Out bid on ebay yet again.

BTW, 'sniping' is not that hard on your own--if you are around to do so.

Anything within ten seconds is OK. There is no time within ten seconds for another bidder to see your bid and respond in time to change their existing bid, especially if they are hitting the button at the last few seconds.

I have opened up a separate window with the listing time on it and refresh that as it closes. On another window I am set ready to place my final bid. The last button to submit.....

As the first window gets to about twenty seconds to go, I start counting down to myself, "20, 19, 18, 17, etc....." as I go to the other window. Once I am at ten seconds or less I hit submit.

"Congratulations, you are the winner!" or "Sorry you have been outbid by another"

Only when the clock runs down can you see if you really are the 'winner'.

If you can't be there, then the sniping services are best and THEY don't bungle the buttons (Like I have done...! ;))! Practice, practice!

Coop
 
SharpByCoop said:
I have opened up a separate window with the listing time on it and refresh that as it closes. On another window I am set ready to place my final bid. The last button to submit.....
Click to expand...

Thats a good tip!
 
Someone just sniped me on an auction with 6 seconds left, but ebay bid my higher bid which I had placed a few days ago.

So I won the item.

But...

the points made in this thread are well taken. Whether you'll snipe or not seems to depend on many factors - for example, if you've got a big wallet, you can place high bids on ebay and just clobber people with money.

If you've got the time to be at the auction, you can snipe it yourself as Coop just described.

etc.

---

excellent thread IMO
 
A second chance offer isn't always a scam, but rather a way for a seller to get rid of a extras of a particular knife without having to go through the auction process again.

Shao
 
I agree alot of very good thoughts in this thread. What ever works best for you is by far the best method no matter what it is. Just don't try and tell me sniping is smarter, better, and cheaper. The first one who places the hiest bid winns. example I place a max bid of $5 a day before the end and sniper places a max bid of $5 10 sec before the end. Who gets it? The first bid of $5.
edit to ad...
Can anyone tell me where all these crazy hi bidders are when I'm the seller? :)
I'm guessing alot of that is probably a friend of or the seller themselves. Just a guess.
 
I used to snipe when I started out on ebay and now a don't as I don't like it when it happens to me.

It feels dishonorable. underhand and sneaky. I am not convinced that it is any use. I have really thought about it long and hard.

It backfires on the sniper, If my max bid is $70 and the current bid is 45, now the sniper does not know if there snipe bid is enough to beat mine until it is over.

If someone gets in a bidding war they are the idiots as they win the item and pay over the odds.
 
I read this thread, and no one has mentioned the phenomena of a seller and 2 or more of his "shills". The use of shill bidding artificially inflates a price, and pretty much invalidates the use of sniping. It isn't that hard to see who is employing shills, but Ebay can't even be bothered to investigate this. Also, as a seller you can see how many people are "watching" an item you are selling, and a seller might use that to gauge interest, and set up his shills. Like another poster, I use froggle.com find the best price netwise, and bid accordingly. Yes, its ridiculous and sad that people pay more than full MSRP for items....or maybe its just the shills?
 
AFCKfan - i'm sure there are many shill bids taking place all the time. Keep in mind that EBAY is a venue (as they told me when I tried to expose a thief). They make their money from sellers not buyers and as shortsighted as it may seem, they don't take action against sellers unless it is an extreme fraud. You are correct in that once the price was artificially inflated, sniping is of no value.

db - obviously you have your opinion and it will not change and you certainly are entitled to it. But...essentially bidding your max bid early is like showing your hand in cards. If you wait and put your bid in just prior to the end, you have the best chance of getting the item for what you are willing to bid. Naturally, if you are not willing to pay as high a price as other bidders you will always get outbid in the end anyway.

It is amazing that people won't use 'buy it now' but will enter a higher bid than what they could have bought it for originally. That I just can't figure!

Just my .02 FWIW

Peter
 
peterinct said:
But...essentially bidding your max bid early is like showing your hand in cards.

Peter
Click to expand...

Interesting! - though you're not truly showing your hand, but you can be "forced" to show your hand by other ebay bidders - if you bid your max early on ebay.

If you're sniping, either thru a svc or by yourself - you keep your hand hidden and no one can force you to show it.

-------------------

But then, as you say elsewhere - and you're right - if somebody's bidding higher than your max, sniping's of no use anyway.

-------------------

Bidders have sniped me with a few seconds left and their snipe simply kicked in my previously higher bid. And I've won the item.

