How to Ebay snipe? What do you use? Trust with your password?

[bojay1997]

At the end of the day, it's all semantics. Because a "snipe" is just a simple bid. And it's exactly the same type of bid had you placed it 6 days before. Whether you use a service or do it yourself manually, there is really not a single difference except the timing of it.

 

You could go on about what your "max" is, or overpaying, the emotions of individuals, irrationality, or the seller ending an auction, whatever the heck you want. It all doesn't matter as the only one truth is, in a regular ebay auction brought to completion, the HIGHEST BID WINS. End of story.

 

And if one person bids $15,000 six days early for an ET cartridge and another snipes at the final second for $10,000, well the first guy is going to win it for about $10,001.

 

And if one person bids $10,000 six days early for an ET cartridge and another snipes at the final second for $15,000, well the second guy is going to win it for about $10,001

 

I agree 100%, but none of that has anything to do with what is being discussed here. The discussion is about whether or not sniping gives an advantage over just normal bidding. I think there are both some benefits and some risks to sniping. I just don't think a lower end price is one of the benefits as there are too many other people that snipe or bid at the end manually and too many people with deep pockets bidding on video games today for sniping to give anyone a real price advantage.

Edited October 31, 2012 by bojay1997

[NE146]

I think there are both some benefits and some risks to sniping. I just don't think a lower end price is one of the benefits as there are too many other people that snipe or bid at the end manually and too many people with deep pockets

 

I guess then the question is does it give you an advantage 100% of the time? Of course not..

 

But CAN it give you an advantage over general auctions and result in a lower end price? Is that a possibility at all? The answer is of course very much yes. Of course not always, but it IS a possibility.

 

Case in point. There was a toy I won just today that was up for six days and started at $1.50. I set a snipe for at 5 bucks a while ago. It had no bids until the last few seconds. I won the auction at $2.75 since someone else sniped too. But I'm sure had I put in a max bid of $5.00 before that, the other person who bid would have seen that someone else (me) was interested and either 1. "chipped away" to see what I bid. or 2. Raised their max bid since they saw there was some possible competition.

 

 

Whether you think this is small potatoes compared to high profile auctions for desired Video Games where side deals might happen is beside the point. Sniping can and does get you some better deals than if you'd bid earlier., "sometimes".

 

BID YOUR MAX, AS LATE AS POSSIBLE, AND GOOD LUCK. That's the way to go for myself. But again, anyone can do it how they like

Edited October 31, 2012 by NE146

[boxpressed]

I wrote a blog article on sniping a while back: http://retroauction.com/sniping/

 

Sniping absolutely confers an advantage. If you've ever played poker, you know the advantage of acting last in a betting round.

[bojay1997]

I wrote a blog article on sniping a while back: http://retroauction.com/sniping/

 

Sniping absolutely confers an advantage. If you've ever played poker, you know the advantage of acting last in a betting round.

 

Sorry, but you made the same unsupported arguments that were already raised in this thread. You also completely ignored the down sides of sniping including being side dealed or having the seller end something early. You're certainly entitled to your opinion and to write whatever you want, but please don't pretend you have proven the advantages of sniping when it's all based on speculation and no actual evidence.

[boxpressed]

 

 

Sorry, but you made the same unsupported arguments that were already raised in this thread. You also completely ignored the down sides of sniping including being side dealed or having the seller end something early. You're certainly entitled to your opinion and to write whatever you want, but please don't pretend you have proven the advantages of sniping when it's all based on speculation and no actual evidence.

 

Well, there's an article on side deals on the blog if you're interested in that, but I fail to see how not including a potential consequence such as being side dealt makes my argument any less sound. You can be side dealt regardless of whether you sniped to win an auction or not. It's not like side dealing becomes an option only when you have sniped, right?

 

I'm not sure what kind of empirical evidence you need. Not sniping = giving away information to your opponents. Sniping = not giving away information to your opponents. Believe it or not, the difference really is as simple as that.

