Really? Even this? Man, I’d be pissed if I lost that over a buck.
sniping, on e-bay, allows me not to show my cards until the last minute - and I also have the abiltiy to say ‘its beyond my personal limite for item X’ - without having to force everyone else to beat ‘me’.
IOW - there are times when you know there will be a bidding war, and I prefer to fire my last, and only shot, in such a way that I am either guaranteed to win or lose, and I don’t have any time to let my emotion get into it. If I bid that max early - others can (if smart) determine my line, and then beat me by the ‘50 cent’ rule - and I really hates that.
The catch is determining where your cutoff is. Ultimately it’s all a question of your relative valuation of winning the item vs. the amount of money you’re willing to spend.
Look at it this way- the ultimate in “pay what you’re absolutely willing to pay” is really the “Buy it Now” button, or going to another online or B&M retailer and just buying the stupid thing outright, if possible. For most items, there is an upper limit on the amount you can/should bid- the retail price of the item. If you have to have something, you’re not going to fuck around with an auction in the first place- you’ll just buy it. But if you’re looking to save a buck, you’ll snipe.
The only place this isn’t the case is on collectible or used stuff where you can’t buy them anymore. In that case, if you HAVE to have something, the best strategy to get it IS (and always will be) to bid your max up front. It’s as close to just buying it outright as you can get.
Sniping is more of a fishing expedition- let’s see if we can exploit the rules of the system to get something for less than its real market value. Nothing wrong with that, but you had better be prepared to not win a fair number of auctions doing that.
Ahhh…NO. My main Ebay interest is collectible antique radios. You need to know the market and a range of top-dollar value but entering a maximum bid early is how you lose by $1 on a $100 item. I use Esnipe for final bids and if I really care I set my snipe price at the point where I’m starting to be concerned about the price. And if I lose I think “Whew! Look at that suckers bid!”. 
My rate is probably 70% wins on collectibles and 90% on general merchandise.
Bending Rules: There is one particular radio seller that ALL experienced collectors - 100’s - know as a weasel, BS artist, and mostly a seller to interior decorators. We all KNOW he shills ALL of his auctions and Ebay doesn’t care. Look up Fiverr.com and search for “auction bidding” sold as a service to any seller who wants to “ensure that they get full value for their item”. :rolleyes:
I love Snipe 70E’s rules and specific techniques. This is first time I’ve seen this much detail written down. I have watched dealers run up bids on neophytes that wanted a specific item. A good reason to hide in the back to bid on anything of real value.
At live in-person auctions I’m often a dick. I watch as 6 people are bidding on something I want. Gradually, as the price rises, one person drops out, then another. Finally the last man standing thinks he’s getting the item. Right before the gavel, I bid. Sometimes the last guy is broken and drops out, other times he’s pissed off and stays in regardless.
There is no rational optimal strategy for auctions. Because the people you are bidding against aren’t rational.
If everybody were rational, things would be a lot simpler. And pigs would fly.
So, you have to plan around the other bidders and their weirdness and such. At a live auction, you might get some idea by sizing them up, how well dressed they are, how they bid on other items, etc. All the while you try to prevent the others from sizing you up.
On eBay, there’s not a lot of that to go on. Hence sniping. At the very least, you give away the minimum amount of information about your strategy.
Bidding your maximum on eBay is a good way to increase the profits of the seller.
I win 75-80 % of the items I snipe on - the other 20% they go way beyond my personal max anyway. ‘Market value’ for some items is what the individual is willing to pay for it - for items where there might only be a couple hundred in existence, if there is any market at all for it, then sniping is the only way to go. As I said earlier, it also helps to prevent the emotions getting the better of you in the war.
Nope, it isn’t. But I don’t care; hopefully we’ll both be bidding on the same item someday. Please bid early. Thanks.
at is the only way to bid. Why would you bid against more than one person??
The OP was not about eBay. It was about auctions of all kinds.
Certainly the particular rules of eBay support the technique of knowing your limit, and sniping that at the last moment.
What’s the optimal technique for an open outcry in-person auction? A sealed bid auction?
As ftg said a couple posts ago, “optimal” in the mathematical sense isn’t possible when your opposition is/are emotional semi-random decision makers.
But what rules of thumb usually drive the best decisions under these conditions?
I say even in an open call auction, the best bet is to do the ‘sniping’ that says let the other opponents bid themselves to their max, then come in as the gavel is falling with yours - same principal applies - granted, there isn’t the same finality with that as there is on e-bay, but it still allows you to decide if you’re going to get the deal you want, or not.
Sealed bid - bid what you’re willing to pay - I don’t see there being any other option there.
Why would you not want other bidders to size you up? I only bid when I am serious. I will not run the bid up on you just for fun. If you out bid me twice then it is going to be yours so if you are trying to run me up for fun you may be stuck.
