Heeheeheeheeheeheeheehee!

I just won all but one item in about ten auctions (for CD singles and albums - new music ahoy!). And I must say I get a great amount of schadenfreudesque joy out of noting that the various snipers that tried to get their 'winning' bids in at the last minute all failed dismally! That's because I bid strongly on what I thought the album was worth as my first and only bid - these poor fools tried to get a last minute bid of slightly more than what the current high bid was and didn't have enough time to try any higher bids.

I can accept the small amount of anger at these fools driving my price up with bids that weren't reflecting the value of the item, because ultimately they only frustrated themselves!

Gloat gloat gloat gloat gloat gloat gloat gloat! Sucked in, sniper lamers!

Paul

P.S. And I got my beloved empeg back today! This must be a good day!

Bid once, bid late, bid your true max...
I snipe, but it's to protect me from the nibblers... I never bid low and try to get a deal... I bid the most I am willing pay with less than 30 seconds left if possible.If I am outbid, the other bidder wanted it more than me...

Way to go Paul, sniping sucks.

Thats exactly what I do. My highest possible bid at the last moment. If someone before me didn't put in a higher bid, then he can get it. Its fair to me. Sniping in my eyes is when I already have a failed bid, but bid with 2 seconds to go at £1 over the other guy.

Remember Yahoo! Actions? That was slightly more fair to all. You couldn't snipe as the auction time extended each time you placed a bid. So if you bid with 10 seconds to go, the auction would extend by a few minutes. This represented an auction more than eBay does.

Phillip, you deleted your post!

You're right, the Yahoo thing is more of a true auction. In a true auction, all people present are allowed to counter bid. If someone bids with 2 seconds left, they are not allowing someone else to reconsider. Sniping is sniping, motive doesn't matter. If something is truely your "highest bid" and what you're willing to pay for, then why don't you bid that much at the start of the auction?

Yes, I meant to edit it and got distracted and deleted it. Sorry

I bid at the end to avoid those people who make 8 bids one after another in 10p increments. They push the price up kind of artificially as they don't really want it. I see your point, but if I bid at the start it attracts idiots 99% of the time.

Well, I see your point. Personally, I don't like to resort to the same tactic that I'm trying to counter.. You sir are engaging in a pre-emptive strike! I have to admit that the reason I did feel this way is because when I used eBay heavily (1999), the items I were bidding on were "followed" by a close group of collectors. We all got to know eachother after a while (even emailing and congradulating someone on winning an auction). Sniping would have been a good way to ruin these relationships. Of course, this was years ago and with a unique collectable, so it's not likely to apply. I've more or less just continued this way out of habit.

Let's just agree that the eBay system is flawed... they should have a model similar to Yahoo's. Then you, I and everyone else would not have to worry about being sniped nor resort to it.

Don't get me wrong, I hate it when I get sniped and I can see how its not really a nice thing to do. If eBay had a tougher line on sniping it would improve it no end. As a seller, I'd love to see them adopt Yahoo's system too. I may suggest it to them as they would get more money from such a system. I'm sure they have considered it though.

I have to admit, I don't and have never seen what the problem with 'sniping' is. It's simply using the system in a way that it not only allows, but can't really stop anyway. If, for example, ebay had as you put it a tougher line on sniping, what would that mean in practice?

The whole issue arises because the auction has a strict fixed time limit. What counts as sniping? Bidding 1 second before the end? 10 seconds? 1 minute? If you say, for example, that no bids received later than 30 seconds before the end of the auction are valid, all it means in practice is that you have shortened the auction by 30 seconds. You still have the same problem, it's just that people will try to get in 31 seconds before the end of the auction, rather than 1 second. The only ways I can see to eliminate this feature is either to run the auctions for a secret, random time (which is silly, but might be fun), or just have as the Yahoo system did each bid extend the auction by a fixed period to allow counter-bids.

Actually, thinking about it, you could only allow each person to bid once for any item, thus ensuring that they would submit a value which was closer to what they actually were prepared to to pay, or get rid of the current more or less real-time update of the current selling price. Keep everyone guessing until after the auction was over.

pca

is snipping some type of program or are people just sitting at there computer and biding at the last second.I get stuff all the time off ebay and it does piss me off when it happens to me.

I generally place once bid very late at my absolute maximum and don't bid again. I do this for the same reason as most - to keep it a secret that somebody else is interested in buying. You hope that your counter-bidder has placed a low proxy bid and is not around when the auction ends.

It's a fact that items with bids attract more bids, and items started at $0.99 usually end higher than ones started at, say, 90% of the average end price.

The snag is that new bidders are not aware of the practice and can get frustrated when they are constantly outbid on items. The official advice is to place a proxy bid at your absolute maximum.

There are some funny results of sniping though. Often a sniper will put in a very large bid to be sure of getting over another sniper's bid and occasionally you will get two people who do this and the high bidder will end up paying a lot. I have seen a $120 item go for over $500 due to this, and seen that the transaction went ahead!

Gareth

Actually, thinking about it, you could only allow each person to bid once for any item, thus ensuring that they would submit a value which was closer to what they actually were prepared to to pay, or get rid of the current more or less real-time update of the current selling price. Keep everyone guessing until after the auction was over.

What's wrong with a sealed bid auction?

There are programs that will do a whole lot of eBay-related things - sniping bids, only bidding on similar items if an initial auction was lost, and knowing the average value that particular items have sold at in the past, for instance. But most 'snipers' (i.e. people who try to just get over your bid at the last minute) are just sad people who wait at their computer for ages...

I don't really have a problem putting in bids early, nor with people who put in a realistic bid late. Bidding early suits my style of browsing. And AFAICS the people who bid in small increments end up actually being better for me, because usually they give up if they can see my bid is still beating theirs after a turn or two. If they'd put in the total amount they'd been prepared to bid first, then I'd probably end up paying more, or losing the auction. Fundamentally it doesn't change the equation against me too much, that I can see.

But in, oh, 20 or so auctions, I've been the first to bid in over 80% of them, and 80% of them have gone for my first (lowest) bid amount. So realistically I've yet to find what someone else above was talking about - that items already bid on go for more than if you peg it at the last minute. And there's the added bother of being online at whenever the auction is about to end, and the chance that you'll actually spend all that time and money online and still lose the auction.

I'll just keep bidding early and winning often, thanks

Paul

is snipping some type of program

Na! It's a surgical procedure to stop you having more kids.

The whole issue arises because the auction has a strict fixed time limit

You could curtail sniping by changing that fixed time limit to something less precise.

What if the auction ended, not at an exact time, but at some unknown time that could be as much as a half hour plus or minus from the nominal end time?

I confess that I snipe every auction I enter -- even if it means setting my alarm to get out of bed at two in the morning. I always bid the maximum I'm willing to spend (sometimes more than doubling the current bid price) and it definitely holds down the damage done by the "bid nibblers" who cautiously up the price a dollar at a time until they run out of courage or desire.

tanstaafl.

What if the auction ended, not at an exact time, but at some unknown time that could be as much as a half hour plus or minus from the nominal end time?

When ebay first started, I remember they used to have a "going going gone" period like a real auction. The end of the auction gets extended if there are late bids. So if someone was trying to snipe a bid, the act of trying to snipe actually extended the auction and allowed others in after you.

Did they stop doing this, and why?

(I think this very question has already been answered in a similar bid-sniping thread a while back on the BBS, I just don't remember the answer.)

Thats what Yahoo auctions did. eBay really should (re)introduce it.