RANT: Sniping? Is it ok?

[marvelguy]

Recently, I've had three FF auctions that I was looking forward to to win it all but I didn't. There is a auction that I've kept a eye on by refreshing page after page as the seconds winds down but guess what?, I lost it by 1 second. This really does irk me. Then on the next two auctions, I bumped up my bids a few dollars more just to be safe, lost them too in the last five seconds. It makes me wonder if the sniping program knows exactly what the high bids are. Is it a hack program of some sorts? It sure does feel like it. This may be great for the seller but not for the buyer.

What is your pro and cons?

[Hoss]

I use an auction sniper frequently to bid. The only thing I make sure is that I set my max bid and stick with it. So sometimes I win and sometimes I lose! :)

[pasnat54]

The problem is obvious. If you had more room to bump up your bids, you didn't bid your max, which is a cardinal rule of sniping.

Figure out how much the item is worth to you, and bid it. If you win, great. Maybe you didn't have to use everything you did, but you were willing to if that's what it took.

If you lose, it went for more than you wanted to pay.

The snipe services aren't hack programs. Someone else simply was willing to pay more for the item than you were. Or at least more than you were willing to put on the table.

I usually hear the complaint that sniping is bad for the seller because it prevents bidding wars. That's as erroneous as thinking it's bad for the buyer.

Harking back to my biddie days:

Bid once.
Bid your max.
Bid late.

[Gallinator]

Wonder if it would be better for sellers if eBay went to a more traditional format of not closing an auction until, say, five minutes passed between bids? Would snipers still use automated programs to snipe? Would the programs change to adapt to the new format?

[jaeldubyoo]

I think Yahoo Auctions gives you an option as a seller to automatically extend the auction for five minutes if someone places a bid near the end of the auction. If eBay were to adopt something like this, you'd probably see a lot less sniping.

As suggested earlier, just bid your max. If you get sniped at the end and lose, you've lost out to a bidder that was willing to pay more. If you feel you lost an item you really wanted and was willing to pay more than the winning bid, then you have nobody to blame but yourself. Of course you will never know the maximum bid of the winner, but at least give yourself a fighting chance.

[slucas76]

I get sniped all too often.

Used to happen a lot more to me, because I'd see .99 starting bid and I'd bid on it early, thinking that my max bid would hold out.

It never did. Now I watch an item until there's about half an hour or so, put in my bid and refresh like crazy. I still get sniped a little more than I'd like, but I'm starting to get that attitude. Well, someone wanted it more, I guess. At least, they were willing to pay more.

Eh, what're you going to do?

[pasnat54]

What you should do, slucas, is bid your maximum. Don't refresh, don't lowball your bid. You don't have to snipe; place your max bid whenever you like. However, placing your bid at the last second reduces the odds of an unsophisticated bidder being able to up their own bid.

Bid what the item is worth to you. Remember, thanks to eBay's proxy system, you'll only pay enough to win. We all hope to get the widget at the lowest possible price, but if it requires all of our true max, we feel it's worth it.

[rowand]

Bid odd amounts like XX.57. This is the wife's advice on bidding! :roll:

[4zack]

"Would snipers still use automated programs to snipe? Would the programs change to adapt to the new format?"

The market is usually pretty good about adapting to changes, so if Ebay changed their format, the sniping services would also.

Bid odd amounts like XX.57. This is the wife's advice on bidding!

That's good advice. Most people will bid an amount right on the dollar. There is nothing sweeter than max bidding $15.02 and beating someone else out that max bidded $15.00. You know they have to see that and go,"I lost by 2 FREAKIN' CENTS?!!!"

pas, Also good advice. If you don't win that time, another will appear. It sucks having buyer's remorse because of overbidding. I used to have that happen a lot in the early days. I wouldn't enjoy what I won quite as much.

[slucas76]

Yeah. I'm starting to get the eBay thing.

It used to be that I'd worry over stuff that I didn't win because of .50 or whatever. I'm now starting to see (thanks to some auctions that I've won/some that I've lost) that there will always be another auction come along with what you want.

I remember an auction for some Marvel Team Up stuff that I had been watching, but calculated the estimated time left. Went without a bid at a starting bid of 17.99 or something like that, then was relisted and I ended up paying 1.50 more for the same auction because someone else noticed it and wanted the books. Curses!

Anywho, I don't lament the losses anymore because I know that there will be another auction come along with the exact same item, sometimes cheaper. I'm not willing to pay that much for comic books, not as much as some folks. I usually figure 1.00 a book or so for lots, maybe more if it's something that I really want. If someone else is willing to pay more, I can't bemoan them that, but I really, really want those books. :lol:

I've also done the oddball bid, but not intentionally. It's more about the mathemetician in me figuring in what it'll all cost with shipping and how much I'm willing to pay than to fight off snipers.