[bojay1997]

Well, there's an article on side deals on the blog if you're interested in that, but I fail to see how not including a potential consequence such as being side dealt makes my argument any less sound. You can be side dealt regardless of whether you sniped to win an auction or not. It's not like side dealing becomes an option only when you have sniped, right?

 

I'm not sure what kind of empirical evidence you need. Not sniping = giving away information to your opponents. Sniping = not giving away information to your opponents. Believe it or not, the difference really is as simple as that.

 

In my opinion not sniping is not revealing much to your opponents as they still don't know how much you bid and there are so many people both automatically and manually sniping, it really provides no advantage. In some theoretical world, where it's just you and some person who bids once their true maximum and nobody was posting on web forums and other websites about all the hidden gems in lots or rare items coming up, sniping would be a major advantage. Unfortunately, Ebay hasn't been stocked with those kinds of bidders for many, many years and it's very, very rare to find something that only a handful of people have seen or are watching.

 

The only advantage sniping provides IMHO is for situations where you really are part of a tiny bidding pool and it prevents sellers from schill bidding you up or other bidders from trying to find your maximum only to withdraw their bid. You can do the same thing by simply bidding in the last few minutes or hours of the auction rather than sniping. On the other hand, late bidding increases the chances that the seller will take a side offer or end the auction early. That seems to happen a lot on rare video game auctions. It's far less likely that a seller will accept a side deal or do a private sale if there are lots of bids and the price is steadily climbing.

 

I just don't think sniping is much of an advantage anymore as people are aware of it and there are lots of very wealthy bidders out there on rare items and they seem to have no issue with bidding their maximum and just ignoring snipers. If it works for you, great, but for me, I win plenty of rare items for well below what I would expect to pay without sniping.

[+wood_jl]

No it's not the same because different circumstances can happen in both. Say there are 2 interested parties in a crappy item (e.g. a scooby doo shoelace)

 

Scenario 1:

You bid $10 with 2 days to go bringing the current bid to $1

A 2nd bidder comes in and putis in a bid of $3 and see's he's automatically outbid to $4. So he bids again at $5 and is automatically outbid to $6. So he bids $8 and is automatically outbid at $9. he says screw it as he doesn't want to pay that much.. So you win the item 2 days later at $9 (or worst case scenario, are outbid).

 

Scenario 2: Sniping.

2nd bidder comes in and puts in his initial bid of $3 and sees he's the high bidder at $1 and leaves it at that. You snipe at $10 and win the item at $4

 

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THIS.

 

Thank you for best-describing what it is that I was thinking, but did not find the words for. (I know this post is a couple months old; I missed it)

 

This is exactly the "advantage" (or "gain" or "cheaper price" or whatever the hell you want to call it) that sniping can get you. Evidence? Quite simply, the number of people who snipe, and the sniping services that they use. They're not doing it (sniping) to pay more.

 

Way to go, NE146!

[SoulBlazer]

I've always done manual sniping on EBay. Did it myself. Swooped in at about 3 seconds left and made my bid for as much as I was willing to pay. If it sells more then that, oh well, I tried. No tipping my hand to anyone how much I am willing to spend. So I've won items I wouildn't have with that, and paid less in others.

[bojay1997]

^

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THIS.

 

Thank you for best-describing what it is that I was thinking, but did not find the words for. (I know this post is a couple months old; I missed it)

 

This is exactly the "advantage" (or "gain" or "cheaper price" or whatever the hell you want to call it) that sniping can get you. Evidence? Quite simply, the number of people who snipe, and the sniping services that they use. They're not doing it (sniping) to pay more.

 

Way to go, NE146!

 

Again, you have a very outdated conception of the level of sophistication of Ebay bidders. Every single Ebay auction I have won for rare games in the past six months has had 2-3 snipers roll in at the last minute. I still won by bidding what I thought was reasonable and was prepared to pay. There just aren't many no bidder or two bidder auctions nowadays unless it is something very few people want or something that somehow escapes the notice of all of the forums that post hidden gems before auctions end. I suppose if you find some auction somewhere that has a truly old school bidder who doesn't understand last minute bidding and sniping, you could see the scenario above play out. I just haven't bid on anything in many, many years that only had one other bidder and no snipers.

