Auction Strategy

We went to Mateo's preschool auction tonight and had a lovely time. About half way through, I was ready to leave and not feeling too social, but then we ended up having a lovely time chatting with some other moms, and I got my second wind.

The auction was quite fun. I decided to use what I have learned in this book I am reading called Yes: 50 Scientific Ways of being Influential at the auction. (It's a fascinating book that I highly recommend.)

Anyway, my strategy was to talk with Alayna and rank our top 6 items. Then, we decided how much money we wanted to bid total. I then bid all of that money, right at the beginning, on items numbered 4, 5, and 6. I figured that it was highly unlikely that we would get those items, but at the very least we would drive up the cost by bidding at the beginning of the auction, and increasing the desirability of the items. (The more people bid, the more popular the item, the more people want the item.)

It worked like a charm. As those items got out of our bidding range, I went towards the items I wanted, and in the last 10 minutes bid for our #1 item, which we won!!! In all, we only spent $7 more than we planned on bidding, but helped raise the bidding price on quite a few different items.

I love having a strategy!

What did we win? Four hours of home organizing and a fabulous shirt for Alayna, and a fantastically fun evening.

FYI If you are ever selling on ebay, it turns out that the lower the starting bid you place, the higher the item tends to sell for, because more people bid, making it more popular, and therefore more desirable resulting in a higher price. If you are buying, I recommend using an auction sniper business that places your bid in the last second of the auction! And that is it for my random thought of the day. . .