I've been watching an auction (for a "case" of the TV animation cards that I'd like to get for Daughter #2, see my "marketing" post from Monday) which has been sitting with no bids for several days. It closes on Saturday ... and one bidder has come in on it. Now, I don't recognize this bidder (you do get to "know" some of the competition for particular types of items, and she's new enough that all of her feedback had active links to the auctions she's won) so I went off to see what she'd won and how she'd won them. Am I being Obsessive/Compulsive here?
I discovered that most of what she gets are shoes (typically being the only bidder) and jeans. However, she's picked up quite a few card auctions as well, and seems to have "deep pockets" as she's gone in over retail on a few things. She seems to like round numbers (five bucks, ten bucks, fifteen bucks ... as opposed to some card bidders who will predictably come in at $x.67 or $x.43 or something) and looks to close her auctions "live" (i.e., not use a bot that I can tell, and be active towards the end).
I'm just wondering if I'm being "in need of medication" (as The Wife insists when I get too OCD about things!) by researching "the competition" ... does anybody else do this when they're planning on bidding on something? I don't want to get into the auction early as it will only elicit counter bids (this gal does seem to like being the first bidder, and will frequently be the only bidder on some of the stuff she's gotten), but I do want to have a shot at beating her on this. I'm hoping that she went in with just the opening (a nice even $5) bid, and that I'll be able to slip in over her in the last couple of minutes. However, doing this much research on another bidder somehow seems to have gone past "due diligence" and into foil-hat territory! Needless to say, I'm hoping to hear that I'm not nuts!