Some Ebay prices getting out of hand.

[moses]

Reasons to exclude automatic snipe bidding from an eBay auction:

#1- I think advertising a "snipe free" auction would be more bidder friendly and would draw more bidders like a "no reserve" auction does.

Honestly, I doubt it. Especially with really collectible items. The usual suspects for a mint British Aristocrat, or whatever, are I think, pretty comfortable with sniping, and are going to bid what they are willing to pay either way. Not allowing sniping is just likely to cause them to forget, and accidentally fail to place their bid. (I've done the more than once.)

#2- They **** me off to no end as a buyer. I'd like to draw and quarter the writers of this type of programming.

I guess this is just a personal difference. Sniping existed as a manual thing before the programs. The programmers just saw a legitimate way to provide a service, because, trust me, manual sniping is a pain.

#3- It's not fair. Here you have someone sitting in front of their computer hoping to win an auction manually entering bids against someone who programmed a bid days in advance who is on a beach or sleeping. Not cool, not cool at all.

I totally disagree. There is nothing unfair about a program that anyone can use if they want to. It is simple, quick, and easy. What always seemed unfair to me was that people with more time on their hands could snipe manually, but I didn't have that ability, until I discovered the sniping services. Plus, you can enter your bid days in advance if you want, using ebay. Yes it is there, so someone can find your ceiling in advance of the auction ending. Arguably it makes getting a steal less likely. But either way, if you but in what you are willing to pay as either an ebay proxy bid or a snipe, if it goes over, well, I see no reason to complain. Someone was just willing to pay more than you were. End of story.

-Mo

 

[jlander]

Reasons to exclude automatic snipe bidding from an eBay auction:

#1- I think advertising a "snipe free" auction would be more bidder friendly and would draw more bidders like a "no reserve" auction does.

#2- They **** me off to no end as a buyer. I'd like to draw and quarter the writers of this type of programming.

#3- It's not fair. Here you have someone sitting in front of their computer hoping to win an auction manually entering bids against someone who programmed a bid days in advance who is on a beach or sleeping. Not cool, not cool at all.

I would surely sell items for less to know the auctions were fair for all the bidders.

It's very simple, subscribe to a sniping service yourself, then the playing field (for you) is level with all those others who avail themselves of services offered.

Before the programmed services, there were people who offered the same service, they stayed home and sniped manually for a fee per item. It just cost more and was limited to fewer patrons.

 

[Shave Cat]

Personally, I don't use a sniping service when I bid on an item. I just place a proxy bid for the maximum amount I'm willing to pay. It is frustrating, though, to think you're winning an auction only to be outbid by a sniper in the last seconds. Since you can place a proxy bid reflecting the maximum you're willing to pay, and eBay will automatically incrementally bid for you up to that maximum, what is the advantage to sniping?

-Clarke

 

[rabidpotatochip]

Personally, I don't use a sniping service when I bid on an item. I just place a proxy bid for the maximum amount I'm willing to pay. It is frustrating, though, to think you're winning an auction only to be outbid by a sniper in the last seconds. Since you can place a proxy bid reflecting the maximum you're willing to pay, what is the advantage to sniping?

-Clarke

Not everyone bids the max they're willing to pay on the off chance they'll get it for less. By holding off till the last minute with bidding you increase your odds of getting the item for a lower price since it doesn't get driven up by a bidding war early on.

Edit: That reminds me of something else: if you're selling a popular item start it out as low as possible to generate the maximum amount of interest. It'll also cost you less to list it. There's one caveat, though, if it's an item not many people are looking to buy there's a good chance you'll end up selling it for $0.99.

 

[paydepst]

I love sniping-do it all the time. It's convenient and there are times when you don't want to tip your hand as being interested in a particular item.

 

[JimmyHAD]

I love sniping-do it all the time. It's convenient and there are times when you don't want to tip your hand as being interested in a particular item.

I really cannot fathom people who bid any other way but sniping. What sense does it make to drive the price of an item up more then necessary? In the last 4 seconds of an auction I place a bid for the maximum I am willing to pay. If another bidder is higher they will get it as I have no time to place another bid. I don't use a service as I prefer the adrenaline rush of doing it myself.

 

[moses]

Since you can place a proxy bid reflecting the maximum you're willing to pay, and eBay will automatically incrementally bid for you up to that maximum, what is the advantage to sniping?

Besides those reasons mentioned already. (Most especially those silly people who don't put in the max they are willing to pay, for some reason, until somebody tops them.) You can search to find all the auctions a particular member is bidding on. Lazy people will sometimes take advantage of that, using the ids of serious collectors who put a lot of work into searching out good razors, as a way to locate auctions. For those people who are active enough in collecting to be worth tracking like that, it avoids other people finding those under the radar auctions they spent a lot of time looking for just be tracking their user name.

I'm certainly not now, but there was a period where I put in a bid on pretty much every seriously collectible Gillette that showed up. I found a couple good finds, and I certainly didn't want someone who had noticed I was bidding on, or watching, all the good stuff to take advantage of all my work in refining my searches and scanning through thousands of uninteresting superspeeds and techs.

-Mo

 

[cutting_edge]

Besides those reasons mentioned already. (Most especially those silly people who don't put in the max they are willing to pay, for some reason, until somebody tops them.) You can search to find all the auctions a particular member is bidding on. Lazy people will sometimes take advantage of that, using the ids of serious collectors who put a lot of work into searching out good razors, as a way to locate auctions. For those people who are active enough in collecting to be worth tracking like that, it avoids other people finding those under the radar auctions they spent a lot of time looking for just be tracking their user name.