Of course, I've also been sniped and lost items. But - I'd already bid my max, the amount of which the sniper did not know until their snipe. If they'd not sniped - and just bid with a minute left, let's say - I would have then had to bid more than I originally wanted to in order to win the item. And I don't think that's a good thing, necessarily.

I think a lot depends on what the item is and who the bidders are - how much they're able/willing to bid & how badly they want the item.

-------------------

I'm not sure (yet) if either way is the best way in every instance.
 
 
OK, thanks, see I've got some reading to do~ ;)


---------------------------------------------

So they're phishing scams, by and large...

Thanks for the links
 
“
peterinct said..
db - obviously you have your opinion and it will not change and you certainly are entitled to it. But...essentially bidding your max bid early is like showing
your hand in cards. If you wait and put your bid in just prior to the end, you have the best chance of getting the item for what you are willing to bid.

My opinion on this will easily change but not by examples that are based on assumptions or chance theories. In fact it has already changed and I see how sniping is a good way to self control your own bidding so you don’t reguess yourself and keep bidding when your emotionally attached.
My opinion on placing your max bid and sticking to it seems pretty simple and it works. I’ve never had a item sniped away from me for a lower price than my max bid. I also believe my example of who bids the highest first wins. You think I’m showing my cards? Not at all unless you bid hier than me but I’m not changing my max bid so you get it either way if you snipe it or bid up early. I believe your fooling yourself if you think sniping is some how controlling or preventing how others bid on an item. Sniping is better, smarter, and or cheaper I’m not convinced, but What ever gets ya through the night is fine with me.
 
I only speak from my own experiences. Others speak from their experiences. Different strokes for different folks certainly applies here.

It does amaze me at the final bids I see on various auctions I watch. Perhaps it is time to start selling instead of buying? They even had an expose on Leno some time back showing some of the most absurd auctions imaginable. The viewer was to guess whether the item actually was sold on EBAY. Truth WAS definitely stranger than fiction!

Peter
 
If everybody sniped, ebay would be a sealed bid auction and a level playing field. No one would know if anyone else is bidding or not, or how much they might be bidding, so they would only be able to decide their bid based on the item for sale and how much they're willing to pay for it.

As it is, it's a sealed bid auction in which some people shout out bids before the sealed bids are opened. That wouldn't matter if all the bidders were perfectly rational and perfectly honest. They would ignore the shouts and still decide their bids based only on the item for sale and how much they're willing to pay for it.

But in the real world, some of the bidders are dishonest and some are complete idiots. Many decide their bids based on what other people are shouting.

Some of the ways that can affect an auction have been explained already in this thread, but there are others. Some people reason: no matter how much I bid, I will only have to pay $1 more than the underbidder. So why should I bother to research how much the item is worth? I'll just bid as much as I can afford. The other people bidding know how much it's worth, so I'll end up paying $1 more than it's worth. At worst I can always resell it and get only $1 less than I paid, minus the commission. (Sometimes two people who use that reasoning bid in the same auction....)

Some people only look at auctions that have bids already, reasoning that if no one has bid on it, it must not be worth anything....

Here's just one of the many things that can go wrong if you don't snipe: suppose you are the first to bid on an item. If you snipe you might get it for the minimum bid (that would take some luck, but it could happen). If you shout out your bid to the world ... suddenly all those people who don't even look at items that haven't been bid on already are interested! They bid against you, and the ebay software bids for you against them, and they get all excited.... Perhaps they'll run into their limits before they reach your limit and you'll still get the item, but you'll pay more than you would have if you hadn't shouted out your bid and attracted the idiots. Or perhaps they won't, and the same thing could happen over and over and you'll keep failing to buy the thing you want because idiots take it away from you every time.
 
Really good points, Coug.

There is a strong philosophical content that most bidders (and even myself) are unaware. It's really not as easy as the highest bidder get's it and that's that, no matter how or when it is placed. That's a unrealistic simplistic view.

There are forces of human nature hard at work, conspiring against us.

And..... eBay is wringing their hands in delight at this! :p

Coop
 
SharpByCoop said:
I come home and once every five minutes within the last 30 minutes to close, a single bidder drove the price up another $600 in $100 increments. I won, after he gave up, but the price I paid was really exaggerated. He walked away shrugging. I had a $1300 knife, I had to have....

Had I been there to snipe, I would have LET him 'win' it at $100 or $200 higher. At the closer I would have snuck in there and then grabbed it at the substantially lower winning bid. He would not have kept overbidding himself, guaranteed.
Click to expand...
And the above is the main reason I don't use eBay unless I can get a really good deal or it's a really hard to find item. It's just not worth all that aggravation to save $10.

-- Sam
 
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