Well, we both have methods that work for both of us.
The only exception to this is item #2. Only a complete idiot [sniper] would bid less than the bid increment in the final second. In your example, $51.99 would only lose lose because the ebay system would not accept my bid, because it was less than the minumum bid increment.
But realisticly, how many snipers would see an early proxy bid of $51 proxy bid from day one and then bid $51.99 at the last second of the auction? Please!
In real life, the sniper is aware that the current bid is $51 and bids at least $52 (the minumum bid increment) or more. You’ve given us an example that is kind of silly, wouldn’t you agree?
Well, the point is that they don’t bid rationally, so placing your maximum bid early is showing your hand; In my experience, bidding early just means you’ll be outbid by a nibbler, whereas keeping your cards against your chest until the last moment, you at least have a chance because the nibbler doesn’t get a chance to react to your bid at all.
Yes, if everybody just placed their bids rationally, then sniping would be pointless, but they don’t, so it isn’t.
I mihght be wrong about this (in which case I’m sure someone will correct me), but isn’t it true that when you scrutinise the bidding history for a sold item, the ebay system will only show the maximum proxy bid, so:
[ul][li]Starting price is $1[/li][li]Person A places a max bid of $10 - the bidding history now shows only their bid at the current level ($1)[/li][li]Person B comes along and bids $15 - the proxy bidding system exhausts A’s maximum and B takes the lead, but only by the next bid increment above A’s maximum ($10.50 I think) - the bidding history no longer shows A’s proxy bid of $1, it only shows A bidding $10 and B bidding $10.50[/li][li]Person A has a breakdown of resolve and increases his maximum bid to $20, the proxy bidding system now exhausts B’s max bid of $15 and A takes the lead again with a proxy bid of $16 - the bidding history, though, shows A’s original max bid of $10, B’s max bid of $15 and A’s new bash at $16.[/ul][/li]So if a person appears at intervals throughout a bid history list, it means they’re manually increasing their maximum bid as time goes by, doesn’t it?
If that’s the case, then I can tell you I see this a lot and it means that ‘nibbling’ is very common.
I agree with everything you said until this last point. Note that the sniper does not know what is the actual proxy bid, so he can’t know exactly what should be the snipe bid that includes the increment on top of the actual proxy bid. Other than this last point, I’m in complete agreement with you about sniping. I really don’t understand DrDeth’s anti-snipe stance. His arguments are not convincing. He cites a buyer rating of 400. My rating is almost 600 and I’m strictly a buyer who snipes.
No- because you have no idea of what my Proxy bid is- it’s secret. All you see is whatever bid amount that needed to crack the minimum bid (or in some cases- the Reserve). On a auction with a Min bid of $20, all you’d see is a bid from me of $20. Now, sure, in an auction with a "nibbler’ you’d see my highest bid- which would have been outbid by the nibbler. But then you wouldn’t know (although with a “nibbler” you can usually guess pretty close). There is simply no way to tell how high the proxy bid is when you place your “snipe”. Of course- if you could know what dudes Proxy bids were, then sniping would be the best strategy.
But in any case- the largest bid wins the auction- no matter when it’s placed (with the rare exception of not beating an earlier bidder by the bid increment). There is no time at all where a later smaller bid will beat an earlier larger bid. NONE. Thus your statement “The HIGHEST bid at the end----The Highest Last Bid wins.” contains a fallacy- the word “last”. It’s simply “the highest bid wins” (again, with the minor exception of an earlier bidder winning because of the bid increment).
Mangetout- yes, more or less. Occ one more such bid is a result of a “placeholder bid”- which some dudes like to do (they place a low bid, then bid again 'with their real bid" towards the end). As I have shown- the result of my sample shows that occurs around 8% of the time. Suprisingly- most auctions have only a single bid.
