ESNIPE ON EBAY

[porcy62]

Since I loose more than half of the auctions I partecipate for various reasons, I wish to give a try at Esnipe.

Do you use it?

[sidewinder]

Good question - I'll be interested in the answer to this one too.. B-)

[Brownian Motion]

I use the equivalent--auction stealer. It gives 3 free snipes each week, which is about my requirement. They also offer pay plans. It has definitely saved me money. I paypal them a little money now and then to show my appreciation for their free service.

[Claude]

If your PC is always online, you can also snipe for free without limits, with software installed on your PC.

I use Bid-o-matic, which offers a lot of functions and is very reliable

http://sourceforge.net/projects/bom/

Edited April 16, 2005 by Claude

[porcy62]

If your PC is always online, you can also snipe for free without limits, with software installed on your PC.

I use Bid-o-matic, which offers a lot of functions and is very reliable

http://sourceforge.net/projects/bom/

Sadly, another Windows based software. I have a MAC

[connoisseur series500]

ebay snipers are a pain in the ass!

I just bid what I will pay. I often get sniped at the end.

I dunno; I find it rude somehow, though objectively I'm not sure that's a fair statement.

[Guy Berger]

ebay snipers are a pain in the ass!

I just bid what I will pay.  I often get sniped at the end.

I dunno; I find it rude somehow, though objectively I'm not sure that's a fair statement.

Paul's pushed me into economist mode here.

I guess it's rational to snipe when other people are (irrationally) max-bidding below their actual valuations -- that way you might pay a lower price for an item than you would if you simply set your valuation of the item as your max-bid.

That said, it doesn't really make sense to get angry when someone snipes you out of an auction -- either you should have set your max-bid higher, or you're better off not having the item.

Can sellers put in an option in their auctions to automatically extend bidding by 15-30 minutes when there is a bid within the last 1-2 minutes of an auction? I think that would make a lot of sense.

Guy

Edited April 16, 2005 by Guy Berger

[Jazzmoose]

Can sellers put in an option in their auctions to automatically extend bidding by 15-30 minutes when there is a bid within the last 1-2 minutes of an auction? I think that would make a lot of sense.

Guy

I think it would spell the end of eBay. The whole appeal of eBay is that you know when the auction is going to end, so you don't have to 'be there' in order to participate. People just need to deal with the fact that a live 'going, going, gone' auction and an 'end at a set time' auction are two different animals.

Back when I used eBay I used a snipe program quite often on items I really wanted, like stamps for my collection. Other stuff, like jazz CDs, I generally just checked out the 'closing soon' stuff and sniped on my own.

Just as a side note, I don't understand how anyone who has played poker could not appreciate sniping on eBay...

[porcy62]

ebay snipers are a pain in the ass!

I just bid what I will pay.  I often get sniped at the end.

I dunno; I find it rude somehow, though objectively I'm not sure that's a fair statement.

Paul's pushed me into economist mode here.

I guess it's rational to snipe when other people are (irrationally) max-bidding below their actual valuations -- that way you might pay a lower price for an item than you would if you simply set your valuation of the item as your max-bid.

That said, it doesn't really make sense to get angry when someone snipes you out of an auction -- either you should have set your max-bid higher, or you're better off not having the item.

Can sellers put in an option in their auctions to automatically extend bidding by 15-30 minutes when there is a bid within the last 1-2 minutes of an auction? I think that would make a lot of sense.

Guy

The main reason for me is time zone difference. It's so frustrating loosing auctions for a couple of $ when you are sleeping! And as you said usually you could get items at lower price. I think that decided you max-bid, with a snipe you have more probabilities to pay less, if you bid early, in the last minutes the people on line will test your bid till their max-bid. Only if they really want the item they enter a senseless max-bid, but I wouldn't risk a sensless max-bid because I could find a previous senseless max-bid, the main goal is the get the item at a lower price.

Edited April 16, 2005 by porcy62

[Brownian Motion]

ebay snipers are a pain in the ass!

I just bid what I will pay.  I often get sniped at the end.

I dunno; I find it rude somehow, though objectively I'm not sure that's a fair statement.

As someone who sells more than he buys on ebay, I resent sniping. Why, back in the good old days, I occasionally sold a 35 dollar book for hundreds; but then the bidders wised-up and began waiting until the last few minutes of an auction to assess the situation before they bid. Rats! No more silly bidding wars.

