Actually, the point is not that, when sniping, you hide your maximum bid from your opponents - as has been repeatedly mentioned, they wouldn’t get to see that anyway, except by outbidding you.
The point is that when you snipe, you hide all your bidding activity from your competitors; you also hide your interest in the item from your competitors. You do nothing to stir up additional interest, additional bidding activity or determination to win.
This is simply not accurate in my experience. Bid wars are common on the items I personally look at. Very rarely will I see an item go with one bid. If I list the items I am looking at as an example, you will say my sample set isn’t random. It’s as random as anything else. I look at a wide variety of items, from a wide variety of sellers. Unless you are looking at 20 auctions selling the exact same item from the exact same seller, I don’t see how you can say that **lalaith’s ** isn’t random. Using your logic, we can all accuse you of taking a “random” sample to fit your hypothesis too.
Yeah, that sounds right, but is it reality? How exactly would you PROVE it? Let’s say I’m an eBay employee… I have stock options… I have all the motivation in the world to see everything on eBay sell for as much as possible. I create an account, with bogus information, and bid things up to right below a proxy bid. Who would complain? The person that wins is not going to complain, since they won the auction at a price they were comfortable with. No complaint there. The seller is happy because the price was higher than it might have been. No complaint there. And eBay is happy because their fees are increased. No complaint there. And let’s say I do complain… how and to who? How would I prove it? The “shill” bidder and account disappears into cyber space. And quite frankly, I think the DoJ and the FTC have much better things to chase down than someone getting screwed out of $20 on eBay. That assumes, of course, that they have probable cause in the first place.
This could be looked at as some form of insider trading I suppose (using inside information to profit from it), however I don’t think the justice department will be digging into it any time soon. How much money did it cost them to go after Martha Stewart? And that was for real money! Any victims on eBay are individual, and most won’t pursue a bad deal. They will just chalk it up to a bad experience and move on. Scams are everywhere, including on eBay. eBay’s design just makes it easier to scam. eBay has demonstrated over and over that the burden of proof is on the person complaining, and even if I as an angry customer leave negative feedback, the guy that screwed me can do the same! eBay doesn’t like getting into the middle of disputes, so unless the two parties can agree to mutually remove the feedback, there it sticks… damaging an innocent person’s reputation when it’s not warranted.
As I said… my personal experience is what I’m reflecting, and I’ve seen nothing on eBay to change my opinion. I think I did a trememdous amount of legwork for eBay on a more-than-probable shill bidder. After all, the shill bidder only bid on auctions from one seller, their addresses were in the same town, and praise was universal to both. This shill bidder never made a purchase from another seller. EVER. Is this PROOF? No. Big RED FLAG? I think so. eBay did nothing. The questionable seller is now a Power Seller. I am out a few bucks. Do you honestly think eBay cares about me or the power seller that is generating real money for them?
Just because I’m skeptical of the honesty of the **eBay beast ** doesn’t make me paranoid. It makes me keep my eyes open. There are many honest people out there, buyers and sellers. I have had some great experiences with people that have sold me something, it didn’t arrive, and they made things right. I’ve also had bad experiences with shill bidding. So, for me, I limit my purchases to things that are at a value that if I lose the money, it won’t change my life. Sure I may be pissed, but I’m not naive enough to think that if I bid $10K on a picture of a car, I might not get screwed. As eBay has grown, the fraud has grown. It always falls back to caveat emptor (let the **BUYER ** beware). eBay? They just provide the forum with which you can conduct your business. They walk away clean.
Do I think eBay employees are all out there shill bidding? Of course not. If it was an eBay-sponsored policy, it would leak out eventually. I just asked how you as a private bidder could actually *prove * it. However, I think eBay has VERY LITTLE motivation to stop the practice of shill bidding. In fact, I think they turn a blind eye to it. After all, unless the complaining turns into a roar that will cause people to go to other auction sites, they are making money by shill bidding. They don’t care WHO buys the stuff. They just want their money after the sale is made.
This makes no sense. If you were truly shill bidding, you would not be sniping. Shill bidding is meant to drive the price up, not win an auction at the end. Sure a shill bidder can use a sniping program. But he/she is an idiot unless they know for sure that my sniping bid is higher than their shill bid. That’s just not the way it works (unless, of course, my sniping program is forwarding my maximum price to the shill bidder). My sniping program also allows me to cancel my bid at any time, so if I decide at the last moment to cancel, the shill bid will win his own auction. Not exactly the intended result of the shill bidder, although I’m sure it has happened. But to keep things above board, the shill bidder/auction owner will pay their eBay fees as if the item was actually sold. eBay wins again! eBay **ALWAYS ** wins. I’m not angry. I wish I had thought of the business model.