In my experience, it’s a lot more common (perhaps because of the mindset of the membership here in the UK, or perhaps because of the kinds of items I’m buying/selling); On both the items I’m selling and those I’m watching, I keep seeing the same name (per auction) mentioned as the high bidder, then deposed, then back again as high bidder, often multiple time per listing.
I am not ‘anti-sniping"- I has said several times here- “snipe if it makes you happy”. It’s just that it doesn’t really save you a lot of money- well as opposed to the “place your Max proxy bid early”. In certain circumstances I even agree that sniping might well be the way to go- if I saw a "nibbler’ then I’d seriously consider sniping. But if when i see an item and I am the only bidder (the large majority of auctions), then there is likely no benefit to be gained.
Most of the “benefit” of sniping comes from the “I have got a system that will get things cheaper” school. Same school that makes Los Vegas rich. There really is no “system”. Sure in some auctions Proxy Bidding is the best- in others Sniping will be your best bet. In a rare few it could even be “nibbling” that works best. :dubious: But snipers snipe because they like to think that they "beat out’ someone. As MrJackboots said “It amuses the asshole in me”. A very honest statement.
Sure- there have been sniping threads before. And the snipers always say “we won” becaase they just said “sniping is best” the loudest and the most times. But that doesn’t work here on the SDMB- it’s facts, not yelling. I posted facts- statistics from a random sampling- sniping would have helped AT A MAXIMUM- in 8% of the auctions. OTOH, Proxy bidding wins when the later bidder fails to overcome the “bid increment”- this seems it would occur about 5%.
Of course- every sniper insists that the stuff* they* bid on all has many many bidders. :dubious: And, I am sure there are niche markets where this might be the case. But it isn’t the case in a sampling of every single category.
So- if it makes you happy- snipe away. Enjoy!
But a factual answer was called for here, and the answer is: there is no system, no "right’ way. There are wrong ways to be sure (and we have covered them). But both Proxy bidding and Sniping bring good results. Choose the one you like.
You’re simply getting absurd now. I was responding to the scenario you presented! Read it again!:
It was your example dude! You offered a scenario in which you had a high bid of $51—and in your absurd example you have me bidding not only less than a standard bid increment (.99¢) , but only 1.9% higher than the current high bid of $51 that I’m fully aware of! You must be hanging out with the Keystone Cops of snipers. Maybe you don’t know how intelligent sniping works.
Do you believe a good sniper takes the time to snipe when the differential between the current high bid, and his sniped proxy bid is less than 2%?
IOW, even if ebay allowed me to bid in any increment (doing away with bid increments) do you believe the average sniper would waste his time to save .99¢ on a $51 sale? (1.9%!) Once again, you’re giving a silly, non-real world example and expecting us to swallow it wholesale.
IOOW, If your theoretical sniper placed only a $51.99 value on this item, and saw the current bid was $51 he would see no sniping opportunity! And, he wouldn’t care what your “secret” proxy bid was!—in his mind the item is fully priced out and there is no latent value in the auction.
If he saw more value, he wouldn’t be bidding only $51.99, would he? (of course, an experienced sniper wouldn’t even attempt to bid $51.99 if the current bid was $51, knowing the system wouldn’t accept his bid! Hell, even the bid proccess would alert him as to the minumum bid, which in this case would be $52)
I’ll tell you this: In the beginning I once sniped with a low bid (which was still higher then the current bid!) and was “out-sniped.” I was frustrated because I was willing to pay much more. I learned that a smart sniper places the highest bid he wishes to pay in the last 30 seconds (with broadband I make it 10 seconds) and lets the proxy system sort it out. Three weeks ago I bought a camera lens that had 5 snipers at the end. I won at $255.55. The next bid (a sniper) was $255. Because he lost by less than the bid increment he knew exactly what my highest bid was: $255.55. He lost by .55¢ I’ll bet that guy never bids in round dollars again.
