Why do people start bidding on an item with a Low Buy it Now price?

[stellersbrights]

Multiple times a week I will see a great item on ebay with a bidding +  But it Now price.

The buy it now price will be really great, and far lower than any other price that item has sold for before, but if someone starts to bid the buy-it-now price will disappear (What a F*cking annoying feature ebay…)

I will see the item, get super excited and go to buy it.

Sometimes I might ask the seller a question (just to confirm the particular details about the item), or I will just pull out my phone to login to ebay and buy it.
   I act really quickly, but by the time I go to checkout some Low I.Q  Jackas* started to bid on the item, so now I can't buy it.  The auction will then inevitably go significantly higher than the buy- it-now price originally was. (Also I hate auctions, as I don't want to waste a week of time to buy an item. )
 
Why are people this dumb?  Why do they start bidding on item when the buy it now price is lower than they will ever be able to get it in an auction?

--
And man does this **bleep** me off so F*ng much.

Just this week it happened to me three times.

1.  Ipad  - buy-it-now for $110 or start Bidding.  All the other ones of that model have sold for around $200 or more. I jumped on the opportunity to buy it, but by the time I went to check out someone started bidding. Great job idiot, Now you can waste a Week of your life bidding on the item, and pay far more than you could have just bought it for!

2. Macbook 12" - $680 + bid.    I saw the ad really early on. I just had to contact the seller to double check the exact model, and to confirm if everything was working because the ad was a little lacking in details. By the time the seller got back to me someone started bidding....

3. Same exact story with a Lenovo Mini desktop that I saw. $300 buy it now or start bidding. The desktop easily can go over $500... and of course someone started bidding on it before I could buy. And of course the auction ends way over $300.  **bleep** people are dumb…

[simba6]

Some buyers like the thrill of bidding.

[paradiso*bella*a*venire]

They may be "dumb" but it looks like they  have the one thing  you dont have.......

quick fingers 😋

[picknparley]

Oh well, be grateful you aren't winning any of those electronics auctions! Those listings are the number one targets by scammers! You're bidding against other scammers in their networks. 

Take your hard earned money and go to a B&M store or Dell .com or something and get what you want. 

[stellersbrights]

They are definitely not scams.

[mtgraves7984]

"Ipad - buy-it-now for $110 or start Bidding. All the other ones of that model have sold for around $200 or more. I jumped on the opportunity to buy it, but by the time I went to check out someone started bidding. Great job idiot, Now you can waste a Week of your life bidding on the item, and pay far more than you could have just bought it for!"

@stellersbrights 

Hate to pour salt into an open wound... but if you'd hit BIN, it would have ended immediately , and then  you could have checked out. Seconds flew by in the time you put it in your cart and 'went to check out'.

P.S. I hate waiting a week on an auction, too, and would rather just buy. I feel ya... sorry.

[stellersbrights]

No, most of the winners of the auctions are not  the first bidder.

I think they see a low starting bid number, and they think if they start bidding now that they can get the item for that amount. 

[stellersbrights]

Sometimes you have to ask the seller a Question. 

[paradiso*bella*a*venire]

Just yankin your chain 😎

[eburtonlab]

@stellersbrights 

In at least some cases, the early bidder is making a calculation that they have a chance to purchase the item for less than the Buy-It-Now price, if the item does not attract enough other bidders willing to stick around until the end of the auction.

Some bidders refer to this preemptive bidding strategy as "BIN stomping".

[lex-talon]

Auctions are not my cup of tea, I use them very rarely. The last one I had, a buyer bought my item at a high BIN price.

It really helps if an item you have is rare and hard to find in very good condition or better.

[7606dennis]

Probably because the think that they can get the item cheaper than the BIN price so by placing a bid the kill the BIN option.

[stellersbrights]

Yes, because they are unintelligent. 

[7606dennis]

---

@stellersbrights wrote:

Yes, because they are unintelligent. 

---

Frankly, I'm not sure I would go as far as saying that.  By placing a bid they effectively force the item to be sold at auction where the selling price is determined by the bidders.  It is possible that they feel that they have a chance to win the bidding and spend less than if they jumped in and paid the seller's BIN price.  Whether they can or not is something of a gamble but they can set their max bid and if the bidding exceeds it they've lost nothing.  If they paid the seller's BIN price the sale would be over at that price.

[*madison]

---

@paradiso*bella*a*venire wrote:

They may be "dumb" but it looks like they  have the one thing  you dont have.......

quick fingers 😋

---

🤣