[rowand]

My mother-in-law became an expert on natural Turquoise both in rock form and in jewelry. She developed a following after a short while. 5 or so bidders would all try to take every item away from her figuring each to be a prize piece and well worth the cost she was willing to pay.

Sniping kept this "follow the leader bidding" to a minimum!

[Gallinator]

Good point, rowand! Over the years, I've had several instances where someone has "followed" me for a while and tried to jack up my bids as punishment for some perceived slight. I just tighten up and manually snipe when that happens, but it definitely is a consideration.

[4zack]

About the only time I have buyer's remorse now is when the seller sends the comics not in a bag, not with a board, not taped between stiff cardboard, just put in a padded envelope. That's it. And they are now all bent up. Which just happened with a set I received yesterday. :evil:

Dammit to hell!!!

[marvelguy]

Hey 4zack, I've had the exact same thing happened to me. I won a set of Secret War (new series) for a low price, even though I bidded on it when it was an hour left in the auction. Nobody else got the bid, paid for it, received it in a extra large padded envelope, it was corner damaged, all the books. :evil: It ain't my fault that somebody else didn't get the bids going.

Hey Gall, how can someone "follow" you on Ebay? I mean, they search for what you already bidded on or what you have on "watch"?

[4zack]

If someone does a bidder search on you, they can see what you have already bid on and follow those auctions and bid up the price. If you just Watch them and snipe at the very end, they won't be able to see what you are bidding on until it is too late. I don't doubt that there are crazies out there that would occasionally do something like stalking your bids and driving them up. Ebay does have its share of kooks.

[camper49]

It's funny you mention that because that happened to me about 3 or 4 years ago.
Back when eBay had really awesome comics for sale by people who didn't know how to post them, I was lucky enough to find them at a hot price and buy them, such as DC 100 page Super Spectacular #5 in VG for $5 and Batman 232 in NM Minus for $2.
Anyway, I had two other eBayers do exactly that by following what I bid on because they noticed somewhere along the line what great deals I was finding.
I ended up having to wait until the last second to bid so as to keep these other guys away from the auctions I wanted.
I've yet to try a sniping program though.

[slucas76]

If someone does a bidder search on you, they can see what you have already bid on and follow those auctions and bid up the price. If you just Watch them and snipe at the very end, they won't be able to see what you are bidding on until it is too late. I don't doubt that there are crazies out there that would occasionally do something like stalking your bids and driving them up. Ebay does have its share of kooks.

I noticed that happening to me a couple of years ago when I was picking up my Sega Dreamcast and some games. I got the machine for 25 bucks or something like that and then got some crazy deals on games. After a while, I noticed that my auctions were getting bid up by some of the same folks. I chalked it up to coincidence, but it could've been intentional...

[Gallinator]

Yep, that's how they do it. I've had it happen where I outbid someone on an auction only to have them make it their personal mission to make me pay as close to my proxy max as possible. Of course, since I vary my bid increments and max bids greatly, this can backfire on them and they stop. They stop anyway, sooner or later, but that's just part of doing business on eBay, I guess.

[4zack]

Luckily I've never had a stalker like that. A few years back I did snipe some lady on some horror mags called "Cemetery Dance" and she sent me an e-mail to holler at me for beating her out with a snipe. She told me she had a new-born, she was stuck at home and she needed the mags to read while the baby was asleep. I thought of telling her that she should be napping while the baby napped (you get your sleep when you can with a new-born) but decided against it.

A week or so later I sniped on some more of the same mags and who was the 2nd-place bidder? Her again. I braced for another dressing-down, but luckily it never came.

So I guess that I was an unintentional stalker. :)

[Gallinator]

Ha! She probably thought you did it on purpose. You should have sent her an e-mail - "Have you checked the baby?"

[SILLYSHIP--pirate eye--]

I love auction sniper and use it all the time.

[illuminated]

Sniping programs rule.

I personally use SnipeSwipe.com, as it's very cheap. But 1000 points for $8.00. Pay .08% of your winning bid amounts. Losing snipes are free.

http://snipeswipe.com/faq.html

[jaeldubyoo]

She told me she had a new-born, she was stuck at home and she needed the mags to read while the baby was asleep.

You should have suggested that she read parenting magazines instead of horror. :twisted:

[rowand]

My mother-in-law has had to change her eBay identity every 6 months or so. She is a world reknowned expert on Turquoise and literally bids on EVERY undervalued piece from untreated raw rock to finished jewelry.

Consider how easy it would be to do research! Just look her up in the eBay directory and each item she is bidding on has far greater value than its likely selling price. Just last second snipe and a profit margin is yours.

She has up to 3 ID's at any one time now. She usually gets what she wants now!