eBay anti-sniper idea

My dad sells and buys guns on gunbroker.com and just told me that if an item gets a bid with less than 10 minutes left in the auction, the system adds 10 minutes automatically. Seems to me sellers could make more money that way! What do you think?

 

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I'd go for it as a seller...but as a buyer, I'd probably go postal at one point in time or another! there's two sides to every coin.....ok that was cheezy!

 

totally against that action. if/when there's 10min left then that should be it. no moving the goalposts after the game has started or resetting the clock.

 

I wouldn't bid. Heritage Auctions tried this approach in 2002 and it failed miserably with coin folk.

 

I don't like that as a bidder C-B-D, but it would be beneficial to a seller. I bid a lot on Steve Hayden's token auctions and he continues his auction on a particular lot until he doesn't get any activity on it for so many minutes. I'd prefer bidding ended at a set time. Bruce

 

Want to beat a sniper bid more!

The reason to I snipe is to advoid the shills and the one increment bidders. Put you're max in and if a sniper beats it then either you miss judged value or didn't want it bad enough.

 

Would it be possible for those who think the seller would realize more to explain this to me? The way I see it, the current ebay paradigm encourages large snipe bids (even nuclear bids) that not only drive up the price to a reasonable level, but have the potential to truly drive them up if two nuclear bids are placed on the same lot. By going to the ten minute extension model you encourage small, single increment bids since there is no tactical advantage to bid high. Also, as time creeps on, you have folks lose interest, forget or have other commitments. All of these would serve to suppress the final bid level.

 

My philosophy is: set your price and bid it.. if I get it for my price, fine; if I do not get it for my price, fine. My price is my price let the bidiots do what they will

 

Since you stand on both sides of the table, may I ask your feelings on this as a buyer? While I suppose that in some cases it is possible this could help your sales total, would you be okay with it when using the same venue to buy your inventory?

 

Heritage still does it for the memorabilia auctions. They add 30 min after each bid, but you're only eligible to bid in the "extra time" if you already logged a bid during the regular auction period. I don't think it's a terrible idea, personally.

I do, however, hate what my local B&M does. They have an auction system where you can "contest" the highest bid. If the bid is contested, the high bidder and the contesting individual are allowed to place a contest bid, with the highest legal bid (meaning the lower bid +10%) will win. The problem with this is that if you aren't informed of the contest system beforehand (which the shop owner doesn't bother with explaining), you automatically will lose the contest, since you likely won't be present to counter-bid against the contested price.

 

You could be right. But my initial thought when my Dad told me about it was that it would benefit the seller. As a seller myself, I can tell you I very rarely see "nuclear" bids on one of my coins, and when I do, I typically end up with a non-paying bidder and end up relisting it. Whereas if I had 2 or 3 bidders in the final minutes driving the price up even in small increments, the extended time would add to my final price and also get more views and potential bidders as the final minutes are extended. Idk. Maybe not. Makes for an interesting discussion, though.

 

OK, add ten minutes. Then add another ten. And another. How far do you take it?
The auction could, theoretically, last for weeks, months, years, decades, etc.

 

I actually think this would harm the seller more than help. My thoughts are from my own reaction to a change like this as a buyer. If Ebay implemented such a change, that's it. I am done with Ebay. The only real advantage Ebay has for me nowadays as a buyer is I can peruse listings at my leisure, set snipes, and know the snipes will be placed when the auction is expiring. If I now know someone can physically camp my auctions I am interested in and either drive up the price incrementally, or win the bid on the next increment by slowly increasing his bid, there is no reason for me to ever bid on Ebay anymore.

I seriously believe it would be the end of Ebay as an auction site if this was implemented. I know it would be from my perspective. With a loss of buyers, very quickly final sell price will drop through the floor. Always remember it is just that one underbidder that set your final price. Lose just a few serious buyers on Ebay and you could see some serious price declines.

 

I always thought this would be a good idea... however, after reading some of the posts above, I've changed my mind. It may have worked back in the "old" days before sniping programs, but now it would be a disaster.

 

It's more in line with how a live auction works. I would be in favor of it, both as a buyer and as a seller.

 

I think FeeBay could easily put an end to this if they wanted to by introducing their own sniping option. In true FeeBay fashion, they could charge for it.

Option A (Current setup): Place a max bid, bid goes into effect immediately.

Option B $0.25 per bid: Place a max bid and enter a date/time you want that bid to be placed up to one second before end of auction.

 

That would almost make sense -- except that you could still "manually snipe" for free. They'd have to impose some sort of advantage for their service.

I guess they could just impose more "jitter" on bids entered manually or through their existing APIs, so that there's an unpredictable delay of five to ten seconds -- something long enough to give human reflexes a chance. It would generate a lot of ill will among bidders, though, and that's something eBay seems extremely reluctant to do. (They'll stomp all over sellers, but buyers still tend to get coddled.)

 

Why not.

Are last minute bids locked out in a live auction or does the auctioneer wait to close the auction when s/he's satosfied that there are no more bids??

 

Absolutely correct.

 

I never had a problem with it either. DLRC does it on their coin auctions. Here is an excerpt from their T&C:

Auction Closing Times. All lots in the sale have a specified closing time which is listed with each lot. However, if any lot receives a bid within 3 minutes of its closing time, 3 minutes will be added to its closing time to allow for further bidding. Bidding will not officially close on a lot until 3 minutes after the last bid is received.