Sniping and Ebay

[yok-dfa]

OK, i'm not sure if this is the right place for this post, so mods, feel free to move it somewhere else.

Anyway, since a lot of people are always complaining about sniping i was wondering if the following would work in practice. Please note that i have no problems whatsoever about sniping. Let's say an auction site works like this:

1) Seller lists item, with starting price and fixed end time

2) People can put bids in, but the bid amount is not shown. The buyer just bids (for example) €50,- but no feedback is given if you are the high bidder or not

3) At the end time, all bids are compared, and the seller and buyer are notified of the highest bid. Only at the point it is disclosed to everyone who was the highest bidder and with what bid.

I am sure that there are real-life auctions that work this way. Advantages of this method are:

- Seller does not know about bids, so it's not that tempting to end an auction for a side-deal, because there might be some high bids for the item.
- Harder to shill-bid by the seller. He would have no idea when to stop or what amount to put in since he does not know the amount of the high bid.
- people can not 'eat away' at current high bidder.
- no more complaining about sniping since sniping is not useful anymore.
- sellers can not end auctions early if they think the bid amount is too low (they won't know until it's over).

Anyone have any idea's about this?

[XxMe2NiKxX]

Sounds good. Phone up Mr. e-Bay.

[Maxx]

Problem is getting people to honor their bid. Someone puts $100 on something and findes out that they way over bid themselves and never pay.

[mumbai]

I am sure that there are real-life auctions that work this way.

Yes, I believe it's known as a "silent auction".

And it's also somewhat similar to contract bids for jobs.