Originally Posted by mrkott3r
I dont know, i think they are just idiots. If they bid early the price at the end of the auction immediately goes up. If they didnt place that bid the price would be lower at the end of the auction. Ive never seen an auction where someone bids at the beginning turn away bidders, to me the bidder is kinda bidding against him/herself (if you get what I mean).
Actually that's not quite true if you accept market forces are at work. People will only bid as much as they are willing to pay, so the timing of the opening bid is irrelevant to the final sale price.
The determinant of the final price is how many people there are bidding at the end and what their budgets are. So sometimes you get items going for the maiden bid which was placed the day the item was listed and other times it's a race between bidders to see who has the faster internet access and can squeeze in the final bid.
The ones that really crack me up are the items that sell for more than you would pay for them if you went down to the shops and bought it. Some people really do not have a clue.