2015年ESL之旅行交通购物 06 Bidding on Online Auctions（在线收听）

Bidding on Online Auctions 

Jermaine: Wait! You shouldn?t bid on that auction right now. Wait until the last minute. 

Bethany: This auction has a buy-it-now price of $25 and free shipping. 

Jermaine: Don?t pay the buy- it-now price. The minimum bid on this item is $10 and the current bid is only $12.50. There?s no reserve, so if you wait to bid, you may snag it for a much lower price than $25. 

Bethany: Okay, I guess I can wait, but why can?t I place a bid of $15 right now? 

Jermaine: First of all, the bidding on this auction goes up by increments of 50-cents, so the next bid would be $13.00. You could place a maximum bid of $15.00, but someone might outbid you at any time. 

Bethany: But couldn?t that happen anyway? Even if I wait until the last minute someone could sneak in and bid a higher price. 

Jermaine: You mean they could snipe you? They could, but not if you snipe them back. It?s all in the timing. 

Bethany: You seem to know a lot about online auctions. 

Jermaine: That item you?re bidding on, guess who listed it? 

Script by Dr. Lucy Tse