# Please explain the purpose of "sniping" (ebay) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 1, 2010, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-the-purpose-of-sniping-ebay/552270 "2010-09-01T16:10:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![Ruminator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Ruminator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruminator)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2010, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-the-purpose-of-sniping-ebay/552270/261 "2010-12-05T15:51:11Z")
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:260, topic:552270”] I think the same points have been made, remade, rephrased, repeated, reiterated, rehashed, and restated for the last 100 or more posts. We’re long past the point where anybody’s mind is going to be changed. [/QUOTE] Sorry about that. I’m bowing out of this one now. **Mijin** can have the last word and hopefully not get “snipered” with someone else’s followup post. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2010, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-the-purpose-of-sniping-ebay/552270/262 "2010-12-05T15:52:16Z")
I have just now added another reason to snipe. It really ticks off emotional purchasers on eBay, and causes them to try to rationalize their emotional response in very complex and amusing pseudo-mathematical ways. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2010, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-the-purpose-of-sniping-ebay/552270/263 "2010-12-05T16:29:11Z")
Well I tried to bow out and “agree to disagree” many posts ago. The amusing thing from my POV is how much ground has been conceded to me but yet the conclusion must be wrong because, dammit, _everyone knows_ that only rubes can get sniped. ---
**Author:** ![Saganist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Saganist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saganist)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2010, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-the-purpose-of-sniping-ebay/552270/264 "2010-12-05T18:16:16Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Of course this analogy is different enough to an auction situation to be meaningless. Well, at least you didn’t say “of course it’s rational to want to add just 2 dollars!” > [@](#): > > There’s a static price (at least the participant believes that there is), no other participants, and the two cards are very misleadingly representing a _single_ bid in the closing lines of the description. Not misleadingly, that _is_ the equivalent of the outbid. The point was that your situation in both cases is equivalent: 1. you’ve reached a threshold (auction: what you put down as your “max bid”, game: price before you give up) 2. the “static price = amount you’ve been outbidded by” is somewhere unknown above your threshold. Still seems to me that you’re suggesting a rational player of the game would want to increase his amount by a trivial amount and then quit. > [@Mijin](#): > > I’m saying that in scenario 2 there is a higher probability that the max bid is $4.82. That’s because in scenario 1 there is nothing significant about the price $4.82…I have no reason to suppose someone would bid that amount. > > In scenario 2 however, $4.82 has significance: it is the amount that someone who simply typed in the minimum would bid. I suspect that a proportion of eBayers routinely do this, making the probability greater than in scenario 1. I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure this is the first time after all these posts that you’ve presented the idea that snipers have a greater likelihood of only adding a single increment. If that’s what you believe, then I understand your gripe against sniping. Of course that still makes no sense to me, since it means you’re sitting there waiting for the auction to end, your max-bid _equal_ to the current bid, and terrified some guy is going to step in at the last second and steal it by only a dollar. Obviously, as many (hundreds) of posts here indicate, this implies a rational behavior means increase your max bid until you no longer feel terrified of losing by a dollar. But whatever, you can count me in too as getting tired of this unproductive back and forth. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2010, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-the-purpose-of-sniping-ebay/552270/265 "2010-12-05T20:14:31Z")
> [@Saganist](#): > > I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure this is the first time after all these posts that you’ve presented the idea that snipers have a greater likelihood of only adding a single increment. No, I’m not saying that (how many times have I had to say _that_ in this thread)? For my point to carry, all that there needs to be is some proportion of snipers that _do_ come in at the minimum bid. The proportion can be the same (and we may as well begin with the assumption that it _is_ the same) as among the general bidding population. > [@](#): > > If that’s what you believe, then I understand your gripe against sniping. Thank you. However, I’m sure if I were to say that “rational bidders can be sniped”, you’d object and we’d be back to the start again. That seems to be the inflammatory sentence. > [@](#): > > Of course that still makes no sense to me, since it means you’re sitting there waiting for the auction to end, your max-bid _equal_ to the current bid, and terrified some guy is going to step in at the last second and steal it by only a dollar. Obviously, as many (hundreds) of posts here indicate, this implies a rational behavior means increase your max bid until you no longer feel terrified of losing by a dollar. _And that threshold is at U_. The point at which I don’t care about losing by a negligable amount is the point at which the price is greater than the utility of the item to me. This is not an amount that I routinely wish to bid. