ebay snipe

[orange]

an interesting article on slashdot about ebay, the comments are very useful
link

[InTheSand]

Agreed - sniping (not heard it called that before!) is the way to win... done it myself on more than one occasion!

 - Ali

[A1200Power]

Hey,

What's new about that ?? I have been doing that all the time. Guess with a little brain use everyone can figure out that it doesn't work to bid while there a 4 more day to go.

Also when placing your bid make sure it is high enough, or the value you wish to spend on it (not like 50 cents higher than the last bid). If you don't win, well then the other had a bigger wallet. :lol:

[m1screant]

What happens if two people are sniping the same auction? Is that possible?

[odin]

Sure, then the one who fires last with the highest bid wins.

[motorollin]

It's common sense. If you keep bidding when there are days to go, you just push the price up, as your "opposing" bidders will keep bidding to outbid you, so the price goes up and up. It's far better to let someone else remain the high bidder until the last minute then quickly outbid them before they have a chance to bid again.

Good news for buyers, bad news for sellers :-)

--
moto

[justthatgood]

I want to smack people that encourage bidding wars. I can't even describe how it is when I see people jack an item up that should only be about the price of a television, go up to the price of a car. Ban stupid spam bidders, seriously.

[MayhemMaybe]

The only way to nearly eliminiate sniping would be for ebay to implement a system where a bid within a certain time of the auctions end extends the end time of the auction by a certain amount. This is the way traditional auction houses work. The auction does not end while there is activity until that activity dies down.

This would benefit sellers and ebay with higher selling prices. It would 'hurt' buyers who would end up paying more on popular items.

Ebay probably won't do it though because they are the most popular so if it aint broke don't fix it. Also, it might drive away a portion of their customer base who are looking for bargains who would go to auction sites that work the current way.

[Matt_H]

I've sniped and been sniped a couple of times. Being the victor or the loser can change your perspective on it in an instant.

More recently, I've started bidding earlier. I've found that bringing the price up earlier (not a bidding war, by any means - just putting in a single bid) can discourage later sniping. I think the appeal for sniping is that you can nab something quickly for cheap. If it ain't especially cheap by the end, that's the end of the snipe appeal.

The snipe frenzy at the end of an auction can drive the price way way way up, far more than earlier bidding can.

There's actually been psychological research into similar behavior - in an experiment, participants bid tens of dollars (if not more - don't remember exact amount) on a single one dollar bill.

Used to be, perhaps long ago, that eBay kept the auction going if there was activity in the last minute or so.  I suppose that has changed now, but I do distinctly remember that.

Wayne

[tonyvdb]

Snipping is hard to beat so you have to join it. I do it all the time and have gotten some great deals on ebay. just to name two I once got a mint condition Yamaha 12 channel 4 sub mixers for $175 that would have cost me $1200 if I would have bought it in a store used. I also got a Yamaha RXV995 Home theater receiver for $200 that was in mint condidton. :-o
Snipping is not fair to thoughs who play the bidding war properly but it is a must because somone else will do it if you dont.

[dnelsonfl]

Seems most of the sniper sites use some sort of API to communicate the bids to Ebay. And, of course, for the sniper site to be able to use those APIs requires licensing fees to Ebay. Cha-ching! So no matter how you bid, Ebay profits.

[Zac67]

I can't even remember when I last used the 'standard' way to bid - I always use Biet-O-Matic - very decent tool. Not the prettiest GUI, but all the functions you need and comes for free. Enter your bid and then wait for BOM to snipe the item. :lol:

[leirbag28]

Oh Yeah?

What about Sellers Who call their friends and tell them to bid on their auction just to push the price up.....or the sellers bid on their own auction with a different name.

I know people who do this.

THey do it when they see their auction is not selling well.

[adolescent]

@Wayne

That is/was Yahoo auctions.  

As for sniping I don't do it.  There's not a single item that's worth paying more than I'm willing to pay.  So, if I bid $100 that's what I'm willing to pay.  Since eBay uses proxy bidding there is no reason to put in incremental bids from $50-100.