So, to sum up… sniping is the ONLY way to go for a buyer. If I bid $40 on an item that is selling for $10, and there are no bids on it, then I have a good chance of winning it at $10. If I bid with 5 seconds to go, the odds of someone seeing it and reacting in time are minimal. If I bid $40 with 3 days to go, it is true that the auction will show 1 bid at $10. But if someone stumbles onto this item in the three days before the auction is over and says “Hey, that’s worth $11 to me, but I don’t care if I win it or not”, and bids $11, they are immediately outbid. They move on, and I have to pay $12 dollars. Not a bid deal, but it adds up. And those folks out there “nibbling” cost me money when I don’t snipe. Sniping benefits everyone but the seller and the folks not sniping. But eBay benefits, which is why they allow it in the first place. eBay would not permit sniping if they didn’t benefit from it.
Damn, I wish I bought stock in eBay.
OK, since you bank on your sample so much to justify your reasoning, I did take a “random sample.” Did this between 9:30am and 10:30am PT today. Yeah, it’s kind of a slow day.
First of all, there are not 37 eBay categories, only 35. So I’m already suspicious about your methodology or if you really did do a sample. In any case, within each category I chose two subcategories at random (not just the first subcategory as you did) using a table of random numbers. Within each subcategory I chose the auction that is the closest to ending and had at least one bid (as you did). I consider a bid war as an auction with at least two different bidders who had bid at least twice. Of the 70 random auctions, 19 had bid wars. I also notice among the auctions without bid wars, at least 2 had a single nibbler who bid up the price before giving up. Note that the bid war count might be understated because the auctions have not ended. So my results show 27% had bid wars and 30% had a bid war or a nibbler. These are exactly the situations that snipers want to avoid. I do agree that sniping is useless if: (1) everyone bids just once with their maximum bid, and (2) everyone arrives at their maximum bid independent of the on-going auction. I just don’t believe that either of these conditions exist in the eBay universe. Final disclaimer: I don’t consider my sample as necessarily a valid stratified random sample because the sample sizes should vary by subcategory. I just wanted to see how my results would jive with those already posted, and they don’t.
Uh hunh.
So you’re watching this auction for an item for which you’re willing to pay $40, but don’t bid. Someone stumbles onto the item in the three days before the auction is over and says “Hey, that’s worth $11 to me, but I don’t care if I win it or not”, and bids $11, so instead of buying it for the $10 you’ll only pay…wait, you’re still going to pay more than $11 whether you snipe it or put in a proxy bid.
Another poster defined it as an auction with at least 10 bids (and two different bidders who had bid at least twice, sure)- (see post 26). So, as I said before, that’s the definition we used. Thus, since you used a different definition of “bid war”, you got different results. If you can re-do with that definition, I’d be interested.
Of course, since neither of us used a very large sample (which I have conceded several times), we could both run another random sample and get different numbers.
Although I think that with the “10+ bid” definition of “bid war” (most of which I saw were really “nibblers” not “real” bid wars) you’d have a lower number, I wouldn’t be suprised if you did run a random sample and came up with a different result than I did- neither sample is really large enough.
However, do note- you came up with only 27%. Everyone else here- based upon NOT using a random sample- insisted it was much, much higher. Even if your number is closer to reality than mine- it’s still only about 1/4 of the auctions.
But thank you for the reasoned response, and the good try at a random sample. (I don’t consider mine any better than a “good try” either). 
And if that was the way every auction happened, then that would be that. We are discussing what happens if someone sees more bids on an item and thinks it indicates more value than first thought or if someone bidding on an item is outbid and decides its worth more now that someone is bidding against them.
Exactly. If everyone played fair, and no sniping was allowed, then the eBay world would be a better place. It’s not. So, sniping is the only way to give yourself a chance to win something you truly want at the highest price you are willing to pay, without giving into the temptation of bidding a few bucks more or get into a bidding war. In my example, with 3 days left, and a new price of $11, maybe someone else stumbles onto it and bids $15. Whatever the current bid is, I can decide if it’s worth it to me to try to win it with a snipe. If I lose, so be it. But if I win with a snipe, I more often than not save a few bucks, save my time (the snipe program runs automatically without me having to sit at the computer), and stay out of bidding wars. All good things.