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2010, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-the-purpose-of-sniping-ebay/552270/266 "2010-12-05T21:49:17Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > […] > Thank you. > However, I’m sure if I were to say that “rational bidders can be sniped”, you’d object and we’d be back to the start again. > That seems to be the inflammatory sentence. No, absolutely wrong. Rational bidders get sniped all the time. All it takes is one other bidder feeling the item is worth more. Then it doesn’t matter how late in the auction the bid is placed, or how early in the cycle that offered value was decided, the higher offer wins. What rational bidders do not do is complain about it as if it were the fault of the person who won the auction. We recognize that we lost because we did not bid enough, not because someone bid after we did. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2010, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-the-purpose-of-sniping-ebay/552270/267 "2010-12-06T00:29:37Z")
**DrFidelius** , we are clearly not talking about the case of being trivially outbid. I assume your answer to the OP would not be “there’s no point to sniping; it’s just a bid that’s made late”. The canonical answer is “It’s to block emotional bidders from getting into a bidding war, or exploit the fact that some people foolishly bid less than they’re really willing to pay”, no? * * * Of all the threads I’ve posted on, this one has really surprised me. I don’t think my logic is very complicated at all, and indeed the posters here have followed my logic every step of the way, but refuse to accept its conclusion. I can only put it down to the fact that most of the contributors here apparently use sniping software. It seems it’s important for them to preserve a image of what sniping is and why it is effective. They would not be comfortable with the notion that they are exploiting a loophole. \ Indeed we might say that it is _they_ who are the emotional ones… ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2010, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-the-purpose-of-sniping-ebay/552270/268 "2010-12-06T01:03:46Z")
That’s not the “point” to sniping, that is the \*definition \*of sniping. Placing your bid as late in the auction as possible to help keep people who do reactive bidding from raising the price. What do \*you \*think “sniping” is? It also saves me time and effort since I don’t bother participating in any auction where the price has gone up too high before the end. (I do not use a program, I manually enter a bid as close to close as I can. A manual snipe in the last second earns more cool points.) ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2010, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-the-purpose-of-sniping-ebay/552270/269 "2010-12-06T01:37:14Z")
Sniping makes the most sense. Set a price for what you want. In the last seconds your bid up to that price will be entered. Sure makes more sense in entering into a nonsensical competitive situation which amounts to ball bragging as to who can pay the most. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2010, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-the-purpose-of-sniping-ebay/552270/270 "2010-12-06T12:58:39Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > That’s not the “point” to sniping, that is the \*definition \*of sniping. Placing your bid as late in the auction as possible to help keep people who do reactive bidding from raising the price. > > What do you think “sniping” is? You have to try to disagree with _everything I say_, don’t you? The formal definition of auction sniping is the process of bidding as late as possible such that it is not possible for other bidders (or indeed, the sniper), to enter another bid. Most dictionaries and wiki use this definition. However some definitions (usually informal ones), may include the reasons why someone might bidsnipe. Use whichever definition you like. However, I am not incorrect for using the more formal definition. And…this has little bearing on the discussion. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2010, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-the-purpose-of-sniping-ebay/552270/271 "2010-12-06T13:28:22Z")
No, I really only ask for further clarification when someone introduces judgemental terms (such as "rubes’ or “foolishly”) into a discussion of a purchasing decision. There is only one reason to bid late in an eBay auction. That is the same reason anyone has to try to purchase anything on eBay - to buy a given item for as little as possible. There is no reason to personalize the transaction. Neither I nor you have any way of know whether the other bidders were low bids because they bid less than they were willing to actually pay, or because they were actually willing to pay less than the winner. The intentions or the emotional state of the bidder is irrelevant to whether they have the highest bid in at the end of the auction. As the result is based upon who has the highest bid in at a designated time, it is logical to place your maximum offer in as late in the life of the auction as possible. There is no moral or ethical dimension to this. There is no reason at all to hold those who understand the mechanics of the system in comtempt if they use this knowledge to maximize their potential return. There is no point in complaining that no one has a chance to react when all agents are working under the same limitations. And the only answer to a statement that a given bidder was willing and able to bid higher but chose not to must be “Too bad, maybe next time you will show that you learned something.” ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2010, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-the-purpose-of-sniping-ebay/552270/272 "2010-12-06T15:58:10Z")
