What I learned about auctions (and missed opportunities)

The other day I heard about an auction (for a good cause called “Serious request” ) which had several items, including the following:

Zit jij tijdens het gamen ook helemaal in het spel? Vergeet je de wereld om je heen ook af en toe als je aan het spannend is? Neem dat gevoel en denk daar dan het grootste scherm van de Benelux bij, zodat er ook echt even niets anders is dan die game.
Omniversum in Den Haag biedt namelijk de ultieme game ervaring aan, met een scherm zo groot als een half voetbalveld en een subliem geluidssysteem. Na sluitingstijd opent het filmtheater in Den Haag haar deuren voor de gameliefhebber met het hoogste bod, dus wees er snel bij!
Wil jij de unieke kans om deze spectaculaire game ervaring mee te maken niet laten schieten? Bied dan mee voor een exclusieve avondopenstelling op maandag, dinsdag of woensdag (datum in overleg). Je mag 2,5 uur lang gamen met je eigen spelcomputer (VGA uitgang is wel vereist).
Basically they were auctioning the use of the largest IMAX screen in the Netherlands for 2.5 hours to the highest bidder. Here are 3 things I ended up regretting:
  1. Not making up my mind right away that this was worthwhile to bid on
  2. Not setting some kind of reminder to bid on the final day
  3. Not bidding with a maximum bid (I could have just done one bid and tell the site to outbid all others up to a limit)

 

When the auction went online, the bidding was around €500 which is not a lot if you split it down the middle. I made excuses not to bid on the item, saying “Oh, somebody will come in and bid it up to a few thousand” and “Who is going to join me?”  and “Wouldn’t this be a waste of money?”

When I checked the auction today the bidding had already ceased and the total was €775. Crap, I could have totally done that and enjoyed a once in a life time experience together with a bunch of friends. In fact, it would have been a perfect birthday party.
I lost out because I finalized on my decision that I wanted this after the item was no longer available and was caught by surprise at the low cost.

Lesson learned? Don’t spend too much time second guessing decisions. Decide on one or the other and execute.
Setting up any reasonable maximum bid would have landed me this activity or in the case somebody else outbid me I’d lose nothing.

I got my inspiration from this article by Tim Ferriss

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