I’ll also tell you this: I can’t remember the last time I lost by an **early proxy bid. **(although in fairness it has happened. Even then, if my sniped proxy bid was well researched, the winner simply overpaid. I would rather lose than overpay) these days, if I lose, it’s to a sniper. (who, IMO is overpaying. )
Read it again. You cannot ignore the element of time. You may be the high bidder at the moment, but there are lots and lots and lots and lots of guys like you that have your item snatched right out of your hands in the last 15 seconds by guys like me.
The great thing is, It’s by one bid increment. It’s a beautiful thing.
You haven’t shown anything. You’ve told us. We are still unconvinced. In my experience, that 8% is MUCH closer to 88%.
I’m also hard pressed to believe that “most auctions have only a single bid.”
What kind of stuff are you bidding on?
You are doing the Lord’s work however. Spread the word! I am absolutely sick of these snipers driving up my acquisition costs.
I was using his example so I wasn’t entirely clear. Let me know if you agree with how I see this in a practical way.
I buy a lot of camera related stuff. A few years ago I would go online to a few of the very reputable dealers and see their price. Considering they were known, and reputable, I would not consider an ebay purchase unless it was at least 30% less then the dealers. IOW…I was willing to pay a 30% premium to an online dealer because I knew who I was dealing with. Since then, there are many highly reputable ebay dealers so I am willing to pay 80-85% of the online price, if it’s a well known, highly regarded ebay dealer.
So…in practical terms I really don’t care what anyone’s highest proxy bid is. I know what it is worth, and I know what I’ll pay. I’m only concerned with the current high bid. That’s it.
In practical terms I generally won’t waste my time sniping unless the current high bid is 20-30% or more below what I am willing to pay. If I am willing to pay $100 for an item, it has to be [currently]$70 or less for me to smell a sniping opportunity.
In DrDeth’s example, I wouldn’t snipe if the current price was already 98% of the highest price I’m willing to pay. There just isn’t a sniping opportunity there. There is no scenario in which I would snipe $52 on an item that is already at $51. For items under $100, I need an even greater differential—50% or more.
If I thought his theoretical item was worth $52 to me, I wouldn’t even bid (snipe) unless the current bid was $15-25. Even then, if it was at $20, and I had done my homework, and bid $52----only to find that DrDeth’s earlier proxy bid beat me at $53, I would be cool with it. I figured he overpaid—and I don’t concern myself with how much more mileage he had in his bid. I wait for the next one.
Usually that doesn’t happen though. I do my homework. I show up in the last 10 seconds. I take it out of his hands. He sends me a one word email: “scumbag.” (true story)
I’d just like to challenge the notion that a buyer can have a maximum price.
If we’re talking about a readily available consumer item for which a retail price is widely known, sure, it’s obviously dumb to go over that price.
But for many of the things I’ve bought through eBay–collectibles, rare books, rare or discontinued electronics–setting a hard market value over which it’s a bad deal is not all that simple. In most of those cases, I’m just not willing to say I’ll pay $100, but not $101. I might not be willing to pay $150, but if I’d be happy to pay $100, and someone else bids $101, I’ll probably be willing to go to $110 or higher. The point is that there is a gray area between the acceptable price and the unacceptable price, and one may choose to venture into it.
That’s why I won’t take the advice to bid my “maximum” price and let it go. If it’s something I really want, and there aren’t a lot of other similar items on the horizon, I’ll be there at the end of the auction, ready to go over my nominal “max” price if I have to. It takes a certain amount of judgment (and price research) to decide just how high is too high and when to let your desire for the item go. But there’s nothing more annoying than seeing someone else get something you really wanted for a price you’d have been willing to pay.
8%! What the heck are you bidding on? I just checked the last 8 things I either lost (2) or had on my watch list and didn’t bid on (6) - vintage toys, a palm pilot, and software, if you were curious. 6 of them were won by someone snipping in the last <1-2 minutes. It sounds like you cherry-picked in order to come up with this 8%. :dubious:
Yes, indeed- I placed a bid of $50- and NO ONE KNOW HOW HIGH MY BID WAS BUT ME! Again, you don’t know how how my bid was, so it will only be by pure chance that you pick a snipe just a few cents over my high Proxy + bid increment.