[Paulson007]

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/science/columnist/vergano/2006-06-25-ebay-physics_x.htm

[+wood_jl]

Again, you have a very outdated conception of the level of sophistication of Ebay bidders.

 

As long as people continue to snipe - and they do - how is it outdated? Are you saying that people don't snipe? I contend that people do snipe, and if they ARE sniping, then the conception of the Ebay bidder as a sniper is current, not outdated. Should sniping cease as an activity, it is at that time that my contention that people snipe will be outdated. Would that not be the case?

 

My evidence that sniping occurs, and the view that it does is not outdated:

 

(1) I snipe, almost all the time, with some "success."

(2) I've only sold about 50 items on Ebay, and most of the items I've sold (unless a few Buy-It-Now) were sniped. I was watching, in many instances.

(3) I "watch" many more items on Ebay than I buy. After auction completion, I go back and click on the bids and see sniping activity, in most instances.

(4) Many people on this [reasonably popular] forum snipe, and post about it all the time.

(5) The many sniping services are in existence to meet the active demand of snipers, or they would cease to exist.

 

 

I have bought many things by sniping. Sometimes it doesn't work, but it does a lot of the time. So, my only contentions are: (1) Sniping does occur, and quite frequently, and (2) sniping has worked for me, many times. Perhaps if everybody put in their real max bid 5 minutes into a 7-day auction start, then sniping would not work. But - perhaps through human psychology of wanting something cheap and fear of paying too much - people don't do this, in many instances. Sure - you don't snipe - but I'm talking about everybody else.

 

[this scenario is simplified to one adversarial bidder, for brevity; same tactics apply, regardless of number of other bidders]

Sometimes, I'll see something about to end. It's sitting at, say, $50. I wait until 10 seconds before it ends, and put in $101 as my max bid and it immediately goes to $60 and remains at $60 for a few seconds. Frequently, I'll then witness the last few seconds as someone else - another sniper - then furiously tries to increase his max bid. The current bid will start rising quickly, $70, $80.....oops....out of time. I win for $80. Some "jerk" (not really a jerk) just cost me $20, because I'm buying the thing, anyway, and he is not. But if he had bid $110 on day one, he'd have won against my $101 snipe. But he's sniping, and so am I. I would have caused it to go to $102 with my sniping and quit, and then I'd be the jerk who cost him money but didn't win. But he didn't bid $110 on day one; he's content to let it sit at $50, until I came along and my $101 bid took it to $60. That means my adversary is sniping, right? If I'd have put in my $101 bid on day 2, he'd have 5 days to figure out what he tried to figure out in the last 10 seconds....how much do I (his adversary) value the thing? My point is: perhaps the only thing that the success of sniping can be attributed to is.....the fact that other people are sniping, rather than entering their MAX bid like you do. Sniping begets further sniping. If I were the only sniper in the world, this tactic probably wouldn't work. But because so many people are also sniping, sniping works.

 

I'm not here to perform a value judgement on the ethics of sniping, or declare whether or not I "like" or "dislike" sniping. The world (or at least Ebay) would probably be a much cleaner, more sensible place if people did NOT snipe. But the fact of the matter is that sniping does occur, and that fact alone may account for the fact that further sniping works, in some self-propagating way. The evidence that it occurs is overwhelming, and seen by looking at the bidding history of many, many auctions. Maybe it should not occur. The fact is that it does. Perhaps someone so-motivated can launch a campaign against it.

Edited January 1, 2013 by wood_jl

[bojay1997]

http://usatoday30.us...y-physics_x.htm

 

Might want to read an article completely before you post it to support an argument. It's almost seven years old at this point and this quote stuck out to me - "But, that being said, if they know what proxy bid they want to submit, it won't hurt them to submit it very near the end (but neither will it help them much, or often ...)". Considering how many people now snipe both manually and automatically compared to seven years ago, I would suspect it is an even less effective strategy today.

