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

[Rich_Brown]

@M.Kaplan

I don’t buy much at auction anymore, but was very active for a time in online and live/online whisky and wine auctions. I usually bid early on what I wanted, with automatic increases to my maximum. Then I quit watching for the most part until the auction ended. I won what I wanted more times than not for the price I was prepared to pay before placing my initial bid.

Seems pretty straightforward; what am I missing?

With that strategy, probably most of the bottles you wanted to snipers like me

[David_K_o_l_i_n]

I think you can expect our answer - you can have them at that price. No remorse. That’s the reason we set limits. If we set our upper limit at a billion dollars, we’d win every time. And I imagine you’d be satisfied with losing this lots.

[NoahR]

@David K o l i n

I think you can expect our answer - you can have them at that price. No remorse. That’s the reason we set limits. If we set our upper limit at a billion dollars, we’d win every time. And I imagine you’d be satisfied with losing this lots.

No doubt. However, the OP’s question isn’t about setting limits, it’s about timing. If you placed your max bid 60s before the auction closed you’d be more likely to get the wine than if you placed the bid 6 days before.

[David_K_o_l_i_n]

I don’t believe that. I am first in at my clearing price, so I take it whether it clears at my price or below. The only advantage I see in bidding later is if my competition doesn’t believe in sniping. On the other hand, if our clearing prices are the same, I win. I have had many, many occasions when snipers come in and are unwilling to outbid me in the end

And as I noted before, most importantly, I have a couple of hundred things better to do that sit at the computer Sunday night at the auction

[Dale_Williams]

@NoahR

My point has been, and continues to be, that if you come in and bid at the very last minute, you may win and you may lose, but you are more likely to win paying less than if you goad other bidders by outbidding them while they still have ample time to respond. If no one else wants the wine, it’s a moot point and the first and only bid will win, but you can do that on WB at 9:59:58 on sunday too and not give anyone else a chance to bid you a dollar higher.

I occasionally snipe for items I really want, but as i have WAY more wine than I need I am mostly looking for things I find undervalued and place lowball bids. If I see something I like that I want opening at $100 and put in early autobid of $110, there are 4 possibilities:

1. no one else is interested and I win at $100
2. someone else later is interested at $100, but not $110, I win at $100
3. someone else is interested at $110, bids, I win at $110.
4. someone else is interested at $120, I don’t win.
   in same scenarios if sniping,
5. I win at $100
6. I win at $110
7. they win at $110
8. they win
   The only variable is if bidding somehow “goads” someone else to compete, but I’m not convinced of that. I don’t often bid at Winebid so maybe I’m wrong, but would take lots of research to find a pattern.
   I typically bid on 20+ lots at Zachys and Heritage, win only a couple lots most months, but at prices I am usually very happy with.

[Rich_Brown]

So let me ask everyone a question. If there’s a wine you wanted, and you placed an early max bid of $50, but someone else bid $51 midway through the week. Are you telling me that over the course of 3 to 4 days you couldn’t/wouldn’t talk yourself into bidding a few dollars more, even though you initially told yourself $50 is the max you wanted to pay for the wine??

[David_K_o_l_i_n]

Yup

[Michael_Martin]

@Rich Brown

So let me ask everyone a question. If there’s a wine you wanted, and you placed an early max bid of $50, but someone else bid $51 midway through the week. Are you telling me that over the course of 3 to 4 days you couldn’t/wouldn’t talk yourself into bidding a few dollars more, even though you initially told yourself $50 is the max you wanted to pay for the wine??

Its called auction fever and I have seen it so many times on eBay, you know it plays out on Winebid too.

[Steve_Saxon]

I think a lot of you are missing the point here, bottom line is what’s a particular bottle of wine worth to you? If a bottle of say 82 La Lagune is going off at $95 and you value it higher than why not snipe it? Especially when there’s a chance you can get it for $1 more.

[Alan_Rath]

@Dale Williams

The only variable is if bidding somehow “goads” someone else to compete, but I’m not convinced of that.

I often track a few wines on Winebid, wondering if they’ll hang around and drop in price. Far too often I’ve seen exactly that happen, then at the next lower increment someone bids, and someone else bids it up again, to the previous higher increment - or even higher. Happens all the time that wines drop in price over a few weeks, but end up selling for as much or more than original price.