And of course "the system will accept his bid’- he’s placing his bid through a sniping service. EBay won’t accept his snipe from the sniping service, true, but the sniper has no way of knowing that.
Now, if you have some magic system that allows you (and only you) to know to the penny what everyone elses proxy bid is- then sure- sniping will win. But you don’t and it’d be illegal anyway. As to "do you believe the average sniper would waste his time to save .99¢ on a $51 sale? " again- the sniper has no fucking idea of how much my proxy bid is. It could be $51.00 or $51.05 or $55.55 or 49.89. He doesn’t know.
If you do see more value, then you’ll want to pay more than I will- thus you’ll (in a rational world) place a larger bid- which will win. Snipe or no.
You can indeed "ignore the value of time’- since on eBay there is no value to time- as far as bids go. Well- in most cases. Sure, my bid has been snatched out of my hands - by a bidder who bid higher than I did. It doesn’t matter at all whether that bidder bid before, after or 2 microseconds before the bid ends- if he bids higher than me he’ll win (again, excepting the rather rare circumstance of losing by the Bid increment). In fact, I have bid against someone to have the item ‘snatched out of my hands’ instantaneosly as the prior bidder had a higher proxy bid than my max bid. Thus, I lost instantly- becuase his bid was higher. If you snipe with one second to go you also can “snatch the item”-* if your bid is higher-* and ONLY if your bid is higher. And you don’t know what my high Proxy bid is.
It isn’t the “kind of stuff are you bidding on?”- I am not talking from ancedotal evidence as all you snipers do. I took a survey, a random sample. Only 8% had 10 bids or more and the vast majority of items had only a single bid. Dems the facts. It isn’t “stories”- it’s a sample.
However, this is exactly what us Proxy bidders have to put up with from the snipers- personal attacks, and arguments that are logical fallacies. Look at the sniper aguments- "if i bid my Max, I’d have to buy all three items " "As a sniper, i know exactly what everyone’s proxy is, thus i can place my bid to the penny :dubious: "
Right- like I have been saying all along- bid what you want to pay. No more, no less.
Of course you wouldn’t snipe on an item that was already $51- but I didn’t say that the “now visable high bid is $51”- I said my bid was $51- thus you have no idea of how high my proxy is.
And, I don’t know exactly how if I win the bid with my earlier proxy at $51, and you snipe at 51.99 (not knowing that my high proxy is $51 and only seeing a high bid of $20 or something)- and i win- how I “overpaid”.
Show up in the last 10 seconds if you like- you’ll only win *if your bid is higher than mine.
*
There’s no point in arguing. If I only placed a $51.99 value on the item and you already at $51----98% of what I think it is worth—I just wouldn’t bid. There’s no sniping opportunity. There’s no point in figuring out how much more you have in your bid!—it’s already fully priced out. Honestly, I don’t think you understand how it all works.
As I said—seemingly ad nauseum—I don’t care what your high proxy bid is.
I care about 2 things:
What the value of the item is to me. I don’t guess. I find out what it sold for in earlier ebay auctions. I find out what online retalailers are selling it for. I establish my highest price that I will snipe at. And then I wait…
What the current price is, relative to the value I establish in step one; the differential. If there is at least a 25% differential—between the current price and what I’d be willing to pay---- there may be a sniping opportunity. If that differential is still there with 5 minutes to go, you Mr. Proxy Bidder Man are in big trouble. I will be there to take your merchandise from you.
If your proxy bid is greater than my proxy bid-----keep in mind we are both using proxy bidding; I’m just letting the proxy do it’s work in the final seconds------than I will know instantly. The system will immediately tell me that I have been outbid. Because I have done my homework I am not upset. I figure you have overpaid. There will be other days.
