I notice on ebay it seems a lot of people get out bidded the last few hours. Seems to be bidders buying for customers or am I just assuming?
Coming from someone who used to sell quite a bit on there.....most people wait until the last few hours to bid.
I always bid snipe, unless I'm using buy it now. Why push up the price of an auction bidding early when you can sneak in and take in on the cheap lol.
Or if you're a rather confident, daring, or hubris fellow, you :sniper: within the last 3 seconds or less. And in no way am I trying to toot my own horn... I only win 90% of the time. :whistle: ............. :too-funny: -Brian
It's called sniping. A bidder waits until the last 5 seconds, and places, what they hope will be, the very last bid to win the auction.
There is a downloadable program that is sold called "Snipe" You place your maximum bid with that program. Then your maximum bid, if more than the last one will be entered at the very last moment at an amount that wins. Say you are willing to pay $30. At the last second, the highest bid is $25.5. Snipe will win it for you at $26 leaving no other bidders a chance to come back in. The other scenerio is a hidden reserve. Some sellers put a minimum number on things that you cannot see. Then at the end of auction, the reserve price "wins" it. There are so many items for sale, just be patient. Bid what you are willing to pay and wait. Eventually, you will get the item. I bid on about 200 cameras until I got the one I wanted for the price I wanted to pay. There are a lot more sellers than buyers. Once in a while, the BIN (buy it now) prices are low. Not often, but once in a while you can get a great deal buying immediately something that is underpriced. I think patience is the key to getting a bargain. But they are out there.
I am surprised ebay allows it, why not allow the bidder who got oubidded the last second a counter bid once the auction ends?
i think it should add a 15 min. rule as with gun broker it does and stops all sniping my .02 worth i have been sniped several times
Sniping is just part of the eBay experience. I used to get frustrated by it. Then I figured;" if you can't beat 'em join 'em." Now on open auctions, I generally bid within the last 15-30 seconds of that auction. I'm winning a lot more items. You just need to make sure you set a cap that is reasonable on your bids. Another option is to bid on "Buy It Now" auctions, many are overpriced, but you'd be surprised at some of the good deals that can be had on BIN auctions if you are willing to conduct due diligence in your search.
If you really want something and don't want to get outbid, just put in one million for your top price willing to pay, you'll win every time.
It's called "sniping" (the practice of bidding at the last possible moment in order to prevent other bidders from topping your bid.) It commonplace on eBay and I do it all the time with varying degrees of success. It's foolish to bid any other way, since you'll allow other bidders time to drive up the price and perhaps get you caught up in an "auction fever" bidding war. I enter my bid at the highest price I am willing to pay and click enter when there are less that 5 seconds left. Sometimes I win by 1¢!
There is also a thing called shilling where the seller inflates a bid price at the last minute under a different account, wins the auction then relists the item.
I actually made couple bidders pay for sniping, i caught one particular bidder who was doing that and he was also putting in really large bid amount. So one particular Britannia coin i had leading bid of 205, he outbids me 10 secs left and i put in a bid of $300 with 1 second and of course he is still the leading bidder and gets stuck having to pay that.
Hmmm.... How would you know what his "really large bid amount" was and that you wouldn't exceed it with your $300 bid? Inquiring minds want to know.
Well, also, those that snipe put in their max willing to bid price as well. If they were willing to pay over $300, in my opinion, you really didn't stick it to them since they were willing to fork over that amount anyways.
Keep in mind there are folks that use eBay as their way of living. I know dealers who snipe and keep their eyes glued to the computer screen 12+ hours a day. It's a crazy way of living, but if you make a couple grand a week, then why change?!
I think he typically sets its sniping bids at around 1k, he did that too me twice one instance i had very high max bid (think it was that Arabic coin i was even regretting it since i mistook the items' metal content and value as a result) and he sniped me on that item. If he had done a google search he could have gotten the coin much cheaper... Britannia 1/10 is worth at most $220 in August 2011, i haven't seen that user tag bidding that often after that. It is shame we can't msg other bidders....
