CP BIDS: Let's Get This Right

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/750136#Comment_750136

That is noteworthy. What an interesting pattern.

Mark

Thanks David. I dropped my bid from $40 to $30

George Somsel

Look at this chart. The difference between the current peak of $65 and the lowest possible bid of $30 is less than 5%. Again, the popular psychology of the CP process is to bid the current peak to "lock in" the certainty of getting resource, but this approach causes wildly inflated prices. Anyone with a $65 bid should drop their bid to $30...in fact, EVERYONE who has a bid on this should drop their bids to $30. More people will bid on this if the price is lower and more attractive and it will close sooner. There is no good reason to bid higher. The $30 bid WILL SUCCEED if given a chance. Drop your bid and put $35 in your pocket.

https://www.logos.com/product/52080/classic-studies-on-the-resurrection-of-christ

The problem is that the $30 bid is covered by every other bid higher than $30 so that dropping one's bid will not increase the level at $30. The only way that can be achieved to get more $30 bids.

PS: For those contemplating dropping your bid to $30 — It is immaterial whether you drop you bid or not since you will get the product at $30 if it should go over the line at that level. The only time I recommend a low-ball bid is if you are considering the product and wish to be notified if it is successful at any price and you wish to be notified of that fact.

NB.Mick

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/750162#Comment_750162

dropping one's bid will not increase the level at $30. The only way that can be achieved to get more $30 bids.

You are right, but I think this was exactly David's point: a currently showing price of $60 scares away people that might bid if the saw a $30 bid. Dropping $60 bids to $30 will not increase that level, but it might take away enough from the $60 price point to move the current price point down the scale (which - unlike many other products - does not mean to sacrifice much in 'percentage of cost met'-points).

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/750163#Comment_750163

You are right, but I think this was exactly David's point: a currently showing price of $60 scares away people that might bid if the saw a $30 bid.

That is exactly it.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/750212#Comment_750212

It looks like this did pick up some $30 bids, so it is even closer to setting a $30 peak. If you haven't bid on this, why not just go ahead and place a $30 bid? That's the best current possible bid and a handful of bids at that price point will bring a flood of interest. Don't wait for it to reach that point...MAKE IT HAPPEN!!

Tim Taylor

Dropped mine to $30 too! Looks like it's getting closer!

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/750225#Comment_750225

The above mentioned motivation is exactly what puts me off - i.e. people following the herd of "moneyed" people. I can't afford those rates - so I bunk out!

But I'm in for $30 (or in my case currently £19)

Shalom

Ronald Quick

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/750229#Comment_750229

I'm at $30 and have been for a while. Hope more $30 bidders come on board.

EastTN

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/750244#Comment_750244

I've moved my bid down to $30. The curve is flat enough that it seems reasonable to believe it could attract enough additional bidders at $30 for this strategy to work.

Matthew C Jones

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/750244#Comment_750244

Hope more $30 bidders come on board.

I'm a new bidder and I am in at $30.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/750306#Comment_750306

Hope more $30 bidders come on board.

I'm a new bidder and I am in at $30.

[Y]

We need more like you!

Tim Taylor

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/750244#Comment_750244

Hope more $30 bidders come on board.

Me too, as the way I understand it, we’ll now need more than twice as many bidders to make that price point succeed.

Alex Scott

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/750449#Comment_750449

we’ll now need more than twice as many bidders to make that price point succeed.

...to say nothing about twice as long.

EastTN

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/750453#Comment_750453

we’ll now need more than twice as many bidders to make that price point succeed.

...to say nothing about twice as long.

Only if folks are no faster to bid at the lower price point.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/750557#Comment_750557

And conversely to the low bid approach - the way to guarantee a rapid move to Faithlife getting it into production would be for you (I.e. 1 person) to bid the "whole" price of production.

However I suspect few are ever going to go to that extreme. Also the closer we are to that end of the scale to few people will be interested and the likelihood is the production costs may never be covered, taking "forever" to get produced.

I think our OP has the real truth of it - for any title that has any worthwhile interest at all - the closer the bids are to the lower end - the faster is the route to production. If there is little interest, the only way would be higher bids, but you still need a decent number of people interested at that level.

All rather confusing really.

Shalom.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/750559#Comment_750559

Am I right in thinking "more" people have been bidding at the higher price?

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/750766#Comment_750766

Am I right in thinking "more" people have been bidding at the higher price?

