Hi John
You’re free to vent, though I don’t support your grievance.
The answer lies in bricks and mortar auction houses, where (certainly over here) a long-standing approach is taken to multiple bottles / cases of the same wine. Whoever wins the first of such lots is offered all identical lots at the same price as they won the first. Although this is exactly the scenario you seek, it’s done for the benefit of the auction house:
a) To speed up the auction
b) It does squeeze the odd extra bid out, from people worried that if the 1st lot goes too cheap, they won’t get another chance to bid on the similar lots.
Frustrating from your point of view John, yes. Because you want two bottles or zero. Another bidder may want 1 bottle or zero. Should they be forced to bid on 2 because of etiquette? Are they supposed to be aware of the logic behind your bidding process before they submit their bid? They may feel sniped by you. (Why does that pesky bidder keep upping the ante on the one bottle I want?, Why can’t he take one and I take one so that we both get one at the lower price?)
As Gerhard pointed out, if this was one lot of 2 bottles, splitting the bid per bottle would not be possible. Then you would have had a “fair shot” at getting what you wanted, both or none. With 2 separate lots, you have to go toe to toe with the cretin on one of the bottles.
Not sure if it is the same seller, but two 1 bottle lots may bring more value than 1 two bottle lot. The two bottle lot could limit the bidders by eliminating those who have interest in only one bottle, leaving a smaller pool willing to bid on both bottles. Two separate lots forces you to keep pace with the rogue one bottle bidder, forcing the price up to get to your goal of scoring both bottles.
Good topic. Always more than one perspective in an auction environment for buyers and seller. Happy hunting. Hope everything falls your way in the future.
Frustrating in your situation yes. But if anything for most situations it’s would be better etiquette to only bid on the one bottle so as to leave you the opportunity to acquire one of them. Winebid’s auction model does not support wanting either a minimum number of bottles from a lot or none at all.
Let me try to be clear one more time on the purpose of my comment.
First, I am not talking about requiring anyone to do anything. I understand what the bid conditions and requirements are. In my example, the person putting in the opposing bid was perfectly within their rights to do so. No need to continue to argue that point. We’re all on the same page here.
What I’m referring to is a “nice to do” amongst the wine aficionado community, since I’m going to make a leap that these are the type of folks that buy on Winebid. When I see a wine I would like and there are two bottles available and someone has bid on both, it doesn’t take an Einstein to come to the conclusion that the bidder wants both. If I want one of those bottles, I personally don’t bid on it, because I know the previous bidder wants both and I’m not going to be an jerk and bid on one of them, breaking up the set so the other person only gets one. My mindset is that I’m trying to be nice about it. I’ll let them have both and I’ll wait until another time to try to get the wine. As far as I’m concerned, that’s just being courteous to another wine lover. All I’m saying is that it would be great if more folks felt that way.
But I get it. An auction is an auction and it’s a “just go for it” contest. That’s certainly the prevailing opinion here.
Sorry to jump down your throat. It’s not just that everyone here knows that there is no love lost in bidding at auction, everyone snipes and hates snipers, and, once we’ve bid, we feel somehow entitled to the wine, which we all know not to be the case.
I just think it’s impossible to know, anticipate or psych out intentions or desires based on anonymous bids, so I would gather that someone bidding on two bottles is usually okay with one rather than none. No reason to -ever- think otherwise unless you know the bidder personally.
I don’t find that to be a “nice to do” at all. First of all, if someone is bidding on a wine, it is because they want that wine too. No one should ever be expected to give up on bidding on a wine simply because someone else wants more than one lot.
The “nice to do” would be to only bid on one lot and allow someone else to bid on another lot of the same bottle. It seem greedy to want two lots of the same thing and expect others to not bid simply because you want both.
There have been many times when I wanted an entire multiple-bottle lot, and initially bid low on just one bottle, before later dropping in a bullet bid.
For those with bidding experience in things ranging from bonds to wine, there is one saying: “Open your wallet, or close your mouth.” Doing the opposite tends to be unfruitful, except for unnecessary frustration.
So, you are saying that if he raises his max bid, it can win him the bottle that he was not high bidder on, but it will leave his currently high bid on the other bottle(s) as it is. It just raises his maximum potential on all bottles.
You’ve confused me now. If someone on a 2-bottle lot bid e.g. $80 for both and someone came in and bid $100 for one, now Player A is winning one bottle at $80 and Player B has one bottle at $100. If Player A raises his bid for two bottles to $105, he is then winning both bottles at $105 because the next lower winning bid for any one bottle was $100. I guess in that sense they are linked, but if Player A doesn’t re-bid, he still wins a bottle at his initial $80 bid.
Don’t take it from me though. Ask WineBid for clarification or check the website. I don’t claim to be an expert on their mechanisms.
Why don’t you let us know what bottles you are looking at. I’m sure we could all make sure you lose both.
That was a joke…
Anyway, in all seriousness, I have actually bid on just one bottle before, with the thought that whoever was on the other end and I could each get a little win. I never thought about it the way you have. The question for your etiquette style would be where does it stop? What about a grouping of 3,4,6? Would you think its implied then that you should bid on the whole amount?
I do agree with everyone else, at the end of the day, auctions are all about who has the highest bid when the hammer falls. For Winebid, I normally cruise through the site on Sunday nights, toss in my max bid on anything I may want to win, go to bed, and then check my email Monday morning. I use it just to back fill semi-daily drinkers that have some age on them, not for anything serious.
Good enough. To me, this would not be a system that I would accept. It may not work this way. but if it does, they would never get a bid from me on a lot like this. It just makes it too easy to play games.
You’re right,. If I need to get clarification, I will contact WineBid directly.
Stuff like this happens on Winebid all the time. I honestly never thought much about it. If they list multiple bottles are available, that does not mean it is a lot. That’s just an incorrect assumption.
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