With that said, I hope you all don’t snipe, as it will make my life easier. And save me money. When I tried to play fair, I’d lose to a sniper, get irritated, and have to start another search. Sniping removed my stress. I can still lose, but if a sniper bids $50 more than me, I never worry about it. When sniping became popular, it forced just about everyone to snipe. Again, this makes eBay happy. The only person it really impacts is the seller, but they can always roll the dice and shill bid their product to a level that will guarantee them a profit.
This thread asks about ebay bidding strategy. IMHO, sniping is the only way. Find a site where sniping is not allowed and the fees are more reasonable, please post the link. But eBay’s user base is so wide, I just don’t see another site making inroads. I looked at yahoo’s auction site yesterday, and there really isn’t much out there. As a buyer, my chances of finding what I want on eBay forces me to go there.
Ahhhh, this thread is giving me a headache, because no one seems to be understanding each other. Let me take a stab:
In DrDeth’s philosophy, all people act rationally, and it works like everyone dropping a secret bid into a hat. All the bids at the end are read, and whoever values the item the most - the person that has the highest bid - wins the auction. The timing is unimportant - the only consideration is the person with the highest bid.
The problem with this is that people don’t always act rationally.
Now, it would make sense for everyone to simply bid their max bid, and let it go, if everyone else did the same… if that were the case, then there would be no reason to snipe.
However, there are idiots out there, so let’s give an example:
Widget opens with a $10 minimum bid. You decide $50 is the most you’ll spend on it, so as soon as you see it, you bid $50, and let the proxy bidding system do the work. So you are the current leader, with a bid of $10.
Well, some other idiot is also interested in this item. He’s not sure what he wants his maximum to be, so he just decides to take the lead. He bets $20. Well, since your proxy bidding will outbid him, you now have the lead in the auction at $21. He decides he’s willing to go a little further, and bets $35.
Since your maximum is $50, the proxy bidder ups your bid to $36. The second bidder decides he doesn’t want to pay more than that, so he gives up.
End result: You win the item for $36.
Now let’s say you snipe it.
The same guy puts his $20 maximum in, and it goes unchallenged, so he now leads the bidding at $10, and goes unchallenged. He sees no reason to up his maximum, because he’s winning. You come in at the last second and bid your $50. Your proxy bidder bids up to the total of $21, and you take the auction.
By sniping, you took the same item at $21 rather than $36, all because your opponent bidder didn’t use what we’d consider the rational strategy.
Btw, I was an anti-sniper, never giving all that much thought to it, until reading this thread, and I now see the value in sniping.
There’s still nothing wrong with just putting in your max bid and forgetting about it - it requires less effort and time, and that might be worth it to you - but you can often save money by sniping by exploiting the irrational behavior of others.
If this post doesn’t clear things up, then let’s all just give up. 
10 bids or more → percentage drops to 19%
The Blonde Bomber and SenorBeef: We’re in agreement that the eBay universe makes sniping the strategy for more consistent winning. DrDeth has one valid point – that early proxy bidders do not have to win by the bid increment, and since snipers are not early bidders by definition, they have that disadvantage. However, for a sniper to lose because of this is rare. It has happened to me, maybe 3 times in about 700 auctions. The other risk that a sniper takes is the possible outage in the sniping service or eBay at the end of the auction, but this is even rarer. For me, just once in all my ~700 auctions.
You know, somehow dudes here just can’t read my posts. I specifically have said several times that dudes don’t always act rationally- I even went so far as to call “nibbling” “an idiot strategy by newbies”. (And, just to say it one more time- I don’t hate sniping and have nothing against sniping- it even can- on rare occasions- be the best strategy. It’s just that it isn’t superior overall to a simple one time proxy bid.).
Your example is nice, but it assumes only two people in the entire eBay world- you the sniper, and an idiot newbie nibbler. Nibblers are rare. Auctions where it’s only the nibbler (and a “secret sniper”) are thus even more rare. If I was the proxy bidder in that auction, with that nibbler- then the sniper wouldn’t save anything- he likely wouldn’t win. If he did win, he’d win because his bid was higher than my (still secret) Proxy. Now, in the case of an aucion with just a “naif nibbler” and a “secret sniper”- then certainly sniping would save money. But it would be very hard to ID a nibbler from his single bid.