Overwhelmingly, however, I don’t lose. I smile, pay my tab and wait to see if I receive any one word emails.
I used to believe **DrDeth’s ** premise… bid the highest price and walk away. It doesn’t matter when you bid. That seemed to make sense to me when I first started with ebay. But times have changed as I’ve become older and wiser to ebay strategy.
Example. If, for example, an item has a start bid of $5.00 and lists for 10 days. I could go out, place a bid for $50.00, and kick back and relax. But, more often than not, those “nibblers” will drive up the price of the object, even if they don’t win the item. So maybe, “Nibbler A” bids $40. So my new price is $41.00 (or whatever). Sure, I still get a bargain in saving $9, but this person has cost me $30.00. If this person is truly just nibbling, then they may have stopped at $11 if my high price was $10 when they discovered they were the high bidder. Depending on the interest in the item, that $11 may be the last bid until a few seconds before the auction ends. If I bid $50 with 10 seconds left, I have done 2 very important things. I’ve bid my maximum price, and I have potentially paid significantly less, depending on what the “nibbler” has done. Some “nibblers” bid their maximun price, others nibble until they get the highest bids. If I bid too early, I’ve given the ebay community a chance to not only figure out my maximun bid, but I’ve put myself in a position of thinking of throwing in another 5 bucks at the end, because after all, what’s $5 dollars? Sniping allows me to walk away, safe in the knowledge that I have bid what I am willing to pay, and removes the temptation to get into a bidding war days before the auction ends.
*Shill bidding is a real * problem on ebay. When I was new to ebay, I didn’t think about sniping. Again, I will relate a personal experience… I bought a black and white picture that had a starting bid of $.99 + S&H. I bid $3.00. Someone outbid me 3 hours before the auction was over. I decided to bid a bit more, and won the aution. It was only a few bucks, but I did some research. The person that outbid me was, according to the personal info., living in the same town as the seller, had only won items from this particular seller, and always left positive feedback. So, I’m guessing he/she had two accounts, upped the bid on his own products, and risked whatever fees he would incur from ebay to get more money out of someone like me, an honest bidder that wants the item. In looking at each item bought by the shill, they never placed the first bid. However, when an honest bid was placed, this shill account would place another bid. So, many people would go back and bid again, hoping to get the item. When it didn’t work, the person would pay ebay their transaction fee, leave themselves great feedback (best ebay seller out there! Bid with confidence! A++++, etc.) and relist the item. We were the only 2 bidders. If I sniped it, I would have most likely won it at $3.
I tracked this nonsense through links, some emails, and a few days of effort. I documented my findings to ebay, and got the standard, BS form letters. They would look into it, of course (HA!). This clown shill bidder is now an ebay power seller. ebay has no interest in shutting this practice down because they win on all fronts. They get their fees for a successful auction, the price was higher than it might have been, and if the product gets re-listed, it means more fees for the ebay beast. I did not realize that sellers can track folks who are watching the auction, but if they can see this info., then they can make an educated guess as to the risk of shill bidding. If 40 people are watching, a shill bid may be worth the risk. If one person is bidding, maybe not.
This leads me to a somewhat cynical question… ebay’s proxy system will know my maximum bid (and, I assume, everyone elses’ proxy bid). What is to stop ebay from creating “ghost” accounts, bidding up the price of an item, staying beneath the in-memory proxy bid? How could you prove it? Who would you complain to?
If I wait to snipe, few if any will be able to counter this, even if they wanted to. That’s a huge advantage. Sure, if they snipe with a higher bid than mine, they win. But they have no time to think about it. They can’t chew on it for a few days. Once the item is gone, it’s gone. So they won’t have a chance to convince themselves that throwing a few more dollars on the auction would be worth it to them. So I win if my bid is the highest. I don’t need to stew on the thought of upping my bid a few more dollars, because it’s gone. The seller and ebay benefit from this practice, but the real buyers are all screwing each other.
