Bid Sniping

animal cruelty is never cool

 

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Neither are sanctimonious pronouncements...

 

If we accept Krispy's definition of sniping then we can say that no one has ever been sniped. Typically when we lose an auction because of a last second placed bid we say that we have been sniped. But since we have no way of knowing if that last second bid came from a program (a snipe) or a last second manual bid (not a snipe) we can not say with any surety that we have been sniped or merely out bid. Since we can never say whether or not we have been sniped it follows that it has never happened because we can't point to a definite example.

And since no one has ever been sniped, obviously bid sniping programs obviously aren't worth using.

 

.......and sooner or later, someone is going to find a genuine BU 16-D Merc while searching rolls from the bank.

Chris

 

Sorry, krispy, but you could hardly be more wrong on this.

First of all, the only way ANY bid (manual or automated) wins on eBay is by being higher than all others, or by being as high as all others and placed earlier. If I place a bid of $100 when an auction first opens, and someone else snipes in the last second at $100, I'll get the item. (Of course, if someone else snipes at $101 or more, both I and the first sniper lose.) I'm sure you understand this, but the way you phrased your statement seems to imply that snipers can somehow win without outbidding all others.

Second, the issue of machines being faster than humans isn't really relevant here. The Internet in general, and eBay's servers in particular, don't provide guaranteed response times ("latency"). A computer could easily schedule a snipe request to an accuracy of milliseconds, but it can't guarantee when that request will arrive at eBay's servers, and it can't guarantee how quickly a particular server will respond. In practice, this uncertainty can easily add up to multiple seconds, well within the range of human reaction time.

Third, you're simply at odds with the rest of the world when you claim that sniping refers only to automated activity. I've been on eBay, both buying and selling, since 1998, and people have been using the term "snipe" for at least that long. The earliest reference I can find via Google's search of Usenet archives is from August 1997. By 1998, people were already offering "sniping tools" -- but most people were still sniping manually.

In principle, this is all a matter of opinion, as you said in an earlier post. In practice, though, "sniping means bidding with an automated tool" is simply wrong.

 

There is quite detailed analysis done ebay bargain hunters which has clearly shown that sniping often leads to much higher auction prices especially when multiple sniping bids come into play, one of the reasons ebay has done very little about the automated sniping tools (they have cracked down on everything else ).

 

I completely disagree, before services were around it was still called sniping when you wait for the last few seconds to bid. That is in essence the same thing services do for you. The method of bidding in the last few seconds is sniping regardless of how you do it. It is the only way and time I bid and I do not need a service to get the last bid in. Most of my bids are within the last two seconds.

The OP was looking for services but I honestly do not see what the problem is with saying I do it manually and it works great for me.

 

I call last minute manual sniping, swooping. I swoop in at the last minute and grab my prize.

 

I do not even do that any more. I used to always wait until the last few seconds to put in a bid. I have not done that in a long long time. And now I can't be sniped - only out bid. On ebay - if I find something worthy of a bid I figure out what I will bid, bid it and then forget it. Then I figure if someone over bids me then they over bid on the coin. The only place I even watch any more is heritage. I lose a whole lot more than I win, but I feel better about the price when I do win. It is all in how you look at it - so they are just opinions.

 

I agree a bid is a bid whenever you place it. I do prefer to wait until the last day of bidding to assess the amount of interest in the coin and to make sure I really want the coin. Recently I beat a sniper on a two hundred dollar coin by about twenty cents because I bid earlier.

 

More often than not an early bid will get beat by someone that will bid until they exceed your maximum. For me, running up the price before the end does not serve my best interests. People do what works best for them, all I know is when I identify something I want and it does not exceed my max before the last minute is up, I almost always win that item. That is what works for me and it costs nothing.

 

I also use "manual" sniping...personally, the cost of paying others to bid for you coupled with the risk of your personal ebay info getting out doesn't go well with me.

Besides, since you as yourself bidding or the sniping service hired by you bidding both bid the same price as determined by you, what's the difference?

 

It doesn't matter whether you snipe or don't snipe the final auction price will be the same, in fact the few stats that have been gathered (on Trading cards and electronics) has show that sniping has tendency to inflate the final price. Bidding on an item late you actually end up having to overpay to acquire it.

