IF YOU want to be sure of winning an online auction, wait until the very last moment to place your bid so that no one else has time to respond.
This strategy, which is already practised by online auction aficionados, is known as sniping. Now a mathematical analysis by researchers at Seoul National University in South Korea has confirmed that it gives people the best chance of winning.
Byungnam Kahng and his colleague Inchang Yang analysed more than half a million auctions on the US and South Korean versions of the website eBay, and found that bids become more frequent as the end of an auction approaches. They devised a simple equation to describe the strategy, which they say lulls other online bidders into believing there is little interest in the item. Their work will appear in Physical Review E.
Advertisement