Human nature. I have bid on items I am marginally interested in well before the auction is over because I’ve stumbled onto it. If it’s a dollar to open, I might say, ok… here’s a buck… I’ve won a couple of auctions this way, but more often or not, I lose the auction. If I snipe on an item with zero bids, I think I have much better chance to win it at a lowball price on a snipe than bidding on it with days remaining in the auction. My personal experiences have proven me right on this.
I’ve been sniped! I don’t live on ebay, but occasionally I’ll stumble onto something I really want, and will hang on my computer and throw in a bid at the last minute. Almost always, I’ve been sniped by someone using a program, who paid a small increment higher than mine. If I had more time, perhaps I’d up my bid, causing the ever-popular price war. Now, Sniping removes that temptation for me. Sniping puts me on an equal playing field. If EVERYONE sniped, put their highest price on the item and walked away, that would be optimal… the problem is you are dealing with countless competitors, many of who have the same strategy. Putting *any * bid out there tips your hand to other potential buyers, and psychologically forces them to consider a higher bid, perhaps more than they want to pay to ensure a win. A couple of dollars won’t hurt me, but it is sure good for ebay!
Sniping is increasing in popularity. The more people snipe, the more the rest of us must snipe to have any chance. ebay will get my high bid, but no more. But sniping is a hugh advantage, and I’ve seen it on almost all of my auctions. Some bids get in 4 seconds or less before the end of the auction.
beep Sorry, but that’s not quite right. Check out the note included, just under the table of increments.
Note: A bidder may be outbid by less than a full increment. This would happen if the winning bidder’s maximum bid beats the second highest maximum by an amount less than the full increment.
Also, a little below that: If you were bidding against another bidder’s maximum bid, your bid had to meet the other bidder’s maximum bid plus one cent to become the current high bidder on the item.
[del]Let’s say we have the Spear of Destiny listed at $10, and two hypothetical bidders, Jackboots and Blaskowitz. Their respective War Departments have allowed either a $50 budget ($50.01 for Jackboots, because even this stingy War Department will throw him a spare pfenning when he insists). Blaskowitz puts his down on day 1, and it sits at $10 for a while. Someone other people come along and nudge it up to $20, $30… they don’t really matter, because it only boils down to a fight between Jackboots and Blaskowitz, so long as nobody else hits the magic $48.02, where Blaskowitz’s bid becomes $49.02 and Jackboots’s $50.01 is no longer accepted by the system (at which point he may attempt $50.02 just to be an asshole and on the off chance that he gets lucky, but that’s another ballgame). Outside of that, the $50.01 is kosher. Jackboots’s maximum bid meets Blaskowitz’s maximum bid plus one cent, and he becomes the high bidder, carries the Spear of Destiny into battle, and takes over the world.
For want of a penny.
On the other hand, if Jackboots has $50.01 and Blaskowitz has $60, Blaskowitz pays $51.01. Sucks to be Jackboots. If Jackboots has $50.01 and Blaskowitz has only $40, then Jackboots pays $41.00 and wanders off the winner, just the same as if he had $50. Both cases happen, and reasonably frequently. The pfenning is a tiebreaker more than anything, a way of eating that early-bidder advantage. As I said, it amuses the inner asshole, and like commasense says, there’s nothing more annoying than seeing someone else get something you really wanted for a price you’d have been willing to pay. One more cent? I’m sure Blaskowitz is kicking himself.
The interesting thing, depending on Jackboots’s timing, is that he can win even if Blaskowitz has as much as $51. Suppose he bids $50.01 at 20 seconds to go. The system sees that he’s outbid, and tries to raise it by a bid increment - it can’t, so it goes as close as it can, to $51, only 99 cents of the dollar. Jackboots now knows Blaskowitz’s high bid, with absolute certainity, and since he has broadband and decent reflexes, he has 15 or so seconds to sit down and reevaluate whether the Spear of Destiny is worth paying $1.99 out of pocket to deny Jackboots his prize (since the stated high bid is $51, he must bid at least an increment higher, at $52). Information is valuable.