 

You can't overpay if you bid what it is worth to you.
Last second bidding keeps you from getting into a bidding war and losing your head in the heat of competition.

 

That is human nature bidding war can even break out in last mins of the auction or one can always panic and overbid in last secs of an auction to win it. Where as if bidding war happens early state of an auction you can always undo your bid.

 

Just happened to me I had ten on this ike , just another lonely victim.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/120865412923?ssPageName=STRK:MEDWX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1532.l2649#ht_584wt_754

 

This is pretty easy to see but it's elluding a certain majority here... Time remaining 00:01.

I challenge anyone in any auction to manually bid in that increment of time. Only a bid sniper can do this. Hence, bid sniping.

Of course! only the highest bidder wins the auction, be that manually or bid sniped. I've said this before in my earlier posts, so if you are trying to tell me that in the last few posts you have missed what I am saying.

What happens in the fractional remaining time frame (00:01 down to 00:00) is too short of a span for live human, manual bidding to occur. It can only be defined as 'bid sniping' and therefore removes all possibility of bid sniping manually. While many like to think it is possible to bid snipe manually and think I am arguing semantics, it simply is not an option to the manual bidder in the digital era of live auctions with the prescience of such bid sniping software and the speeds they can operate at.

What many of you wish to call "sniping" prior to the invention of such automated services was simply bidding. Bid sniping is a sneak attack in an incredibly short time interval in which all previous bidders are vulnerable to being outbid, with no time for recourse. Only the high bid placed manually earlier can beat a bid sniper, but the manual bidder cannot bid snipe since they have previously placed a manual bid.

 

Anything is only worth what some can and is willing to pay for it. If it's inflated value for you and others, it doesn't mean it is so for the one who won and contractually agreed to pay that amount... I'd further speculate that the Sellers don't mind the little bump up at the end either. At least, I have never heard of a Seller becoming upset that an item sold for too much money and opted to return the money because of this happening.

 

You are lucky, I got left holding the bag.

 

What's wrong with it is that there is a difference in terminology and clearly people of this thread have not adjusted their concept of the term/phrase 'bid sniping' to only apply to the highest bid placed in a fraction of time no others may manually outbid that "bid sniper". This is all due to the prescience of automated services that can bid snipe in the time where humans cannot do so manually.

Any other bidding activity in the amount of time a human can respond to bids is simply bidding, not 'bid sniping'.

Furthermore, the OPs question was ambiguous and that has left this open for debate. He hadn't defined bid sniping to allow manual bidding as a form of bid sniping, nor should it be included per my argument, and to do so now would be a cop out for understanding the stated differences between manual bidding and bid sniping. The thread has turned into one of interpretation, some opinion and not much clarity for the level of resistance a couple of dissenting voices have met. Obviously, I am currently in the minority against a typical forum mob bound by group think unable to change it's collective perspective over what this term means, but this problem doesn't prove me wrong as no rebuttals refute that a human can outperform the next highest bid placed by an automated service in the last second of available bidding time in any given auction.

It's not really down to one second or smaller milliseconds of time. Which ever highest bids are simultaneously placed in the the very last second on the clock are equally assessed and cataloged in the bid history, with the high bid going on top. One only need to look back at bid history times to see where "bid sniping" occurred and in what amounts. When these bids are the highest, bid sniping has been successful. Where an earlier than one-second from the end bid was placed, those manual bidders have beaten all 'bid sniping' attempts, however, the manual bidders are not 'bid snipers'.

This is not a matter of opinion, and where it one, no opinion would be more correct than another. There is however a difference in terminology that needs to be understood and how it may be applied in the context we are discussing. Manual bidding vs. bid sniping (automated). As I have tried to illustrate manual bidders cannot bid snipe, because they cannot do so (react) in the time available to correct being outbid when a new bid was placed (bid sniped), via automated services. I am not saying manual bidders cannot beat a bid sniper, only that manual bidders are not bid snipers, they are high bidders. The bid sniper is the one placing that last second bid to outbid the current high bid in an opportune and vulnerable time frame where manual bidding cannot function.