Now as a buyer I too snipe to save a few bucks here and there and as a seller take comfort in the fact that sniped or not, the auction still goes to the highest bidder.

[Brownian Motion]

The thing that I've wondered about is the person who keeps inching his way to a final sale.

You know? As a buyer, I pretty much know what the max is that I want to pay

and that's the one bid that I usually make -

sometimes a second bid as a snipe if I feel a real desire to get the item...

but I see people place 10 or 12 bids -

all the while inching their way thru an auction

(and not always winning!) Kooky!

I'm not sure what that's all about, either. My theory is that folks who set down one bid after the other in small increments during the last couple of minutes of an auction believe that they are doing something to hinder or prevent other bidders from placing bids.

[Brad]

What the heck is esnipe? You mean for a fee they'll bid for you at the last second. I do that myself but don't alway time it right. It might be worth it.

[Brad]

I just checked out their web site. It's incredible, to say the least. The next time I plan to bid on something I really want, I'll be using this. It'll probably be more effective than me doing it.

[Guy Berger]

Can sellers put in an option in their auctions to automatically extend bidding by 15-30 minutes when there is a bid within the last 1-2 minutes of an auction?  I think that would make a lot of sense.

      Guy

I think it would spell the end of eBay. The whole appeal of eBay is that you know when the auction is going to end, so you don't have to 'be there' in order to participate. People just need to deal with the fact that a live 'going, going, gone' auction and an 'end at a set time' auction are two different animals.

I don't think it would spell the end of eBay at all. First off, sellers could opt to use the current scheme so if people really prefer that, then at worst my suggestion is redundant.

Second, I think since my option would make sniping obsolete, people would be inclined to put their valuation as the max-bid in the first place. Initially people would probably put bids in little increments to simulate sniping. But the realization that such behavior is less valuable when auctions are extended after a "snipe" would encourage people to do it less often. Eventually, in equilibrium (distrust any economist that uses this term ) I think auctions would end around the initial stop time.

Just as a side note, I don't understand how anyone who has played poker could not appreciate sniping on eBay...

Why, because both of them involve ripping off unwitting people?

[connoisseur series500]

That said, it doesn't really make sense to get angry when someone snipes you out of an auction -- either you should have set your max-bid higher, or you're better off not having the item.

The anger comes when you're winning the bid for days right up until the last second. You go from having the item to losing it within seconds. That's why buyers might get annoyed at snipers.

Fortunately, I don't need to buy much from ebay anymore, so it doesn't really matter to me.

I like "buy-it-nows." That's the best way!

[Jazzmoose]

The anger comes when you're winning the bid for days right up until the last second. You go from having the item to losing it within seconds. That's why buyers might get annoyed at snipers.

Unfortunately, the item goes to the highest bid, not the person who was at the top for the longest...

A buyer who gets annoyed at snipers has two choices: continue to be annoyed, or learn to snipe. I chose the latter.

On the other hand, I'm with you; I rarely buy anything on eBay anymore.

[BbM7]

If it makes you happy, live it up. But rational? I don't see it.

[wolff]

The anger comes when you're winning the bid for days right up until the last second. You go from having the item to losing it within seconds. That's why buyers might get annoyed at snipers.

Then bid a higher amount to outbid the snipers.

I use Esnipe for time and economical reasons.

[connoisseur series500]

The anger comes when you're winning the bid for days right up until the last second.  You go from having the item to losing it within seconds.  That's why buyers might get annoyed at snipers.

Then bid a higher amount to outbid the snipers.

I use Esnipe for time and economical reasons.

Not so simple.

With snipers you lose out no matter what, right?

What is a full bid? It is often determined by market forces. We work our way towards developing a sense of market value, then feel we've got a grip on it and place our max bid. Whatever that may be, some sniper comes in at the last minute...

Again, it's all allowed and we shouldn't get annoyed about it, but we do. There's something sneaky and underhanded about it all, but that's the marketplace...

[Big Wheel]

We work our way towards developing a sense of market value, then feel we've got a grip on it and place our max bid. Whatever that may be, some sniper comes in at the last minute...