Most dudes snipe for one reason and one reason only- it makes them think they have some “trick”. They think that “getting their bid in in the last second*” is “a beautiful thing”. They know- and glorify- in the fact that sniping is considered rude by many. They feel they MUST justify their action by loudly trumpeting their way of bidding as the very best, and every other way as stupid. If someone even says that sniping “isn’t all that an a side of fries” they start personal attacks and mis-interpreting that dudes posts. This thread is an excellent example. If you want a better example, go onto one of the eBay boards where if you dare to question sniping the flames will be high and fierce, and the claims even more outrageous.
Hey- snipe if you want to. It’s more work, it can cost you $$, and it only helps in a very small % of the auctions. But- it can help in that small %, and some have fun doing it.
I suspect that we are like the blind men examining the elephant. I have little doubt that what each person is saying is true of his own experience, but eBay is just so big that these different experiences don’t agree much at all.
DrDeth, with all due respect, your experience doesn’t line up with mine at all. Most of the auctions I’ve participated in have had nibblers, and because much of what I buy falls in the gray area with respect to value that I mentioned in a previous post, I am generally there at the end of the auction. I have been successfully outbid by a sniper at the last second, when I thought I had the item, and done the same to others. Had I followed your advice and just bid a reasonable maximum price, I probably would have been outbid by a few bucks. Had I made an unreasonably high bid (hoping it would never go that high), I risked actually having to pay that much. Neither is an attractive option to me.
I don’t glorify sniping or think it’s a cool trick. It is a practice that works for me, because, unlike you, apparently, I generally can’t set a hard top price for the items I’m buying and don’t always have the option of waiting for the next one to come along. Sniping works, as many others have said, because it hides the fact of my interest and leaves others no time to react when my level of interest is finally disclosed.
It is ironic that you would say that. You have been the only one in this thread misquoting folks.
Frankly, I don’t think you get it. Sniping is the best approach in all cases. (where sniping is a reasonable option)
No matter what,** sniping will provide the best edge overall.** There is the chance that a sniper will end up in a dead tie. In that case, the sniper loses. The smartest snipers bid in odd increments—what’s the chance a sniping bid of $52.12 ending up in a dead tie?
There is also the risk of the ISP not being able to respond in the final seconds.
Those two potential downside risks must be balanced against the real savings that come from not bidding up an item—the benefit of keeping your presence as a bidder, as well as your high proxy bid, concealed as late as possible----and paying a lower price as as result.
Sniping doesn’t guarantee a victory. It doesn’t “steal” an auction. But it will consistently provide a lower purchasing price. (although certainly not always)
You just don’t get it dude. It doesn’t make any difference. There is almost no real benefit from early proxy bidding. Almost every sniper ignores his ISP going down, or the risk of a tie. They are insignificant risks.
It is important to note that a smart sniper is a proxy bidder. A smart sniper doesn’t try to pinpoint what price he thinks will win the auction. He doesn’t care what you “secret” high proxy bid is.
He sees a current bid that is substantially lower than what he is willing to pay. He doesn’t want tp tip his hand to you—the early proxy bidder—and give you and the other bidders an opportunity to respond. He watches, and stays out of sight. If the price difference is still there with 3 minutes to go, he does the exact same thing that you do. He puts in one bid, that represents his highest bid, and he lets the proxy system work it out.
That’s nonsense. Snipers snipe because it saves money. There are some who would believe that it is perfectly fine to pay $37.74, even though they could have paid $20, simply because they were ultimately willing to pay $50.
Snipers hue to the maxim, “A penney saved is a penney earned.” That 88% (!) difference between $20 and $37.74 is significant to them.
They’re sniping to keep their 17 bucks—and the majority of the time, they do.
More nonsense. No one has attacked you. I consider sniping to be an ethical, legitimate form of bidding. If someone doesn’t know how to bid, that’s their problem. If they put in an early proxy bid, that was unreasonably low, who’s fooling who? The early proxy bidder is just as likely to hope that he’s getting a “steal”–a bargain.
If I see an auction that is at $50, and I know it is worth $100—I will snipe, at $100!
Read it again: If an item is worth $100, I will snipe at $100! If the current high bidder’s “secret” bid is $61—and I get it at $62, who’s the one trying to steal the auction?! The fact is, I put my whole $100 at risk; through proxy bidding I would have paid the whole $100 if the current high bidders secret high bid was $99.
IOW, If I stole an item for $62, that was worth $100, than I stole it from a guy who was trying to steal it for $61!! If I stole,I stole from a thief.
