TV Series: Glee, or Zen and the Art of Ebay Bidding

Ebay. Everyone knows it. It's become a household name like Facebook and Google. Very few Internet users have never bought anything on Ebay. But it wasn't always so.

It was 1998 when I first heard about Ebay. I was in a supermarket in Poughkeepsie, NY, looking at some furniture. I wanted it, but it was too expensive for me. I started talking with a woman who was also admiring the furniture. She told me I could get it cheaper on Ebay. "What's Ebay?" I asked. She told me it was an online auction site and gave me the URL. I went home and looked it up. I never bought any furniture on Ebay, but I registered so that I could buy a few out-of-print CD's that I had wanted for ages.

It would have been nice to retain my vintage account, but when I moved to England I couldn't continue using the same account and had to create a new one. I've never sold anything on Ebay since getting my new account, and I rarely buy anything. I just checked, it was 24 items in 10 years. That hardly sets the world on fire. I've probably bid on another 20 items that I didn't win. I've stopped buying used items after some disappointments (CD's that were scratched and wouldn't play), now I only buy items described as "new and sealed".

Ebay was founded in 1995 as an online auction company. In 2002 it added fixed price sales to its site, items marked as "Buy it now" (BIN). In most cases BIN listings are used when a seller has several copies of an item for sale, but this is not a requirement. BIN items are useful to buyers, because they know that they will receive the item quickly, not having to wait until the end of the auction or even being outbid. It also creates a bit of a risk for anyone who wants to buy a popular item that is listed more than once: should he buy a BIN item for $20 or bid only $5 on an auction item and risk not getting it?

Now let's tell you how this relates to "Glee". I was almost at the end of watching the second season, so I wanted to purchase the third season on DVD. The cheapest price from normal online retailers was £20, more than I was willing to pay, so I checked Ebay. There were literally dozens of listings. One seller had a BIN listing for £10.99 with free postage, which is a good price. Other sellers were auctioning the same item starting at £0.99. Obviously they had a lot to sell, because the sellers were auctioning the same item repeatedly at daily intervals. Between them the Glee Season 3 box set was being auctioned two or three times a day. So I thought I would take a chance. I placed a bid for £10 (including postage) for the next auction. I was outbid. So I bid on the next auction and was outbid again. For the next three days I bid on every copy of the item and lost every bid. What amazes me is that the winning bids were all between £12 and £20. People were paying more than the BIN price. Sometimes there were frantic bid wars in the last ten minutes before an auction ended, with the price being pushed up to silly levels. Why?

Two days ago I gave up and bought a BIN copy of Glee Season 3. The seller was fast, it arrived today. I paid less for it than everyone who outbid me in the auctions. There must be some sort of auction disease. When someone starts bidding he can't bear to lose, even if victory means paying an inflated price. Maybe bidding is a type of gambling and has a similar addictive effect. To those who are susceptible, at least. I've never been addicted to gambling, and I've definitely never been addicted to bidding.