From the Department of Very Obvious Results:

If you eBay, it’s better to snipe.

Bid late and win big—that’s the conclusion of two Korean researchers who studied online auctions on eBay and developed an equation that describes the relationship between bidding behavior and item winning.

People who bid just a single time, during the last moments of an eBay auction, are the most likely to win, say Inchang Yang and Byungnam Kahng, physicists at Seoul National University in Korea.

…and founders of the Sailor Moon DVD Collection Institute.

Well, how about that. You’re more likely to win if you snipe. Which is something that every eBayer knows if they’ve bid in more than three auctions.

There are also risks to banking on a last-minute attempt. Such bidders may find themselves unexpectedly busy when the auction closes or unable to get a very late bid to transmit successfully.

Which is the other thing that snipers have found. There is a strong inverse correlation between sniping with a dialup connection and winning.

Oh, all right. It’s good to have someone come and verify empirically what others have found by experience. But this piece of research probably only sounds scholarly to people who don’t eBay. To anyone who has, it’s bleeding obvious.

How about the interesting aspects of auction behaviour? People tend to pay more for things than they’re worth because

1) most bidders will stop at a reasonable price, but the highest bidder will often go over, and that’s the one who sets the final price.

2) Having bid a certain amount, people allow their final price to creep up, reasoning that an extra buck isn’t much more.

3) Having to fight everyone in the world for a Lilac Time CD makes the item seem that much more desirable.

4) There is some investigation to be done with ‘nickel-and-dime’ strategies. I never bid even dollar amounts; I’m much more likely to go for something wonky like $21.67. Bidding $21 helps me beat out those that stopped on $20, and the extra cents have even made the difference on some auctions, minimum increments notwithstanding.

Perhaps the Korean team could get a grant for these aspects of group psychology once they’ve finished watching the DVDs. Unless they’re too busy studying the effects of trying to sneak cash through the mail.