Originally Posted by
t4mv
Are you quite certain that whatever the winner's bid was his/her highest bid? What if that person had put in a bazillion dollar bid, you still would have lost by a few bucks.
+1
It's tempting to think you might have lost by $25. But the other bidder might have been willing to go *much* higher; the only thing you have done by entering another bid is just forcing the other bidder to pay more.
Somebody in this thread used the word "discipline" in eBay bidding -- whether you just enter your high bid, or use a Sniping program to enter your bids at the last minute -- it comes down to setting a price and then being willing to walk away when the price gets too high.
Economists call the psychology of auction pricing the "winner's curse;" in a free and open auction, the "market" will figure out what something is really worth, and bid up to the that -- the "winner" is the person who is willing to pay more than it's worth.