[bojay1997]

As long as people continue to snipe - and they do - how is it outdated? Are you saying that people don't snipe? I contend that people do snipe, and if they ARE sniping, then the conception of the Ebay bidder as a sniper is current, not outdated. Should sniping cease as an activity, it is at that time that my contention that people snipe will be outdated. Would that not be the case?

 

My evidence that sniping occurs, and the view that it does is not outdated:

 

(1) I snipe, almost all the time, with some "success."

(2) I've only sold about 50 items on Ebay, and most of the items I've sold (unless a few Buy-It-Now) were sniped. I was watching, in many instances.

(3) I "watch" many more items on Ebay than I buy. After auction completion, I go back and click on the bids and see sniping activity, in most instances.

(4) Many people on this [reasonably popular] forum snipe, and post about it all the time.

(5) The many sniping services are in existence to meet the active demand of snipers, or they would cease to exist.

 

 

I have bought many things by sniping. Sometimes it doesn't work, but it does a lot of the time. So, my only contentions are: (1) Sniping does occur, and quite frequently, and (2) sniping has worked for me, many times. Perhaps if everybody put in their real max bid 5 minutes into a 7-day auction start, then sniping would not work. But - perhaps through human psychology of wanting something cheap and fear of paying too much - people don't do this, in many instances. Sure - you don't snipe - but I'm talking about everybody else.

 

[this scenario is simplified to one adversarial bidder, for brevity; same tactics apply, regardless of number of other bidders]

Sometimes, I'll see something about to end. It's sitting at, say, $50. I wait until 10 seconds before it ends, and put in $101 as my max bid and it immediately goes to $60 and remains at $60 for a few seconds. Frequently, I'll then witness the last few seconds as someone else - another sniper - then furiously tries to increase his max bid. The current bid will start rising quickly, $70, $80.....oops....out of time. I win for $80. Some "jerk" (not really a jerk) just cost me $20, because I'm buying the thing, anyway, and he is not. But if he had bid $110 on day one, he'd have won against my $101 snipe. But he's sniping, and so am I. I would have caused it to go to $102 with my sniping and quit, and then I'd be the jerk who cost him money but didn't win. But he didn't bid $110 on day one; he's content to let it sit at $50, until I came along and my $101 bid took it to $60. That means my adversary is sniping, right? If I'd have put in my $101 bid on day 2, he'd have 5 days to figure out what he tried to figure out in the last 10 seconds....how much do I (his adversary) value the thing? My point is: perhaps the only thing that the success of sniping can be attributed to is.....the fact that other people are sniping, rather than entering their MAX bid like you do. Sniping begets further sniping. If I were the only sniper in the world, this tactic probably wouldn't work. But because so many people are also sniping, sniping works.

 

I'm not here to perform a value judgement on the ethics of sniping, or declare whether or not I "like" or "dislike" sniping. The world (or at least Ebay) would probably be a much cleaner, more sensible place if people did NOT snipe. But the fact of the matter is that sniping does occur, and that fact alone may account for the fact that further sniping works, in some self-propagating way. The evidence that it occurs is overwhelming, and seen by looking at the bidding history of many, many auctions. Maybe it should not occur. The fact is that it does. Perhaps someone so-motivated can launch a campaign against it.

 

I'm not disputing that people snipe. Of course they do. It's the very fact that so many people snipe that makes it a fairly ineffective strategy today. Ten years ago or even five years ago, when it was far less common and there were lots of newbies on Ebay that didn't understand that sniping could occur at the last minute, I'm sure many auctions were won at a cheaper price than if the sniper had engaged in a bidding war with that newbie.

 

The facts today are very different. I bid on approximately 25 video game auctions a week and in the past two years, I haven't bid on any item that didn't have at least 4-6 bidders and 2-3 snipers. As such, it doesn't matter if you snipe or bid immediately. The highest bidder will win and it doesn't matter if the bidder snipes that winning bid in the last second or placed it on day one hour one. That's my main point. Sniping isn't some secret strategy. It's something lots of people do and as such, the advantage it provides is non-existent today, at least as far as keeping final prices lower. That's frankly why Ebay doesn't crack down on it. They know that it actually runs prices up because people get caught in the heat of the moment and panic and manually snipe rather than putting a lot of thought into what they are doing or looking around to see what similar or even identical items are selling for. The fact that lots of people snipe isn't evidence that it works, it's evidence that people are operating on an outdated image of naive bidders and pre-smartphone versions of Ebay.