I thought we were going to be talking about sophisticated techniques. For example suppose Nefario has a rare collectible up for bid at eBay which I expect to go for $2,000 to $3,000. But at the second day of the auction the bidding is only up to $250. I email Nefario and explain to him that I am really interested in the item but because of my sick grandmother I won’t be able to participate. But, if he cancels the auction Now I can pay him a VERY BIG $750, THREE TIMES THE CURRENT BID!!!
Heh. Happened just this week! I started an Ebay listing at $50 for a piece of photographic equipment that restored and working sells for $500-700 but mine may have issues that I don’t understand. In 12 hours I got THREE private offers, one for $65 who instantly became a blocked bidder. I don’t want the risk of dealing with cheap-ass lowballers even if he won the auction. 
This is discussed often in collectors forums. For collectables and rare industrial items on Ebay, many bids reach a plateau and then jump 2X in the last hour or *even final seconds *when the snipers come in. It’s part of being professional; if you don’t do the research to know a reasonable value of an item you’re probably going to be disappointed as a buyer OR seller.
Amen! I once attended a live, Dutch auction held by a computer manufacturer. In a Dutch auction large lots of like merchandise are put up for bid, for instance 50 of the same spec PC. Bidding proceeds as normal, but the high bidder gets however much of the lot they at at the winning price. Others may purchase any remaining at the same price. At this particular auction there was more merchandise than bidders - plenty of PC’s to go around. The rational thing to do would have been for the first bidder to open with the minimum bid and everybody else shut up. Then everyone gets a PC at the minimum price. What actually happened? People were afraid, apparently, that the initial bidder would take the entire lot, leaving none for anyone else, so they bid the prices up to almost retail. I stayed until late in the day when all those idiots had bought their PC’s and gone home, waited until a lot went for a low price and jumped on that deal.
All auction tactics are about exploiting the situation where the seller and/or some of the buyers don’t know the true value of the item being sold. Or, as just above, get carried away & bid dumber than they really are.
When the seller knows and the other buys know there’s no *big *opportunity to exploit. There may still be room to get the item at a price you’re willing to pay depending on the mix of value judgments of the other players.
But ultimately the fun, and the war stories, all come from the event where you were the only participant with a real clue.
Said another way, it’s like playing poker with strangers: Before you sit down, look around the table and locate the patsy. If you can’t find him/her, it’s you. :eek:
If you’re as unintelligent about this stuff as you seem to be, bring it on.
Let’s say you’re billionaire Donald Trump, and you decide that you want that Beanie Baby, and don’t give a shit how much it costs. What’s your best strategy to ensure you win that Beanie Baby? Is it to do some dumb-ass sniping strategy and possibly risk that someone else will outsnipe you at the last second?
Of course not. The best strategy for Trump to maximize the chance that he wins, with no other considerations, is to proxy bid some dollar amount FAR more than the value of the item. Let’s say $50,000 for that Beanie Baby.
He’ll automatically proxy outbid EVERYONE who tries to snipe him or proxy outbid him, unless, of course, Bill Gates has decided to either snipe or proxy bid $50,001 or more.
Shrinking that down to a more normal person level, it means that if you really, really want that Beanie Baby, and you can scrape together $1000 bucks to potentially pay for it with, your best bet is to proxy bid that $1000 on the Beanie Baby.
All that does in terms of Ebay is that you’ll automatically outbid anyone bidding less than $1000, including snipers. It’s not a good way to get a low price on anything, but it’s not supposed to be.
And… doing what you’re suggesting and trying to game the auction by withholding information in hopes of manipulating the price under your maximum amount may work… sometimes, but overall, you can’t guarantee that it’ll work. Again, it’s a matter of trying to get a deal, not to ensure you win the auction.
If you’re trying to actually get a deal on something, then sniping is unquestionably the best way to do that.
No, you are wrong. The best way to ensure you win is to snipe (using an online service) with your maximum bid at the last second to stop other people from bidding up your proxy bid and perhaps passing it. That way you don’t run into another bidding putting in multiple bids to try and outbid you.
I think we may be talking past each other; you guys are fixated on the idea that by proxy bidding, you’re giving up information and potentially driving the price up past your maximum. I understand that.
What I’m saying is that if you’re willing to pay more than the value of the item to ensure that you get it, then sniping isn’t going to do anything any different than sniping at the last minute… except for keeping the price lower, which is a sort of way to try and get a deal, not to ensure you win.
Look at it this way- if the point is to outbid the other guy and damn all other considerations, what’s the best way to make **absolutely **sure that you do that? Taking a last second chance via sniping isn’t a recipe for ensuring anything.
Entering your maximum bid during the final seconds means that your interest in the item is kept a secret till then. Why be a part of the process until the end?