[Michael_Martin]

@Steve Saxon

I think a lot of you are missing the point here, bottom line is what’s a particular bottle of wine worth to you? If a bottle of say 82 La Lagune is going off at $95 and you value it higher than why not snipe it? Especially when there’s a chance you can get it for $1 more.

I get your point and its just a nit, but technically it wouldn’t be for a dollar more, it would be for the next bid increment which Winebid sets based on price. So it could be for $5 more or $10 more on up.

I am not sure if anyone has brought this up yet, but the bid increment may protect the original bidder, because the next bid has to jump up by the bid increment amount and be in whole dollars.

[Steve_Saxon]

@Michael Martin

@Steve Saxon

I think a lot of you are missing the point here, bottom line is what’s a particular bottle of wine worth to you? If a bottle of say 82 La Lagune is going off at $95 and you value it higher than why not snipe it? Especially when there’s a chance you can get it for $1 more.

I get your point and its just a nit, but technically it wouldn’t be for a dollar more, it would be for the next bid increment which Winebid sets based on price. So it could be for $5 more or $10 more on up.

I am not sure if anyone has brought this up yet, but the bid increment may protect the original bidder, because the next bid has to jump up by the bid increment amount and be in whole dollars.

$1 on wines under $100.

[Michael_Martin]

@Steve Saxon

@Michael Martin

@Steve Saxon

I think a lot of you are missing the point here, bottom line is what’s a particular bottle of wine worth to you? If a bottle of say 82 La Lagune is going off at $95 and you value it higher than why not snipe it? Especially when there’s a chance you can get it for $1 more.

I get your point and its just a nit, but technically it wouldn’t be for a dollar more, it would be for the next bid increment which Winebid sets based on price. So it could be for $5 more or $10 more on up.

I am not sure if anyone has brought this up yet, but the bid increment may protect the original bidder, because the next bid has to jump up by the bid increment amount and be in whole dollars.

$1 on wines under $100.

I stand corrected. I could swear I had $5 or more increments in the past on bottles under $100.

[NickRut]

I won 3 bottles this week that I placed bids on real early. I tend to see that having 1 bid on a bottle makes people shy away a bit unless they really want it. If I care, I’ll watch and snipe, if not, put in the bid earlier and hope for the best.

[Bryan_Price]

After bidding on and winning way too many bottles above my “normal” purchasing plan this past weekend, I once again an perusing for “deals” today. I also noticed on the wines where I was sniped, almost all had high ratings from RP. I forget some people just go off the ratings blindly. I know I used to before I started trying wine.

The sickness continues…

[R_Gilbane]

I like this thread. I will go through phases when I am fairly active on Winebid and enjoy hearing the different approaches to the bidding process. I enjoy it when encountering bidders who clearly want a particular wine at any cost. It’s most readily apparent when there are multiple vintages of the same bottling. You can drive up the price but they just refuse to lose. I admire that type of blind determination.

[jhemming]

I am kind of glad, these auction “houses” do not easily ship to MA…

[R_Gilbane]

@jhemming

I am kind of glad, these auction “houses” do not easily ship to MA…

Don’t let that stop you from enjoying the auction thrill. Pretty sure most folks don’t even care about the wine anyway. It’s just a little bit of gravy after the bidding high.

[Rich_Brown]

@David K o l i n

Yup

Well then you’re a stronger man than I…but I also have to think that you’re in the minority, especially in regards to people on this board.

If there’s a wine I really want…and I can potentially get it for a little bit more than what I had originally wanted to cap my spend at…I’ll ultimately talk myself into bidding higher. Especially if I have an extended amount of time to think/stew over it. Its a combination of really wanting the wine, and also hating to lose.

…and that mentality is only magnified if I’ve had a couple glasses of wine already

[Frank_Murray_III]

@Bryan Price

After bidding on and winning way too many bottles above my “normal” purchasing plan this past weekend, I once again an perusing for “deals” today. I also noticed on the wines where I was sniped, almost all had high ratings from RP. I forget some people just go off the ratings blindly. I know I used to before I started trying wine.

The sickness continues…

Bryan, at some point if you stay this course you will find yourself with a lot of wine (and an equally large credit card bill). I’m not throwing stones at you b/c I remember a similar course for myself, when I bought a lot of wine from WB a # of years back. Just keep conscious of your tastes being subject to change and how that might intersect with your inventory.

PS…drop me a PM with your email address if you like. At some point, it’d be nice to meet you and see if you want to hang out with some of us down the road and have some bottles here in the south OC.