Sniped and upset

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Dano1987

Joined
Jan 28, 2014
Messages
263
I came really close to winning this very old spyderco today. Seller said it's mint condition. I wasn't gonna let it get away but I forgot about it and stepped out for a bit. Winning bid was only 33 dollars. I was at 32 when I forgot about it and stepped out.



 
Wow, an old Economy. That would have been a great buy, too bad you missed it!
 
That is a nice Economy.

Sorry you lost out, but just keep in mind that you really have no idea what the winner's reserve, if any, was because eBay doesn't automatically use the winner's actual bid, just the minimum needed to push his bid one increment higher than the second place bidder's reserve. So, while he MAY have only bid $33, he could have bid ten times that.
 
The Deacon said:
That is a nice Economy.

Sorry you lost out, but just keep in mind that you really have no idea what the winner's reserve, if any, was because eBay doesn't automatically use the winner's actual bid, just the minimum needed to push his bid one increment higher than the second place bidder's reserve. So, while he MAY have only bid $33, he could have bid ten times that.
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I don't understand. Are you talking about the automatic bid where you enter an amount and it bids for you up to that point? The actual winning bid was 33 dollars. You can see.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Spyderco-AUS-8-Seki-Japan-knife-/331616941551?hash=item4d35e8f5ef
 
The Deacon said:
That is a nice Economy.

Sorry you lost out, but just keep in mind that you really have no idea what the winner's reserve, if any, was because eBay doesn't automatically use the winner's actual bid, just the minimum needed to push his bid one increment higher than the second place bidder's reserve. So, while he MAY have only bid $33, he could have bid ten times that.
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Wait so if You do an automatic bid and the auction ends for less than your highest automatic bid, then the auction site keeps all of it? im so confused lol
 
No, say the winner bid $50 max but the next highest bid was only $32 (you), then ebay will automatically bid just enough for him to win which was $33 and that's all the winner pays. The $50 is saying that's all he would allow the auto bid to bid for him.
 
Yeah, you were 'sniped' at the last second.


As for the auto-bid system, Dubya3's right ...

The winning bidder could have put a max bid of $100 but the auto-bid system will only increment his bid until it's higher than the others till it reaches his max.

If you had manually bid $34, you'd see his jump immediately to $35. If you had put a max bid of $50, you'd have seen his immediately jump to $51.
 
Don't feel too bad. Now you know the rules and can play that game also...
eBay can be a tough row to hoe.
 
There is no such thing as sniping. You either have the highest bid when time runs out, or you don't. That's about as fair as it can get.

"Rules same for all. Sniping exists not." - Yoda
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powernoodle said:
There is no such thing as sniping. You either have the highest bid when time runs out, or you don't. That's about as fair as it can get.

"Rules same for all. Sniping exists not." - Yoda
112.gif
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It's just a term and we've called it that since 1995. It certainly does exist. I've been the victim of snipers many many many times.
 
powernoodle said:
There is no such thing as sniping. You either have the highest bid when time runs out, or you don't. That's about as fair as it can get.

"Rules same for all. Sniping exists not." - Yoda
112.gif
Click to expand...
True, but not totally true. Yes, if you don't have the high bid at the end, you lose. Sniping just means waiting until the last couple seconds of the auction to place your maximum bid. Snipes are not always successful, you may still lose, but nobody can just keep eating away at your reserve in small increments and it eliminates the temptation to get caught up in a bidding war and win, but know you overpaid.

Hypothetical: Say I had been following the auction of that Economy Dano lost out on and decided it was worth $60 to me. If I bid $60 a second before the end of the auction, one of two things will happen, either I'll be the high bidder at a price that, at most, will be what I felt it was worth, or I will lose with the knowledge that it was worth more to someone else than it was to me. If I bid $60 near the start of the auction, I may still win or lose, but if I win, I will almost always pay more than if I had waited.
 