It certainly looks that way.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/750783#Comment_750783

Bounce

Lynden O. Williams

Placed a bid on 30.00.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/751054#Comment_751054

Let's just be clear that the $30 bid is in accord with the long established average rate of ~$2 per title in CP collections. The current $65 bid is over DOUBLE that price point. Also, when a lower peak gets established, a flood of bids come in from people who for some unexplainable reason want to bid on the CP but refuse to do so unless they SEE the price they want to bid is listed as the green peak price. It seems to be some sort of psychological glitch that has to do with avoiding making a commitment to a possible loser. It is a glitch because by putting in a low bid, nothing is actually lost if the CP closes higher, and a person can always raise the bid if needed before closing. But by NOT putting in the low bid which helps to establish a lower peak price, the person is almost assured of not getting an acceptable price. Taking a chance at submitted a low bid has no true downside except for psychologically. The irony is that avoiding the psychological monster is actually feeding it. If you would bid $30 if the green price was $30, BID $30 NOW...and feel good about your courage.

Doc B

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/751248#Comment_751248

It seems to be some sort of psychological glitch that has to do with avoiding making a commitment to a possible loser.

I tend to agree.

Someone who knows, and isn't simply speculating, tell me: If I bid below the expected closing price, does it help the thing close?

(Why do I ask? I often see resources I don't want, and don't want to place a successful bid, but want to help get the thing over the hump. I usually bid just below what the projected closing price is. Am I helping or wasting time?)

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/751252#Comment_751252

Someone who knows, and isn't simply speculating, tell me: If I bid below the expected closing price, does it help the thing close?

No - only bids at or above the closing price have any effect on reaching the $'s necessary to close.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/751252#Comment_751252

(Why do I ask? I often see resources I don't want, and don't want to place a successful bid, but want to help get the thing over the hump. I usually bid just below what the projected closing price is. Am I helping or wasting time?)

If you don't want the resource you shouldn't place a bid. Bidding below the projected price will only help if enough others place the same bid which causes the resource price to be lowered.

EastTN

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/751303#Comment_751303

(Why do I ask? I often see resources I don't want, and don't want to place a successful bid, but want to help get the thing over the hump. I usually bid just below what the projected closing price is. Am I helping or wasting time?)

If you don't want the resource you shouldn't place a bid. Bidding below the projected price will only help if enough others place the same bid which causes the resource price to be lowered.

I think it helps if we really do view these as "bids." There's no one "right" price - different people will have different price points for any given book. There are some books that I know I want, and would be willing to pay full price for. There are other books that I wouldn't pay anywhere near full price for, because I don't have any immediate need for them and am unlikely to read them anytime soon. But, if I saw them on the clearance table at a really deep discount I would go ahead and grab them. There are some of the community pricing volumes that are in the first category for me. Many, though, are in the second category. For those, I try to stay disciplined and ask myself "if this were already live and I saw it on sale, what price would it take for me to go ahead and buy it now?" I bid based on the answer.

Of course, there are some books I simply have no interest in, and wouldn't buy even on clearance. Those I don't bid on.

Doc B

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/751260#Comment_751260

Someone who knows, and isn't simply speculating, tell me: If I bid below the expected closing price, does it help the thing close?

No - only bids at or above the closing price have any effect on reaching the $'s necessary to close.

Then I shall stop the practice if it does no one any good.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/751338#Comment_751338

But if you bid higher - that will tend to raise the price of CP for everyone. that is if enough people just follow the herd!

This is the problem with this scheme.

Matt Hamrick

I changed my bid to $30.

George Somsel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/751303#Comment_751303

If you don't want the resource you shouldn't place a bid. Bidding below the projected price will only help if enough others place the same bid which causes the resource price to be lowered.

Wrong and wrong. Placing a bid lower that what SOME (i.e., the majority of those bidding at any point) consider to be the projected price does have some value. (1) Unless your bid is totally out of line, the projected price may come down to that, (2) You may be unsure whether you really want the resource but wish to be able to reconsider later in which case you will be reminded that your bid will not be successful once the bidding exceeds the projected cost at which time you can finally decide whether you want it at that price.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/751379#Comment_751379

If you don't want the resource you shouldn't place a bid. Bidding below the projected price will only help if enough others place the same bid which causes the resource price to be lowered.

Wrong and wrong. Placing a bid lower that what SOME (i.e., the majority of those bidding at any point) consider to be the projected price does have some value. ....

Wrong, George, wrong if you read Bruce closely -- note the conditional "if you don't want the resource" you are speaking of when you do or might want the resource ... different case.[:P]

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/751381#Comment_751381

If you don't want the resource you shouldn't place a bid. Bidding below the projected price will only help if enough others place the same bid which causes the resource price to be lowered.

Wrong and wrong. Placing a bid lower that what SOME (i.e., the majority of those bidding at any point) consider to be the projected price does have some value. ....

Wrong, George, wrong if you read Bruce closely -- note the conditional "if you don't want the resource" you are speaking of when you do or might want the resource ... different case.

Thanks for clarifying MJ. That is exactly what I was trying to say.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/751252#Comment_751252

Someone who knows, and isn't simply speculating, tell me: If I bid below the expected closing price, does it help the thing close?

Well, it could, if what I am describing takes place. This doesn't apply to what you are addressing in terms of "helping out", but bidding low could speed up the process under the following scenario.