Edited January 1, 2013 by bojay1997

[boxpressed]

The facts today are very different. I bid on approximately 25 video game auctions a week and in the past two years, I haven't bid on any item that didn't have at least 4-6 bidders and 2-3 snipers. As such, it doesn't matter if you snipe or bid immediately. The highest bidder will win and it doesn't matter if the bidder snipes that winning bid in the last second or placed it on day one hour one. That's my main point. Sniping isn't some secret strategy. It's something lots of people do and as such, the advantage it provides is non-existent today, at least as far as keeping final prices lower.

 

I want to make sure that I don't misrepresent your position, so I'll paraphrase it here based on what you wrote above: the highest bidder will win whether the bid is an early or a snipe bid, AND snipe bids give no advantage to those wanting to win at the lowest possible price (at least these days).

 

It's important to separate these points because they are completely different points. The first point is indisputable; it is true that the highest proxy bid will win regardless of when it is placed. The second point is in dispute.

 

You say that because there are multiple snipers for desirable items these days, sniping is irrelevant. Again, please let me know if my paraphrase misrepresents what you said above. Now, if every bidder placed a snipe bid, you would be correct. But by your own admission, only about half of the bidders ("2-3" out of "4-6") are snipers. That means there are multiple serious, "regular" bidders.

 

But it doesn't even take multiple serious, "regular" bidders besides yourself to make sniping worthwhile. It takes only one besides yourself.

 

Regardless of who places a non-snipe bid first, snipers will know what the lower proxy bid is. If your proxy bid is $50, and the other serious buyer's proxy bid is $40, the current bid will be listed at $41, and snipers will know that they need to bid at least $42. If you had decided to snipe, snipers would see a current bid of $1.

 

It doesn't matter whether there is one, two, three, or more serious, "regular" bidders. Every additional serious bidder who raises the current bid gives the sniper more information. The point is that if only one of them decided to snipe, there would be less information available to snipers.

 

My position is that I want to give my opponents as little information as possible, and that means sniping in a fixed-deadline auction. The information I want to protect is my proxy bid, in part or in whole. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree whether it is better to be the bidder who proffers or withholds information about his or her intentions. We may even disagree whether that information is relevant; obviously, I believe that it is.

 

I'll go back to my earlier point that it is always an advantage in a planned competition to see what the opponent does first, then react. The advantage is in having more information. This is why you want to be on the button in Texas Hold'em, why the home team bats in the bottom of the ninth, why closest to the hole hits last, etc.

[Rockin' Kat]

:belch:

Edited January 7, 2013 by Rockin' Kat

[Rockin' Kat]

I find in auctions where I bid earlier the other bidders that were already winning, start upping their bids and getting bolder with their maximums... so I'm very confident I've paid less through sniping auctions in the past. I've also avoided getting sucked into upping my max on something I really couldn't afford to pay more for by doing it. As long as people see that they need to bed higher they will be tempted to up their max. There are lots of people who do not understand the concept of proxy bidding, these people will be less likely to increase their max bid if you don't give them the opportunity to do so by sniping.

 

When I have used tools to do it, it's been jbidwatcher. It's available for Mac OS, Linux, and Windows. It's worked pretty well, though you should always make sure it's up to date if you've gone a while without using it since eBay likes to make major changes to the bidding system pretty frequently.

[+wood_jl]

I also like to snipe, because I don't see the point in committing to the thing, early-on. Sometimes I see something else I'd rather buy. Sometimes the same thing will be listed by someone else as a cheap "Buy It Now." Granted, if one is bidding on something truly "rare," this ain't so likely. I suppose I don't buy that much truly rare stuff. But even I am bidding on something rare, I only "proxy bid" if I'm pretty sure I won't be able to get the chance to snipe.