**DrFidelius** , of all the posters in this thread you are the one who has bothered the least to actually engage in anything that is being said. Your very first response ignored what I was saying at the time, and every response since then has pretty much been a cut and paste. And for the record, I do not hold snipers in contempt; I’ve said that numerous times already. If anyone annoys me it is people that are convinced that they have a refutation for my theory when they plainly have not read it or have not tried to understand it. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2010, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-the-purpose-of-sniping-ebay/552270/273 "2010-12-07T23:05:44Z")
Mijin, One thing that would help me is a concrete example of a Ebay bidding situation in which a manual bidding increase system does better than a bid U-1 and forget strategy in that it allows you to either 1. getting the product for a lower price than otherwise, or 2. win auctions for a value less than U that you might otherwise lose. Ideally this scenario should include explicit (concealed to you as a bidder, but revealed to us the analyzer) bids by your opponent. You did that somewhat in post #257, but it appears that the difference is less in the bidding system than it is in the fact that in one case the bidding started at $4 and in the other the bidding started at $4.80. But perhaps I misunderstand the scenarios. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2010, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-the-purpose-of-sniping-ebay/552270/274 "2010-12-07T23:17:17Z")
I missed the edit window, but should add a 3rd possible utility you could show, that given your arguments seems more in the direction you are thinking of. 1. Provides information that can be used by you to determine the item’s worth such that the information can be used in a useful way to decide that one should not buy an item even if though the current bid is less than U-1, but that under a different oppenent scenario might result in the correct choice of bidding U-1. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2010, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-the-purpose-of-sniping-ebay/552270/275 "2010-12-08T00:23:34Z")
Ok, I’ll have a go at cooking up such a scenario, but let me try something first, as I think I finally have a nice, neat way of putting it. Just bear with me, one last, final hypothetical. Ok? 1.) Let’s say that you have a magic power that means that whenever an eBay auction finishes you will know what the top bid was, and you can win the item merely by _matching_ it. This power would give you an advantage, no? You’d have the advantage of winning an item merely by _matching_ someone else’s bid, and you’d have the advantage of being able to select auctions that finished at a low price (rather than specutively bidding). 2.) Now let’s alter the scenario so that instead of matching an existing bid, you have to go over it, but by an absurd token sum: let’s say 1/10th of a penny. This hasn’t changed the picture a lot, as most people would consider it effectively the same price. It would be small comfort for someone outbid by you, for someone to say “Why didn’t you bid high enough that you wouldn’t care being outbid by 1/10th of a penny?”: because there is no such point. A person would feel just like in Scenario 1: outbid by (effectively) the same price. 3.) So now we come to the real-world sniper scenario. Real-world increments are greater than 1/10th of a penny, but that doesn’t alter the _logic_ of the situation: if one person can reasonably feel that 1/10th of a penny is a token sum, then another person may reasonably feel that 1\_bid\_increment is a token sum for them. And the real-world sniper of course doesn’t know what the maximum bid is, but _he can act as though he does_, and lose nothing by trying: he will simply be auto-outbid if he is wrong. This is coupled with the advantage mentioned earlier, which is attached to all late bidding, of being able to pick promising auctions (or rather, exclude pricey auctions from our consideration). ---
**Author:** ![bizerta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@bizerta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bizerta)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2010, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-the-purpose-of-sniping-ebay/552270/276 "2010-12-08T01:35:58Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > … Just bear with me, one last, final hypothetical. Ok? … This is your fourth or fifth “last post” on the subject, but you keep coming back and re-hashing the same thing whenever someone responds. ---
**Author:** ![Saganist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Saganist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saganist)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2010, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-the-purpose-of-sniping-ebay/552270/277 "2010-12-08T01:57:28Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > And the real-world sniper of course doesn’t know what the maximum bid is, but _he can act as though he does_, and lose nothing by trying: he will simply be auto-outbid if he is wrong. Which is exactly why sniping is fair. Do you really not see that you spent an entire post describing a scenario that is _not_ ebay, only to have this sentence undermine your entire position? A sniper gets no advantage by pretending to know your maximum bid. Even if all he’s doing is trying to win by bidding one increment over the current bid, that’s still perfectly fair and if he wins it’ll be because the current high bidder was acting irrationally enough to have their max bid _equal_ the current bid and still be willing to pay more. Remember, this is completely independent of all that losing by one increment and maximum amount to pay stuff. The root reason sniping is fair is because ebay does not tell you what maximum bids are. