there have been a couple of times when i was glad i was sniped, saved me from myself
+100
Ebay Rant
- Thread starter Blondie
- Start date
+100
I remember 2 months ago I bid on a Nikon D200 (I wanted to buy it anyway) and the higher bid was like 420 pounds, and there were like 2 minutes left. So I placed a 426 bid and I was going on higher bidder, as time kept running, I was hopping those snipers would come soon.... but no, I won the camera!! (but I still got it for like 50 pounds less than it was selling on the bay at that time).
2 days later I was selling my D40 to a friend, just to recover from my previous bid hehe!
2 days later I was selling my D40 to a friend, just to recover from my previous bid hehe!
I have decided that sniping is theft.
By preventing further good-faith bidding it robs the seller of the real market value of their item.
It's not a real auction when sniping is used.
Can you elaborate? Neither as a seller or a buyer, do I have a gripe with sniping. As I seller, I benefit from emotionally-driven bidding, but if a sniper wins and auction, it's because they've offered the highest bid. Usually that's a calculated fair market price.
Sniping is great. It only works because a lot of people seem to bid what they would like to pay, not the maximum they are prepared to pay. If they are outbid as the auction nears it's end (or whenever ebay sends them the "you have been outbid" email), they enter a higher bid...rinse and repeat...bidding war ensues and the price goes silly. If their bid stays put, they get sniped!
Not much compares to losing an auction on a razor you really want to a last-minute sniper that already has 20 razors. That happened to me last year.
The bottom line on e-bay is...
The guy who wants it most, and thus is willing to spend the money required to get it, will get it.
It's great when you are able to sneak in an under the wire low ball bid and walk off with a tasty piece for a low price, but the business is all about selling to the highest bidder.
If you want it, bid at a sufficient level to ensure you get it, if you hope to slip under the wire, good luck and best of intentions, but don't complain when your outbid. That's the whole IDEA of e-bay.
The guy who wants it most, and thus is willing to spend the money required to get it, will get it.
It's great when you are able to sneak in an under the wire low ball bid and walk off with a tasty piece for a low price, but the business is all about selling to the highest bidder.
If you want it, bid at a sufficient level to ensure you get it, if you hope to slip under the wire, good luck and best of intentions, but don't complain when your outbid. That's the whole IDEA of e-bay.
But their "highest bid" is offered *purposely* so late in the auction that bona-fide buyers do not have opportunity to counter-bid. Thus, there is someone out there that is willing to bid higher but did not have opportunity because the sniper purposely used software to get an unfair advantage.
Real auctions do not have times that they end regardless of buyers willing to make further bids. Sniping relies on waiting until no one can counter to make a bid; hence is unfair and is theft.
And yes, snipes can be so close to last second bids that even the Ebay progressive bid engine doesn't have time to counter. Someone can actually have a higher "maximum bid" set and still lose to a sniper that gets the bid in with a half-second until close of auction.
But sniping software can get that last snipe in too late for a counter, even from Ebay's "Max Bid" software. There is always a little lag, and I have seen it happen.
ETA:
Some auction sites automatically extend the auction some small amount of time with each bid. That keeps the auction honest.
I don't doubt you, nor do I debate that it happens. I know software can be buggy, and as with Programmable Logic, you can get into those "relay races" now and then.
But I'd have to say that though it probably happens periodically, it probably doesn't happen most of the time.
That's just an idiosyncrasy that we have to live with. It's not fair, but it's life, and there are a lot of things in life that are not fair.
You deal with them, and put the bad things behind and look to the next good thing.
I have actually seen way more people who bid early complain about getting sniped. The people who snipe and complain are complaining about paying more than they would have if nobody bid till the end.
I agree with both of these. However, it didn't take me long after joining ebay three years ago to figure out that sniping is just a part of the game, like it or not. It might be morally wrong, unjust, and unfair, but it is not against ebay's rules. Ebay probably couldn't do anything about it even if they wanted to. Personally, I've never used a sniping service, but I've definitely jumped in with a few seconds to go many times. Sometimes I put in a lowball bid early just to get the item in my 'Bidding List" at the top of the page. Then I make sure I'm sitting at my computer when the auction ends. Either way, sniping or not, in the end, the highest bidder wins. If that's not me, that's okay. You win some, you lose some. But, if I want to win, and I have to snipe to do it because a lot of other people are doing it, so be it. That's just the way the game is played. You either play to win, or you complain about it when you lose.
The only reason one gets sniped is because you don't understand the system. A sniper can never outbid you if you are willing to pay more than the sniper. Just put your max as your bid price. Since the system autobids for you if your max is higher than the current bid, there is no problem.
- Thread starter
- #56
You might want to check your thinking on this one. I bid 100.00 on an item one hour before an auction ends. Sniper bids $85.00 at the last second, or half second, whatever. My 100.00 is still the high bid. I still win the item. It's been a while since I have been a code jockey, but we are talking about pretty simple code to compare values and perform an if/then. I personally would not sell an item through a service that charges a percentage of the final sale price that could not guarantee me that the highest bid would be logged. Ebay wants things to sell at the highest price as well, so they probably have this backdoor closed. At least I would hope so.
Thanks for clarifying. I better understand your point of view now, but respectfully disagree. The rules of ebay auctions may not be to your liking, but I fail to see how a bid placed under those rules can be considered unfair or theft.
No they can't, earlier bids get priorty. It's built into the system to favour earlier higher bids. Sniping is fair because the highest bidder still wins, whether it's someone who bid a day before, or another sniper.
Sniping means that you don't get competitive jackasses that want to beat your bid by 25c. Because they don't know the snipers max bid, they just have to bid what the max they want to pay, rather than trying to win something as cheap as possible over the other bidders.
edit: Sniping is needed because so many people are willing to pay more than retail for so many items on ebay for some reason. Why? Because there's a lot of people out there that get competitive and keep bidding to 'win' for some reason and don't have any common sense.
The fact that those people are out there means others have to use sniping techniques to avoid those bidders.
End result is things still get sold for the amount that someone was willing to pay, there's as many mentions of people placing a ridiculously high bid to guarantee a win as there are people 'sniping' a bargain. So, over all even with sniping ebay prices are even between wins for early bidders, high bidders and snipers. The only reason for that being equal is because no matter the method used, the highest bidder will still win.
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Sniping=theft? Give me a break. Snipes under the highest bid don't get the sniper anything but a "You've just been outbid!" message. I think the sniping programs are like using cheat codes to beat video games. I don't use them when I snipe. Besides, that's just another electronic in to my bank account of c.card. Sniping is not worth paying for, to me. As far as being unfair, the highest bid always wins, whether put in at the first minute of the auction or the last 3 seconds.
Good thought Rainman, I have had auctions where the seller has come back to me <24 hrs after the end of auction and asked me, as the second highest bidder, if I wish to buy since the high bidder did not wish to complete the sale. Jeez, either that buyer had no idea how the 'bay works, or (and more likely) the seller just screwed their own pooch. The times this has happened I have walked away because once I know I have lost, the adrenaline is gone and I lose interest.
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