Mr. Dano, lets take the Spyderco Economy as an example, as Brother Deacon did. Lets say that you were willing to pay $60 for it, but no more. You can electronically tell eBay that your maximum bid will be $60 for this item. It will then automatically place bids for you up to $60, and then stop. If I bid $32, it will immediately and automatically bid $33 (or whatever the incremental bid is) without your input. Then if I bid $34, it will immediately and automatically bid $35 for you, and so on. If it gets up to $60, it will stop there because that's what you've told it to do.

The result is that you either win the item for $60 or less (which is what you wanted), or someone else pays more than $60 it (which is also what you wanted, because you didn't think it was worth more than $60). Either way, you are never a "victim".

I would not characterize the failure to win an item on eBay as victimization, but that's for another sub-forum. Even if you characterize it as such, I would not tolerate being victimized "many many many times" on eBay or anywhere else for that matter without figuring out how to become the predator and not the prey.

By employing eBay's automatic bidding, you are fully in control of your bidding, including the timing and the maximum that you will bid, and therefore cannot be victimized.
 
You win some and you lose some. I've been on both ends plenty of times and that is just the nature of online bidding. My advice is to learn from the experience and approach your next auction better prepared for that same possibility.
 
powernoodle said:
By employing eBay's automatic bidding, you are fully in control of your bidding, including the timing and the maximum that you will bid, and therefore cannot be victimized.
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I must admit that I haven't been using eBay much in the last few years, and may not be aware of new features. Is this something relatively new? Are you saying that eBay now has a built in sniping service? Could I, for example, have gone in on day one of the auction for that Economy, put in a bid for $60, but told eBay not to actually place that bid until 1 second before the auction ended? Otherwise, I would not be "fully in control", I would only control the amount of my bid, not the timing. So, again, I'd be leaving myself more open to counter bids by other legitimate bidders and to potentially becoming the victim of shill bidding. I know third party sniping services existed years ago, although I never used one, but I wasn't aware of eBay launching one of their own.

As for being a "victim", I think you're just playing with semantics. No, it's not the same as being the victim of a crime, but I've heard "victim" used more than once by sports commentators to describe the losing team.
 
Dano1987 said:
It's just a term and we've called it that since 1995. It certainly does exist. I've been the victim of snipers many many many times.
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Wrong - you've been a victim of your own low bidding. It's that simple.
 
The Deacon said:
I must admit that I haven't been using eBay much in the last few years, and may not be aware of new features. Is this something relatively new? Are you saying that eBay now has a built in sniping service? Could I, for example, have gone in on day one of the auction for that Economy, put in a bid for $60, but told eBay not to actually place that bid until 1 second before the auction ended? Otherwise, I would not be "fully in control", I would only control the amount of my bid, not the timing. So, again, I'd be leaving myself more open to counter bids by other legitimate bidders and to potentially becoming the victim of shill bidding. I know third party sniping services existed years ago, although I never used one, but I wasn't aware of eBay launching one of their own.

As for being a "victim", I think you're just playing with semantics. No, it's not the same as being the victim of a crime, but I've heard "victim" used more than once by sports commentators to describe the losing team.
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The answer to that specific question is NO. Bidding early - no matter how high - better said - especially if your reserve is high- just insures that the bidding process will be - with every bid below yours - rising incrementally and assuredly to your high bid.

If you place the same high reserve bid closer to the end (assuming that the bid has not already gone higher than your intended reserve) - minutes is better than hours and seconds better than minutes if you can stand the strain - you are much better positioned to win. In my mind a "snipe" only occurs in the last 2 to 4 seconds and if someone hasn't out bid the "sniper" by placing a higher reserve. All is fair if you know how to play the game.
 
the same thing happened to me yesterday. spyderco harpy, 48 dollars last ten seconds, i bid 49, site doesnt load it. lost the auction :(
 
Bid the max you are willing to pay and wait.

If the bid is $32 in the last few minutes, you can bet it's probably going to go up before the auction ends. Don't bid $33 and think you're gonna win.

Bid the max you can stomach. If you'd bid $150 for example - sniping tool or not that knife would be yours.

The problem comes in when people think it's not going to jump dramatically in the last few seconds. Maybe it will maybe it won't.


B
 
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