I'm certainly not now, but there was a period where I put in a bid on pretty much every seriously collectible Gillette that showed up. I found a couple good finds, and I certainly didn't want someone who had noticed I was bidding on, or watching, all the good stuff to take advantage of all my work in refining my searches and scanning through thousands of uninteresting superspeeds and techs.

-Mo

Very true!

In short, sniping works better for the buyers, does not help the seller (or eBay).

 

[Shave Cat]

Makes sense to me, Mo.

-Clarke

 

[Taz]

Sniping has been the way of auctions forever even live auctions there is always somebody that jumps in at the very end. That is all snipping is it is like sending someone to a live auction to bid in your interest. They know what you want and what you are willing to pay. The typical(not all) complaint comes from someone who lost. Either they thought they would get it for cheap less then it is worth or they failed to put it what they would pay and got beat out at the end. Both those are not the fault of the sniper it is their fault. As a buyer I snipe, as one of the active sellers here I wish people would bid a lot and bid early those are the razors that tend to sell for the most, because it gets that person that will probably win anyway bidding higher. When certain bidders want and item 99% of the time they will get it so early bidding get them to have to raise there mark. I know when some bidders show their mark or the send me a message I know they will win. Were talking razors but this goes for all collectibles when a serious collect wants something they usually insure they get it. The sellers you are hearing from are great sellers I have purchased from them and they have purchased from me. They are also collectors like myself. Not bad evil people just serious collectors.

 

[dmk005]

Sniping has been the way of auctions forever even live auctions there is always somebody that jumps in at the very end. That is all snipping is it is like sending someone to a live auction to bid in your interest. They know what you want and what you are willing to pay. The typical(not all) complaint comes from someone who lost. Either they thought they would get it for cheap less then it is worth or they failed to put it what they would pay and got beat out at the end. Both those are not the fault of the sniper it is their fault. As a buyer I snipe, as one of the active sellers here I wish people would bid a lot and bid early those are the razors that tend to sell for the most, because it gets that person that will probably win anyway bidding higher. When certain bidders want and item 99% of the time they will get it so early bidding get them to have to raise there mark. I know when some bidders show their mark or the send me a message I know they will win. Were talking razors but this goes for all collectibles when a serious collect wants something they usually insure they get it. The sellers you are hearing from are great sellers I have purchased from them and they have purchased from me. They are also collectors like myself. Not bad evil people just serious collectors.

In this definition, I snipe from time to time too but I don't use external software to do my sniping. Now, I have investigated this software but to be honest, one of the reasons I have loved Ebay is for the rush the last minute. With software sniping, I wonder if I will lose that fun. I can see it would be a great tool for the collector/ebay businessist.

I have learned a lot from this thread and I thank all who have contributed.

david

 

[Roman414]

Suppose I see an item I want, a nice fatboy or whatever, so I just enter a bid of $1,000 and forget about it. If the next highest bid is $25, won't I get it for $26? Why wouldn't that work?

 

[voerman]

Ah - but what if you and another person did the same thing? I hope it is my fatboy that sells for $1,000

Lou

 

[paydepst]

Suppose I see an item I want, a nice fatboy or whatever, so I just enter a bid of $1,000 and forget about it. If the next highest bid is $25, won't I get it for $26? Why wouldn't that work?

It will.

If you and another person do it at the same time preference is given to whoever actually finishes first and gets their snipe in. Higher proxy bids on Ebay take precedence though.

 

[dmk005]

Specifically for software-based sniping: With all these bids coming in within the last 5 seconds, does ebay extend the time to count all the proxy bids that need to be computed by these programs or does it just cut them off at the end of auction time. I realize we are talking milliseconds but just want to understand the principle relationship of ebay to these kinds of bids. I suspect it will simply compare the highest bids and award the winner but not quite sure what ebay knows versus the third party programs and when.

david

 

[rabidpotatochip]

Specifically for software-based sniping: With all these bids coming in within the last 5 seconds, does ebay extend the time to count all the proxy bids that need to be computed by these programs or does it just cut them off at the end of auction time. I realize we are talking milliseconds but just want to understand the principle relationship of ebay to these kinds of bids. I suspect it will simply compare the highest bids and award the winner but not quite sure what ebay knows versus the third party programs and when.

david

If Ebay operates like any other database it would first compare whether the bid is higher than the highest current bid before actually registering it.

Proxy bids run up to one of two events: The bidder is the highest bidder or another bid exceeds the proxy bid. However, this is pretty instant so it doesn't really matter when you do it. As for priority at the end, Ebay will accept and compare bids until the auction officially ends; as long as you bid before the end of the auction (millisecond or not) the only thing that affects your chances of winning is the price you name. Reason being this, Ebay would keep track of when the bids were entered into the queue and process any that are timestamped before the auction end. From the user's end this would appear to be an instant process, but it would probably take about half a second at most.

 

[MTgrayling]

Weird day on the 'Bay. I got a Ranger Tech for $2.99. a few red tips closed without a bid and a minty President is going for a pittance.

 

[MTgrayling]

Which I just won.

 

[ouch]

Which I just won.

That's the luck of the draw.

Sometimes you're the bug; sometimes your the windshield.

 

[copperhead]

That's the luck of the draw.

Sometimes you're the bug; sometimes your the windshield.

...and thus spoke the wise one.