Early proxy bidders should have no fear or frustration about snipers. The fact is however, many early proxy bidders think they can low ball a proxy bid and chew their fingernails till the last second. If the early proxy bidders consistently put in full value bids there would be little sniping. But snipers have learned that the current high bid often doesn’t have much legs left—and most often not enough to close to the item’s real value. Snipers flush out poor bids.
In what ways—in the aggregate—can sniping cost money?
See what I mean? One hour is more than enough time to raise the current high bid, even if the sniper prevails. I’m not trying to be snarky, but I don’t think you understand how it all works.
Or…you’re an ebay employee…
Or…You’re the best sniper in the whole world…
You can have the last word; I swear. We’re sniping dead horses here.
It doesn’t have to be an exact to the penny tie- you also have to beat the “bid increment”.
And this example is pulled out of thin air. I could make up an example where I save a hundred dollars by Proxy bidding. So?
Sniping Services do charge- that’s how it can cost you money. Now, maybe you have a free service or something, and that’s great- but some DO charge.
Sure, an hour CAN be long enough to raise the current bid. But the chances are very slim.
Oh, and as I have said before- there is one large benefit from an early Proxy bid. There is a certain type of eBay buyer (called “lowballers”) that if they see an auction with no bids, a low starting bid, and not too long to go- they’ll place a “lowball” bid. They rarely do so if they see an experienced bidder there with a Proxy bid.
But that brings up an “out of thin air” example of how Proxy bidding can save money. Ms Lowballer cruises by the auction. There’s an item with a retail value of around $75, and an eBay “FMV” of around $50. There’s a minimum bid of $1 and no bid currently. What Ms Lowballer doesn’t know is that Mr Sniper has already placed his snipe at $41.97. So, she places a “spec” bid of $25 to hopefully get a lowball win. Now, if she hadn’t have placed that Lowball bid- then Mr Sniper would win at a fraction over $1. But since she saw a chance to lowball it, it cost Mr Sniper $24. Common? No. But it happens. In my early days, I used to Lowball quite a bit. I still do once in a great while.
Sure- a “nibbler” will cost an early Proxy bidder money. And, if there is JUST the nibbler and Mr Sniper, then Mr Sniper will save nice bucks. But if there’s a nibbler *and * a Proxy bidder- then the sniper doesn’t save anything. (This is why we all hate nibblers- they don’t do anyone- even themselves- any good. And “bid wars” are bad for everyone but the Seller!)
So sure- sometimes sniping will save you bucks. Often it won’t. But now I am accused of being an eBay shill just because I won’t agree that sniping is “super great!!!”.
Isn’t a “lowballer” then just a sniper who places low bids? 
Well, not the way I have heard it. A “sniper” put,s his bid in at the very last moment. A “lowballer” will come by anytime in the last day or so. A sniper could snipe in a lowball bid, of course!
Sellers hate lowballers. They love bidding wars. They are so-so about snipers- some will say they cost them $$ (and, if a sniper prevents a biding war, the seller would be right). OTOH, some are desperately relieved to see those bids come rolling in at the last minute.
EBay itself seems to be Ok with snipers.
A sniper might fail to start a bidding war (which is why the tactic is used by some it would seem) but would hardly prevent one.
EBay would really be ok with anyone who bids, the more the merrier 
You’re obsessed with assigning snipers with a motive that probably applies in some cases but certainly not all. I certainly laid out a rational case for sniping that has nothing to do with feeling like you have a special trick, or anything like that.
Hey, I agreed with you when I started the thread - I didn’t really see any benefit to sniping at all, but the rational views of sniper advocates in the thread has convinced me.
In any case, I still just do a max bid and forget about it most of the time. I don’t want the extra hassle of coordinating a last second snipe.
But it’s clear you have an agenda to paint snipers with a certain mentality and you’re not going to accept anything else.
Also, yahoo auctions uses a system whereby a bid at the end extends the auction for 2 minutes. Seems like a more reasonable system, actually resembling a real auction.
Sorry for 3 posts in a row, but I just thought of a simple way to explain this:
Let’s say someone irrationally/non-optimally/whatever made a bid just to take the current lead, but did not bid the maximum they’re willing to pay.
Let’s say, hypothetically, you were in control of this auction. You can choose to make your bid and then:
A) Close the auction so that your bid is the last bid. No one else has a chance to bid.
B) Leave the auction open, so that anyone who wishes can make counter-bids, and, should they not win the auction, drive up the final price.
Sniping is choosing A. Not leaving them the time to react, to not counterbid. It’s that simple. It may not be a benefit in every single case, but very often it will be.