Is that a valid scenario? It’s hard to say, and depends a lot on whether you buy commasense’s argument that there’s a little bit of squiggle room in a placed bid. If there isn’t, then it’s just that Jackboots is willing to pay more for it, hands down, no loss to Blaskowitz. If there is (considering that this is the Spear of Destiny and not an extra clip of MP40 ammo, or whatever), then Jackboots has the advantage in information and time to reconsider his bid.
Whether he wins in 3/4 or 2/3 scenarios, he’s still ahead of the game.[/del]
Why am I bothering? The more people snipe, the closer I have to shave to stay on top.
In gathering the following data, I went through the first 40 items on my watch list. I did not include the seven auctions still open. That leaves 33 auctions. I’ve pulled up the bid history for every auction that had more than one bid. That was a total of 9 auctions out of the 33.
I have included the end time of each auction. The end date is the same date as the last bid placed. The tables include an altered UserID (in order to protect the innocent to borrow a phrase), that UserID’s feedback score, their bid and the date/time the bid was placed.
Of the nine auctions, two of them had only two bids.
In all of the remaining auctions at least one bidder posted multiple bids. These bidders were not necessarily inexperienced. The feedback scores that the multiple bid posters had ranged from 2 to 1362. The number of bids placed by these multiple bidders ranged from 2 to 10.
There was no sniping in two of the auctions. The sniper won in five auctions. The sniper lost in two auctions. (These were both of the auctions that had only two bids.)
Everything I stated above was objective fact.
Assuming this thread is not coming to an end which it very well may be…
Feel free to analyze away. I include this data because (1) when I state my conclusions below you can see the data I’m using and (2) in the hopes that we can maybe get some commonality in this discussion. Instead of different people looking at different things and comparing what sounds like apples and oranges, people would be looking at the same set of data. If anyone wants to expand this data set, please do. Extract the bid histories from eveything on your watch list. The more data, the merrier. (Within the restrictions of the SDMB. I didn’t see any rules against this.)
3 bids placed by one bidder with feedback score of 707
Auction ended: 2:45:27
Sniper won
Th32 ( 12) 6.78 Dec-10-05 02:45:17 PST
Oye ( 707) 6.28 Dec-10-05 01:04:18 PST
Eer ( 1558) 6.20 Dec-08-05 22:16:53 PST
Oye ( 707) 5.28 Dec-10-05 01:03:55 PST
Oye ( 707) 4.28 Dec-10-05 01:03:36 PST
No multiple bids
Auction ended: 19:14:50
Sniper won
953( 12) $33.00 Dec-07-05 19:14:32 PST
vid ( 89) $32.00 Dec-07-05 12:41:12 PST
2 bids by bidders with feedback score of 11, 191 and 2
3 bids by bidders with feedback score of 84 and 40
4 bids by bidder with feedback score of 73
Auction ended: 8:29:46
Sniper won
521 ( 2 ) $255.25 Nov-23-05 08:26:17 PST
Thi (40) $250.25 Nov-23-05 08:00:44 PST
521 ( 2 ) $225.00 Nov-23-05 08:24:26 PST
Thi ( 40) $200.10 Nov-23-05 08:00:16 PST
Thi ( 40) $157.50 Nov-23-05 07:59:56 PST
759 ( 73) $150.00 Nov-23-05 02:18:31 PST
utts ( 84) $125.00 Nov-23-05 06:06:02 PST
759 ( 73) $120.00 Nov-21-05 11:35:08 PST
utts ( 84) $110.00 Nov-23-05 06:05:42 PST
utts ( 84) $105.00 Nov-23-05 06:05:22 PST
vin ( 385) $100.00 Nov-16-05 09:53:04 PST
759 ( 73) $100.00 Nov-21-05 11:34:55 PST
759 ( 73) $50.00 Nov-21-05 11:34:45 PST
yaz ( 191) $15.00 Nov-20-05 23:34:06 PST
yaz ( 191) $12.00 Nov-20-05 23:33:30 PST
utts ( 84) $11.00 Nov-20-05 19:12:43 PST
Ings ( 11) $10.00 Nov-19-05 16:40:58 PST
Ings ( 11) $5.00 Nov-19-05 16:39:42 PST
2 bids by bidder with feedback score of 9
Auction ended: 20:00:58
No sniping
ool ( 9 ) $26.01 Nov-11-05 17:03:28 PST
Abo ( 78) $25.01 Nov-11-05 13:47:23 PST
ool ( 9 ) $25.00 Nov-11-05 17:03:10 PST
No multiple bids
Auction ended: 19:23:42
Sniper lost
Ine ( 283) $4.47 Nov-03-05 15:44:11 PST
Ah3 ( 10) $4.22 Nov-09-05 19:23:22 PST
Having presented my data, now I’m getting into my opinion.
