Comment by nutjob2
14 hours ago
If you enter your maximum bid in ebay you're revealing it. With sniping no one can discover your maximum bid.
The 'nibblers' will invariably show up and bid small amounts until they exceed your maximum bid, while not revealing theirs.
It's a second price auction. Who cares what their limit is. If it's more than the value of the item to you then they will win. Otherwise you will win.
Exactly. I could put $100,000 as my max bid, but if second place only bids $10, then all they know is I bid $11 (or whatever the increment is). eBay doesn't tell anyone my max is $100K.
I think the reasoning is that people are irrational, and people don't actually have "hard limits' so others will bid in increments to exceed it. So in aggregate you will end up hitting your max more often because of others' irrationality than if it was a sealed auction and you don't give them that chance.
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