It is what happened with the BW3 mEd course on John that ultimately closed at $40. I was campaigning for lower bids when others were piling on at $90. Fortunately, Bob commented that $50 was possible as a cost-covering price point if a certain number of people bid. But that was never going to happen by whittling away at the top. There was a slight bump at $60 and so I become rather obnoxious about encouraging people to bid at that price...and it worked. The price never would have dropped to $60 by trimming down from $90, but once it crossed at $60, tons of new bids poured in. Then Logos took the unusual step of pushing the close date back an extra week. Once that happened, I declared $45 to be easily achievable, and it closed at $40.

I keep harping on this point because every indication is that people refuse to let it sink into their skulls, but HIGH-PRICED BIDS DAMPEN FUTURE BIDS and slows the process down. Yes, eventually things cross the line at inflated price points, but that's because a tiny handful of deep-pocket types are willing to pay nose-bleed prices...and that's kinda my point. ONLY A HANDFUL of people get to participate and take advantage of the CPs that get stuck on prices in the middle or right-side of the chart. MJ's bid mantra of "bid the highest you are willing to pay" encourages high closing prices. George's insistence that no one can have any effect on a CP by bidding lower than the peak is wrong on two points, because he is only thinking about the peak and whittling it down from the top. As we saw with the BW3 CP, that would have ultimately cost everyone who had bid at $90 about $40-50 more than they paid. The DIFFERENCE was that people ignored that advice and bid BELOW THE PEAK and CREATED A NEW PEAK. On that chart, $65, $70, $75, $80 and maybe $85 never crossed the line. The new peak encouraged a slew of additional bidders that pushed the price down even more. CP is nothing if not an exercise in momentum building.

This is a point I think needs to be acknowledged by everyone who plays the CP game. IT IS A GAME! I have heard people say, "I just set my bid at a level I'm comfortable with and wait to see what happens. I don't try to game the system." BUT CP IS DESIGNED AS A SYSTEM TO BE GAMED!! Bob said when he started CP that with a figurative $1000 cost of production, he doesn't care if one person bids $1000 or a thousand people bid $1. He has also said that if everyone who own Logos software bid on every CP, the cost per user would be about $1 each, and that was years ago. Bob doesn't care if we "play the game" to get lower final costs.

The way CP is set up, it is a groupthink exercise--in other words, it is subject to raging fits of illogic. When most participants have completely different perspectives on what they want and how to go about getting it, the result is pretty often chaotic. And, of course, lots of people don't have any clue about how it works and make a point of telling others how to play. There are a couple of things we should all acknowledge. By nature, CPs work best as quantity purchases. I suspect that most who are in the CP game have a large number of them in the hopper. I have $3500+ right now "gathering interest". If I could get that reduced by 1/3, that would give me enough to get a big ticket item like NIC OT/NT or Hermeneia/Continental or something similar. My point is, when the CP community WORKS TOGETHER, we can turn groupthink illogic into a logical approach that ends up saving all of us hefty percentages and hundreds or even thousands of dollars over time. But one thing is ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN: "set it and forget it" is NOT that plan.

As it looks right now, $30 appears very close to setting a new peak. Just watch what happens if it does...and then contemplate the fact that that's over 50% LESS than we would pay if the current $65 peak crossed the line. Also, if it crosses the line at $30, it will probably go to $25 or lower...maybe as low as $20. Imagine if we could do that with EVERY CP! The only thing keeping all of us from saving HUGE $$ are those who are too lazy to bother. And here's one last thought. If two people bid $500 on a CP and it closes, those two people just shut out every other Logos user from getting a decent CP deal on that resource. Sure, that's how the game is played...they wanted it bad enough and they got it into production. But there's something about taking that approach that's (every appropriate word is "inapproriate"). Every single time a small handful of bidders bid up a CP at a high price point, they are shutting out a huge number of bidders who would like to get the CP but can't afford that price. The adding insult to injury part comes when that high price causes the CP to close long after it would have if the price had been 1/2 or 1/3 of the closing price and had excited much more interest and participation. In a nut shell, making high bids on CPs is just plain rude. Yeah, there's nothing technically "wrong" about it...but it is very bad form.

If you haven't bid $30 yet, do it now and be the force that makes the difference. Thanks.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/751432#Comment_751432

Also, as it stands right now (and in spite of George's insistence that it can't ever do any good), if just 5-10 people with $65 bids dropped their bid to $30, that would cause the $65 peak to drop and make $30 the new peak. Don't believe me? Try it and see what happens.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/751435#Comment_751435

Please define "good", If by "good" you mean bring it closer to production George is right. If by "good" you mean affect the psychology of a certain subset of users to increase the probability that they will bid, you are right.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/751432#Comment_751432

As it looks right now, $30 appears very close to setting a new peak.

I think you are right but what amazes me is that the $65 mark has gone up by almost the same amount since the thread began.