the next increment higher.

So I agree that there is certainly positive value in having “first mover advantage” on higher priced lots…

[Wes_Barton]

@Phillip F r a n k s

@Keith Levenberg

@Phillip F r a n k s

Great story Keith,

Except Mr. Y rarely, if ever, puts in a max bid $60 over the current bid. Especially on a wine in that price range.

Try repeating the exercise with numbers of $70 and $80 and see if you get a different result.

This: If Mr. X and Mr. Y paid $100+ for a $50 wine they’re pretty f*cking stupid.

And, Kieth, if I do my math right, $80 is a lot less than $110. I just saved $30.

You two seriously think that’s what he was saying?

[Joe_G_a_l_e_w_s_k_i]

@D@vid Bu3ker

Mr. Z realizes that there is always more wine, and that worrying about an auction bid/result is the real losing strategy!

I like the way you think.

[Ian_H]

People should bid in whatever way makes them happy whether that is early, middle or with the late snipe. Everybody knows the rules of the auction so it’s a fair fight. Seems to me the surest way to get a bottle you want is by stealing it late, but have also found this tends to mean you can overpay. Is what it is. Also, the bottles I have sniped haven’t interfered with otherwise wonderful Sundays as the snipe literally takes 1-2 minutes tops depending upon how much sniping there is to accomplish.

[Wes_Barton]

@SeanHarding

I’ve only used WineBid maybe twice (not for a couple of years), and I probably haven’t participated in an eBay auction in over five years (I’ve bought some “buy it now” stuff). So I’m far from an expert on this stuff. But based on my experience on eBay, the flaw in Keith’s analysis is that he assumes all bidders are rational and bid their maximum on their first bid.

No, he defines those two particular bidders as rational. So, each of those scenarios could have variants where some other person jumps in and bids more than them. That certainly does happen, as people go crazy on (usually) frequently available wines, paying much more than market. Like paying $130, when some patience would get them a bottle for $80 within a few months.

The dynamics on Winebid are much different than eBay (and most auction sites, including WineCommune). The bid increments, $5 or $10 most wines, help protect a bid.

As others have said, people forgetting or not being able to come back at the last moment can be a big factor. With a low opening bid, you can luck out if intended snipers fail to turn up. Or, you can get a good snipe price if the original bidder doesn’t come around to defend.

Of course, the OP is about 8 people going back and forth on a wine over the course of a week. That’s not talking about the opening bid, or bidding up one increment to have a try at punting out a suspected lowballer. And, of course, paying more than $50 for any bottle of SQN isn’t rational to begin with.

[Robert.A.Jr]

I place early bids from time to time and have won them often. Lots of wine on that site weekly that gets overlooked. Since I don’t check in daily, and usually forget on Sundays, sometimes I just drop in with the opening bid and never come back. Just got 1.5 cases delivered yesterday, many of which using that “plan”.

[David_K2]

Sorry, I’m a believer in sniping. Sure, if Bidder A and Bidder B each place their one and only maximum bid, the higher bid will win, whether it was placed at the beginning or at the last second. But the more time the lower bidder has to think about it, the more he may reconsider his willingness to go higher, especially if he’s been thinking the lot is his. Sniping avoids that risk. And I’m not sure about everyone else, but I’m not doing a whole heck of a lot on Sunday night at 10:00pm. (I can see how 7:00pm on the West Coast could be more problematic.)

[David_K_o_l_i_n]

I’m with Jay. I know what I’m willing to pay, and as an early bidder, I get the first shot at that price. I’m never dragged above it by snipers

[David_K2]

Here’s an interesting article on the effectiveness of both strategies: https://economics.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Undergraduate/Nominated%20Senior%20Essays/2016-17/PhilipGroenwegen_Senior%20Essay.pdf

The TL;DR is basically that there isn’t enough evidence to prove either strategy is better than the other. 53 pages and he couldn’t figure it out.

[Chris_Seiber]

Since I always found and bought way too many good deals on winebid, I was kind of equal parts relieved and disappointed when I logged on Monday morning and saw that some of my bids lost. I got to have the fun of finding and trying to buy the wines, without ultimately spending the money or adding to my overfull storage.

To me, if you would have gone up another $5 seconds before the deadline to get the bottle, you should have just autobid up to that number. I don’t get people acting put out that someone outbid their $40 bid at the last second aka “sniped.” If you would have spent $50 to get the bottle, you should have autobid $50.

[SeanHarding]

I don’t really feel like re-arguing a thread from four years ago (and in the intervening years I still haven’t used Winebid any more)…

[Rich_Brown]

@Bryan Price

As a general practice I think it’s best to bid early if you know your own intrinsic value. You won’t be emotionally swayed by the frenzy of the auction and overpay.

So I gotta ask man. What is the deal with continuously digging up all these super old threads?? Not that this isn’t still a relevant topic…but it’s like a common theme with you lately.

[Wes_Barton]

@Chris Seiber

Since I always found and bought way too many good deals on winebid, I was kind of equal parts relieved and disappointed when I logged on Monday morning and saw that some of my bids lost. I got to have the fun of finding and trying to buy the wines, without ultimately spending the money or adding to my overfull storage.

To me, if you would have gone up another $5 seconds before the deadline to get the bottle, you should have just autobid up to that number. I don’t get people acting put out that someone outbid their $40 bid at the last second aka “sniped.” If you would have spent $50 to get the bottle, you should have autobid $50.

Exactly. And, back to the increment thing. If the opening bid is $30, fair market price is $38, which you agree with, you can autobid to $35. Someone may see the wine is already bid on and rightly assume there’s an autobid. So, there’s actually a good chance of getting it for $30. If they test you, you get it for $35. If they outbid you, they pay more than market.

[Chris_Seiber]

@SeanHarding

I don’t really feel like re-arguing a thread from four years ago (and in the intervening years I still haven’t used Winebid any more)…

By internet message board standards, four years is a very long interval!

[Jayson_Cohen]

There are no cookie cutter answers in my view. Everything people have said are just bidding styles and preferences. It’s all about willingness to pay for a particular lot. (Except obviously that it is just dumb to pay net above what one could pay retail net with little effort.)

I use all of the strategies at different times.

• Wait over multiple auctions for price to decrease.
• Pay only the min bid.
• Bid early and set a higher cap.
• Bid early, set a higher cap, but increment if I decide later to increase my cap.
• monitor the end of the auction for 10-15 minutes if I can.
• Swoop in at the last minute.

It’s all fair. It all makes sense. There are no right or wrongs.
———————
Robert, was your shipment from CA? What did they charge you?

[Michael_Martin]

Here’s a rant for you: why do people resurrect 4 year old threads?

[David_Glasser]

Too much sniping in this thread.

[Chris_Seiber]

@Michael Martin

Here’s a rant for you: why do people resurrect 4 year old threads?

If we only talked about a subject once and that was it, this board would mostly cease to exist.

I can see a point in resurrecting a prior thread versus starting from scratch on the same topic.