"Andy Burns" wrote in message
...
Jim K wrote:

On 11 Jan, 22:53, Mike Barnes wrote:

if people just bid their maximum
and then sat back rather than fannying around upping their bids.

Better to use a sniping service last thing.... as is shurely obvious,
bidding early is dumb.

The way eBay auctions are run, that's true.

I'm quite surprised they haven't experimented with different types of
auction,

Some others have tho, particularly extending the closing time
when there are last minute bids. It didn't really help much at all.

e.g. a single sealed bid format, where no-ones' bid is revealed until the
end,

That is seen in other areas with tenders most obviously.

no point in people trying to create multiple accounts as they'd out-bid
themselves, it would make genuine bidders *think* what they were willing
to pay for an item, rather than see if they could sneakily get something
cheap ... you only get a bargain if nobody else wants it.

Trouble is that that's very common with those who flog
their stuff using ebay as an alternative to buy nows etc.