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2010, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-the-purpose-of-sniping-ebay/552270/278 "2010-12-08T02:35:49Z")
> [@bizerta](#): > > This is your fourth or fifth “last post” on the subject, but you keep coming back and re-hashing the same thing whenever someone responds. Well people keep saying “Oh, so you’re saying \…”, so I keep trying to explain my point differently. But you’re right **bizerta** , and as I’m quite satisfied that my post #275 puts my point as well as it can be, so I’m definitely out this time (on one of the longest threads I’ve seen in GQ). ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2010, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-the-purpose-of-sniping-ebay/552270/279 "2010-12-08T15:14:17Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Ok, I’ll have a go at cooking up such a scenario, but let me try something first, as I think I finally have a nice, neat way of putting it. Just bear with me, one last, final hypothetical. Ok? > > 1.) Let’s say that you have a magic power that means that whenever an eBay auction finishes you will know what the top bid was, and you can win the item merely by _matching_ it. This power would give you an advantage, no? > You’d have the advantage of winning an item merely by _matching_ someone else’s bid, and you’d have the advantage of being able to select auctions that finished at a low price (rather than specutively bidding). > > 2.) Now let’s alter the scenario so that instead of matching an existing bid, you have to go over it, but by an absurd token sum: let’s say 1/10th of a penny. > This hasn’t changed the picture a lot, as most people would consider it effectively the same price. > It would be small comfort for someone outbid by you, for someone to say “Why didn’t you bid high enough that you wouldn’t care being outbid by 1/10th of a penny?”: because there is no such point. A person would feel just like in Scenario 1: outbid by (effectively) the same price. > > 3.) So now we come to the real-world sniper scenario. > Real-world increments are greater than 1/10th of a penny, but that doesn’t alter the _logic_ of the situation: if one person can reasonably feel that 1/10th of a penny is a token sum, then another person may reasonably feel that 1\_bid\_increment is a token sum for them. > And the real-world sniper of course doesn’t know what the maximum bid is, but _he can act as though he does_, and lose nothing by trying: he will simply be auto-outbid if he is wrong. > This is coupled with the advantage mentioned earlier, which is attached to all late bidding, of being able to pick promising auctions (or rather, exclude pricey auctions from our consideration). But in lines 1 and 2, isn’t that the actual ebay scenario, with an early high bid. By making a bid higher than the next highest bid, you have effectively seen what that bid was and added 0.1 cents (one bid increment) to it. Of course if the next highest bid is in fact higher than you are willing to pay, you don’t actually see the final bid, but who cares because it was out of your range anyway (probably by significantly more than 1 bid increment). I guess I did think of one scenario in which a creeper might beat out a bid and forget bidder. That is when he is up against another creeper, and he gets the last of the alternating increment bids before time runs out. But under that circumstance his behavior and advantage is really the same as a sniper. ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2010, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-the-purpose-of-sniping-ebay/552270/280 "2010-12-08T16:20:42Z")
> [@TerpBE](#): > > Imagine if you’re buying something at would be willing to pay $1,000 for it. Then somebody buys it for $1,000.01. In hindsight ,would it have really destroyed you to pay that extra penny? Even though you may have considered $1,000 to be your upper limit, most people probably wouldn’t be upset paying a penny or a quarter more. It’s nice to have more than a second or two to reconsider just how high you’re willing to set your “upper limit”. > > It works the other way too. Sometimes you may bid $1,000, but with 10 seconds left the bid is still only at $500. You think you’re getting a great deal, until you see at the last second that somebody else bumped your bid up to $975. Sure it’s still within what you said you’re willing to pay, but it sucks to see a great deal disappear in front of your eyes. Things may have changed because this was several years ago. I went through a time where I used Ebay many times over a few months. I became convinced that the owner of the item had access to your maximum bid and, right before the end of the auction, would increase it to right at or below your maximim bid. This way they don’t ‘win’ their own item but get the maximum amount out of you. I then started refusing to put in my max bid but would watch near the end of the auction. The difference was dramatic…I was getting the items at a much lower price. I sent a complaint to Ebay and they responded that there was no way the supplier could see my max bid. I wasn’t convinced and so started playing around with other auctions. Sure enough, I could play around and be able to up people’s bids without actually winning myself. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-the-purpose-of-sniping-ebay/552270.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-the-purpose-of-sniping-ebay/552270.md?page=15)