eBay anti-sniper idea

A Possible Winning Strategy?

Although this may be a A Possible Winning Strategy, I've tried sites with both options, and as some have said, a winning site with this option will probably realize lower net fees, while some sellers may benefit.

You can try a site as eBid which has the automatic time extension feature to determine whether this feature is beneficial to you. What would you use as a comparative standard for success as buying and selling parameters vary significantly between auction venues?

I personally wouldn't bid on an auction with that feature because I'm a relative "mega-bidder" who wins the majority of auctions where I've placed "snipe" bids. I sell in different venues than where I normally purchase. If you offer normally desirable commodities at a fair market price, and have fair "Golden Rule" terms, you generally will be successful. If your idea is to always have a net profit sale, selling items you like, without frustration and remembrance of the buyers value, you'll probably never realize SUCCESS.

Just my humble experience as a multi-decade seller, realizing 100% positive feedback while receiving an average positive return on efforts. :thumb:

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

I hate it when I'm interested in an item, put up an offer, and then am outbid by $0.50 at the very last second. It's really annoying and Ebay should do something about it. It makes me less interested in bidding on items for sale on Ebay.

Adding time for last minute/second bids would be a good deterrent to sniping.

 

and that is exactly what happens

 

Ebay should guarantee that you win whatever you bid on without having to raise your bid? If you are interested, bid the maximum amount you are willing to pay. That's what the sniper who beat you did. The snipe bidder is NO DIFFERENT from the person who enters a max bid on eBays system and he has no advantage over them. Whether you enter a max bid three second after the auction starts or three seconds before it ends makes no difference to the max bidder or snipe bidder the result is the same. The only place the snipe bidder has an advantage is over the "nickel and dime" bidder who is trying to win as low as possible by slipping in a small increase whenever he is out bid. The nickel and dimer doesn't have a chance to slip in one more bid after the sniper's bid is placed. But that nickel and dime bidder CAN run a max bidders bids up so he has to pay more than he would have otherwise. This makes sniping a better strategy than early max bidding.

 

Also keep in mind that on items like bullion where the value is relatively easy to calculate, the last second snipe bidder is at a disadvantage to the early bidder.

If the bid increment is at $1.00 and a sniper and an early bidder have both decided they're willing to pay at most spot plus $2.50 for the item and the early bidder gets the price up to spot plus $2.00, then the sniper will not get it unless he is willing to increase his max bid because spot plus $2.00 is already taken and the minimum bid increment would make his bid spot plus $3.00.

 

The issue here is that you have no idea if you were outbid by $0.50 or $50.00. eBay will only show the bid from the other person that is required to beat your bid, no more. If you're willing to pay $20 and someone else snipes at $30 then the winning bid is $20.50. You say to yourself, "Shoot, I was willing to pay $21." But were you willing to pay $31?

If you were, then the auto-extend feature would help as you would have some time to consider going to $21, then $22, and potentially all the way up to $31 if you really wanted to beat the other bidder. Meanwhile they have the same opportunity...

 

I always find the concept of sniping funny - because the bottom line is the person willing to bit the most( last second or even later) always wins. I am a fan of bid once and be done with it.

 

I would be too, if only FeeBay would do more to police the kind of bid cancelling shill bidders I referred to a few posts back. Since they don't seem to be willing to do that, then I'll limit myself to either buy-it-now auctions, or manually placing my max bid within the last 10 seconds of a bid auction.

 

I hear ya man, but the major downside is you are letting people know you are interested. If you snipe they may be thinking they were the only ones interested, and never know I was willing to pay $40 for a coin starting at $.99. If I bid early, they will get outbid, and outbid on rebids, have a chance to research the coin, change their mind and up their bid, etc etc.

Plus, pragmatically, I would be the type to "change my mind" and up my own bids as well. Forcing myself to only snipe forces ME to stay within my own bidding limits. In many ways I snipe for my OWN budget concerns, not others.

 

Congrats - that is the first argument for sniping that makes sense. Then again - I don't really mind driving some true auctions up in price. I do this on heritage all the time, but I can't recall the last true auction on ebay I was interested in. Most of what I am interested in has BINs to high(especially some of the key dates) and I will just wait for a heritage auction. I don't think I have bid on ebay(other than to buy a two cent book with a bin) on ebay since May of last year. I used to check ebay daily, now weekly. I have always watched way more than I bid on - and seems like here lately, without even snipers, some of the coins I am watching jump too high for my blood. And no - I am not knocking ebay or sniping in general.

 

Why on Earth would anyone bid before the last minute on a bullion auction? If the price of bullion goes up after you bid, you'll be outbid later; if it goes down, you'll be saddled with the higher price that motivated your earlier bid.

 

True but lets try a simplified hypothetical example.

We have a lot that only two people are interested in. It opens at $10 and you are willing to pay $200. So you put in your $200 bid and you are done. Now the other guy is a nickel and dime bidder who just bids a small amount over the current high bid until he is high and then bids again whenever he is out bid. But he is only willing to go to $180. So your high bid at $10 and he bids. Your proxy max bid out bids him so he keeps bidding until he is out at $180. You win at $185, less than your max bid and you are happy.

Now this time same thing only I'm sniping and I am willing to go $200, the other guy is the same nickel and dimer but this time let's say he is will to go to $250. Well he starts the bid at $10 and it sits there. Then 3 seconds before the end of the auction my $200 snipe comes in and I am high bidder and the winner at $11 because the 5&10 guy doesn't have a change to counter. Even though in the long run he would have been willing to pay more than me, I win, and at $174 less than you did.

Now if it had been you and I both at $200 with you doing a proxy max bid and me sniping then you win because as you said person willing to make the highest bid wins. and even though yours and mine are the same yours was placed earlier.

So as I said earlier a sniper really doesn't have an advantage over a max bidder, but I do have an advantage over someone who DOESN'T snipe or use max bids, compared to someone who just uses max bids. That's why people snipe, it's the better strategy.

 

I have been known to buy and sell a firearm or two on Gunbroker, and as a buyer, it is a pain... They are trying to mimic a real auction (going, going, gone idea), but I think it drags out the auction (as a buyer).

As a seller, anything that increases the price is ok with me!

 

I agree with you, I just prefer to put in my "one bid" with 3 seconds left so no one else has time to think about catching up.