Bidding When Is The Best Time

What do you do if there are a dozen items you want that end within 10 seconds of one another?

Chris

 

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Thanks so much for all the inputs you guy's have been great the advice has been exceptional, At this point I only buy graded coins (slab) that way it's a little easy for me to do research.
Dave

 

Thanks so much for all the inputs you guy's have been great the advice has been exceptional, At this point I only buy graded coins (slab) that way it's a little easy for me to do research.
Dave

 

Another reason for using a snipe program, it can bid on many auctions that are all ending and about the same time. You don't have to bounce back and forth between auctions trying to catch them all at the end.

 

I have monitored auctions before seeing, if someone bids a 2nd time then I will bid them up in price sometimes just for fun.

 

Good luck.

 

If the shill bidder is using the same sniping tool I use — and I prefer not to reveal what it is — Then the outcome will be that the shill bidder will win the auction if he overestimates what others might be willing to pay OR if he is just plain greedy. I will win if the shill bid is lower than what I was planning to bid anyway.

The shill bid is made in considerations of bids that have already been made. That will leave me out of any consideration anyway since my one and only bid will be made with only 1 second left on the auction.

Here is a coin I won today on ebay. I was the one and only bidder on the auction which had a Buy It Now option about 50% higher than the opening bid. Enjoy.

 

Not really to be honest. It’s made in consideration of what the price should be, that’s the only resonable estimation they can have. People that shill do it as a hidden reserve basically. Most of them would rather win and relist than have something sell for half price.

 

For goods that are more-or-less not homogeneous, the Nash Equilibrium is to place one's maximum bid seconds before the auction's end. In other words, you will maximize your chances of winning an auction when you bid your max at the end. There are some exceptions, of course.

 

I'll agree with that to an extent, but shills are also there to encourage bidding, and even whip emotional bidders into overbidding on an item. I did it myself for an external hard drive for my computer about 18 years ago. I had placed an opening bid shortly after the drive was listed, then came back to look at the page about 30 minutes before the auction was to close. I had been outbid on the item then did the unspeakable... I kept raising my bid until I was on top again. About 3 minutes before the auction ended, I was in a bidding war with another person — who was probably a shill — and we exchanged bids until about 45 seconds were left and there were no more bids from my adversary. I ended up paying almost full retail for the drive, and I was buying a refurbished one.

I should point out, too, that the earlier claim that shills use sniping tools isn't necessarily valid. I thought about that after I made an earlier comment, but then asked why any shill would wait until the last second to strike. This runs the risk that the highest real bidder would lose.

 

I know exactly what you’re trying to say, but it’s the latency which is really important, not just the bandwidth. It usually depends on your type of Internet access (fibre, cable , DSL, etc), on your ISP and on network usage in your neighborhood - the last mile.

 

Because they’re doing it to counter other snipe tools. Or their high bid is already in. Successful shills are nothing more than a reserve price people didn’t want to pay the fee to have a reserve for. Hence they would rather win then let the real high bidder win way to low.

I honestly think people are overly concerned about the whole shill thing and are to quick to call it just because they were bid against.

 

I routinely enter my bids with 6 seconds left. People seem to think that this type of thing "sniping" is a questionable behavior, as though we are trying to prevent others the opportunity to respond (maybe some truth here). But, that's not why I do it, I do it because the mechanics of proxy bidding necessitate it.

If you enter a bid early, then you are giving the seller (alternate account) or other idiotic bidder the opportunity to "nibble" away at your bid. They can literally enter the min bid over and over again until your bid doesn't increase by a whole interval. At that point, they know they've maxed you out.

This type of thing REALLY pisses me off. So I snipe bid to avoid the frustration.

 

I have different bidding strategies based on the site (eBay, HA, Stack's). My bidding strategy is rarely straightforward. LOL.

 

And shill bidding by crooked sellers is still going on. Ebay trys to crack down on it but it's a losing battle.

 

Ebay supposedly bans crooked sellers who they catch shill bidding.

 

All it takes is for another entity that is not tied the seller's account to make that bid. It would be a losing battle for eBay to prove that the shill bid was not bona fide. And it would be impossible for suspecting bidders to take a case to eBay since the identities of other bidders is withheld from the public.

Banning crooked sellers who use shills is a long way from the top of the list, they want to make money for their stockholders, and since it is impossible for actual bidders to prove shills are operating...

Note also that just about every single coin category has both auctions and Buy It Now options. One could always take the position that by using the BIN option you needn't worry about shills. I think, though, that most BIN coins are overpriced, so there's your conundrum.

 

I am by far a guy that prefers to walk into the shop and view and discuss the particular piece that strikes my fancy. I don’t often purchase ten dollar coins these days and a litte in hand verification seems prudent. I can count on one hand the number of times an EBay selection has smitten me. I intentionally try to avoid the exposure. I will say I had no earthly idea there was so much gamesmanship at play on EBay. I’ll certainly approach future EBay purchases differently due to the invaluable information in this thread. Thanks guys.

 

Let me just say @Randy Abercrombie that IMO you are a valuable new member of CT. I’ve appreciated your openness, clarity and general attitude.

Steve

 

Why thank you very much/