If an item gets multiple bids, bid wars are commonplace. As shown by my samples, people regularly post a bid then go back and post a higher bid when they see they have been outbid. It’s human nature. This kind of thing drives the price up. By sniping you don’t give the other bidders a chance to react to your bid, therefore if you win, you win by a small amount (minimum bid increment or less). I suspect that if the other bidder had a chance to react to your bid, you could still win, but it’s not likely to be by that small amount.
When sniping is done, the sniper wins the auction more often than not. Whether the sniper would have won without sniping I cannot say. I do believe – thanks to the competitive mentality which auctions tend to bring out – that without sniping you would end up paying more. However, I know of no objective way to test this hypothesis that does not involve inventing a time machine so you can snipe an auction once then go back in time and post the identical amount as a proxy bid on the first day. If you can suggest a scientific way of testing this hypothesis I would be very interested in reading it.
By using the available free sniping software, sniping is no more difficult than placing a regular bid. You don’t have to sit at a computer waiting for the auction to end. You just log in, enter the auction number and enter your maximum bid. Then you forget about it. The program does the rest.
But getting back to the back to the OP, this was the question asked:
It is interesting to me to tally up the numbers. The majority of the people who have expressed a definite opinion on snipe versus no snipe are in favor of sniping 13 to 4. (I did not break it down into snipe/low, snipe/high and no snipe as not everyone gave a reply that detailed.)
That said, as has been stated by a number of people on this thread, …snipe or don’t snipe. It’s your choice.
I really don’t understand these pro-sniping posts. If I’m willing to bid $50 on something, I’ll bid. If I get it at $20, cool. If I get it at $37.74, cool. If someone bids $45.78 with 30 seconds left in the auction, cool. If someone bids $52.12 two hours or two minutes or two seconds before the auction ends, well…sucks for me, good for the other bidder. I don’t understand why last-minute bidders think they’ve “put one over” on the proxy bidder, because they haven’t. I bid what I’m willing to pay. If the snipers want to pay more and wait til the last second to do it, that’s their perogative, but they’d have “beat me” regardless of the time of their bid.
Your sample isn’t random. I took a random sample. There’s the difference. Try it.
Bid wars are rare.
As to** The Blonde Bomber** and "
This leads me to a somewhat cynical question… ebay’s proxy system will know my maximum bid (and, I assume, everyone elses’ proxy bid). What is to stop ebay from creating “ghost” accounts, bidding up the price of an item, staying beneath the in-memory proxy bid? How could you prove it? Who would you complain to?"
The FTC or the CA DoJ- eBay dudes would go to jail.
But if you wanna be paranoid- how do you know thta eBay doesn’t get the data from the sniping services as soon as you send it to the service?
Sniping doesn’t prevent shill bidding- shills can use sniping services too.
)
" "As a sniper, i know exactly what everyone’s proxy is, thus i can place my bid to the penny :dubious: "