I just discovered EBay

EBay has been around for a very long time.  I remembered the first time it was launched.  It was during the time of Internet boom in the late 1990s.

But I just discovered EBay.

It was my interest in mineral specimens that made me venture into EBay.  My new office building is located at a place where the Chinese practises their superstition in prosperity, good health,  and smooth business.  Hence there are quite a number of shops selling crystals as the Chinese associate crystals with the energy that can bring such that they seek.

My interest has always been in those natural formations, which are hard to find in Singapore.  There were some specimens in the shops, but most did not catch my eye.  For those that did, they cost exorbitantly.  I did find one, but that’s another story.

I decided to do a search on the Internet to figure out what are the market rates going for the various kinds of minerals, and stumbled on EBay.  Quite a number of the specimens were put up for auction, and the starting bidding prices were usually US$ 0.99.

Intriguted, and naive, I thought I could bid and win a huge sized mineral specimen for US$ 1.  So I participated in bidding for a specimen, and 2, and more.

What made me hooked on was how others were bidding for the item.  Initially, I was comfortable with bidding with a maximum price set with a lot of time left for the auction of the item.  But that pushed the price up as others decided to join in.  Eventually, the price was beyond me.

There were also those that waited by the sidelines and watched the bidding until the last moment, when they submitted their bids just 3 seconds before the closing of the auction, and win the auction by a dollar margin.  With that, the price is usually what they can afford, and the pushing up of the prices by other bidders is minimized.   Although the risk of losing the auction is present, but I believe the winning chances are higher.

I find the last few seconds to the auction to be exciting and exhilarating to watch, even if you are not participating.  Just seeing someone popping in with a last bid to win the auction by a margin, and knowing there’s someone howling over the loss and someone gloating over the win, well, it makes a good story. 🙂