No, a sniper determines his max bid just as a proxy bidder does. If you decided to bid $10000 on a copy of Kind of Blue, the sniping software will not outbid you unless the sniper has told it that he is willing to pay $10001 for the item. This means that all you have to do to win the auction is what you always do--make a bid that you think nobody will beat.

All this suggests is that your information on the market for the item isn't as perfect as you'd like it to be. Instead of looking at the prices bid in the current auction, you need to look at the price the same item has sold for in past auctions.

Edited April 17, 2005 by Big Wheel

[connoisseur series500]

We work our way towards developing a sense of market value, then feel we've got a grip on it and place our max bid. Whatever that may be, some sniper comes in at the last minute...

No, a sniper determines his max bid just as a proxy bidder does. If you decided to bid $10000 on a copy of Kind of Blue, the sniping software will not outbid you unless the sniper has told it that he is willing to pay $10001 for the item. This means that all you have to do to win the auction is what you always do--make a bid that you think nobody will beat.

Okay, I get that part. Wasn't quite clear on how it worked. So looking back, I guess the annoyance comes when nobody shows any interest in the item and you think you've got it won. You think you've got it won for 6 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, but lose it in the last minute. It's human to get upset about that!

[Aggie87]

The thing that bothers me about this concept is that I still think of Ebay as an auction site. Meaning I compete against other bidders, and get to decide if I want to outbid them. With sniping, you don't get a chance to respond to someone else's last-second bid.

edit - what sniping does is effectively turn ebay into a sealed-bid auction, I guess.

Edited April 17, 2005 by Aggie87

[Jazzmoose]

Exactly. The sealed bid auction comparison is apt.

By the way, about a sniper swooping out of nowhere, that's the way it's supposed to work. I rarely, rarely, RARELY bid more than once on an item. If you bid more than once, you weren't doing your homework. In an eBay type auction, you need to determine what the max is you're willing to pay and bid it. If you're making more than one bid, you aren't disciplined enough to play the game. Bid once, bid accurately, and make it count.

[Dan Gould]

My approach has always been to monitor auctions until the end and then decide what I want to bid. Only time I've placed a max. bid was if the end time was inconvenient, in which case I'd usually still bid late. I figure its also important to minimize the available time any prior winning bidder has to jump back in and bid again.

Therefore, I usually bid in the final minute. Its not as efficient as sniping - I have been sniped once or twice - but there are few things I had my heart set on that I didn't get.

As far as those incremental bidders go, I ended up manually sniping an antique toy bank that my Mom was interested in - and I didn't even intend to. The situation was, it had a reserve price on it, and someone, in the last couple of minutes, started probing at that reserve price - so the bid went up, but the reserve wasn't met, wasn't met, wasn't met. And the bid had exceeded my Mother's maximum by about $100, so I wasn't even supposed to bid.

So with about 30 seconds left, all of a sudden the bid was $400 and reserve met. So, I figured what the hell, the guy probably bid $425 or more, but I'd try $401.25 ... and with three seconds left, my bid was in and I was the winner. Man, that guy must have pissed! He probes and he probes and he finds the reserve price, he's the winner, less than 30 seconds to go and BOOM. He missed out by 75 cents.

And, fortunately for me, Mom had no problem with my exceeding her maximum and was absolutely thrilled with the item (it was made by a Connecticut company in the 1880s, so she was getting it for the Historical Society where she is the President).

(Actually, its a pretty cool item, called the Tammany Bank. Back then, children were taught the value of thrift and so there were lots of banks to keep their pennies in. This one though was an odd thing because while teaching thrift, it was basically glorifying graft. The bank was in the shape of a large man in a suit, seated in a chair. You put the penny in his hand, and the weight made the hand drop the penny inside the coat, while the man nodded his appreciation. See? Teach graft by showing a payoff to Tammany Hall!)

[Brownian Motion]

(Actually, its a pretty cool item, called the Tammany Bank.  Back then, children were taught the value of thrift and so there were lots of banks to keep their pennies in.  This one though was an odd thing because while teaching thrift, it was basically glorifying graft.  The bank was in the shape of a large man in a suit, seated in a chair.  You put the penny in his hand, and the weight made the hand drop the penny inside the coat, while the man nodded his appreciation.  See?  Teach graft by showing a payoff to Tammany Hall!)

"I seen my chances and I took 'em". -George Washington Plunkett.

Quoted in Plunkett of Tammany Hall.