The sniping topic

[Celebrindor]

Are you really dumb or what ? This is not what I'm trying to say and you know it.

So, please try to be constructive

Then please, clarify what you are saying!  Yes, in a brick-and-mortar auction, a losing bidder has an opportunity to bid again.  How would you have eBay work it?

[Erl00]

Then please, clarify what you are saying!  Yes, in a brick-and-mortar auction, a losing bidder has an opportunity to bid again.  How would you have eBay work it?

Ok, I give up.

[Erl00]

I can't understand how restricting bidding will help any seller.  Making last minute bidding easier for people who have already bid, and who look way ahead in auctions (my guess, a small eBay minority) won't be worth nearly as much as allowing everyone, including those of us who are last minute viewers, to bid up to the very end.

My guess is that with restricted bidding, prices on many "commodity" auctions would go down because people won't feel such a need to compete.  If bidding is restricted, there are just too many ways to game the system.  Remember that a snipe bid is still giving the seller more money than he would have had without the sniper.

This is with the last bolded sentence that I disagree.

I will take the example I used previously:
http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 5939780741

Had I sniped, I would have won the Item for $152. I bid 3 hours before the auction end, which let the beaten bidder to raise his bid once and even to protect his raised bid by a last minute bid. Finally the seller sells the lot for $169.
Had I sniped,the seller would have gotten less money (and eBay as well).

I do not want to restrict bidding, I want to restrict bidding in the last 10 minutes, OR if it's simpler to understand, I propose to extend the time an auction lasts by 10 minutes as long as it has more than 1 bidder at the end of regular time.

Do you agree that some people snipe in order to get good deals / to secure they get the item ?
If you agree with this, then you implicitely agree that it destroys value for sellers.

I need to think about it but you have potentially raised a good point saying that it could vary from one type of item to another. 'Commodities' could be different ...

Anyway, this reinforces my feeling that this should be a discretionary selling option.

[psrex]

All that Erl00 is saying is that people must in effect register to bid within the last 10 minutes by placing a bid sometime earlier in the auction.  That would give everyone an indication of who the players are in the auction, the level of interest and a better indication of what the final price might be.  Anyone who had bid on the auction previously would then have a chance to bid as normal, and could still put in their final bid in the closing seconds.

It seems like a good proposal that would bring Ebay auctions more in line with real life as there is always a chance to know how many people are bidding on an item, even if someone jumps in only toward the end.

If you're really worried about cutting people off then the time limitation could go down from 10 minutes to 5 minutes, which is still enough time for people to think intelligently about the auction rather than having to go just by reflex.

[normalbrains]

i think the current method is perfect and fair for everyone. the only problem i have is the lag time that makes me miss sniping sometimes by seconds but i dont know if thats due to ebay or my server.

arent there several services that automatically snipe for you if you type in the auction information? if anybody has info on those, post it.

[mintcollector]

i think the current method is perfect and fair for everyone. the only problem i have is the lag time that makes me miss sniping sometimes by seconds but i dont know if thats due to ebay or my server.

arent there several services that automatically snipe for you if you type in the auction information? if anybody has info on those, post it.

This has ben discussed in the past, but I feel lazy not to dig up the thread for you.  Fair warning.  You need to turn your user name and login over to these places to use their service.  What I mean by this is that they have access to your login if need be.  For me, anything tied to anything financial of mine will never be in the hands of someone else to store.  This is also whyt I don't and never will do online banking/bill payment.  Also any financial files are stored in off system media such as disks and CD-Rom.  So I have taken all necessary steps to help prevent identity theft and or financial hijacking.

[dry cereal]

If I had money I would probably take a similar stance.  Fortunately/Unfortunately, no one wants to be me.

[Allie]

A seller can protect themselves by having a reserve price or just setting the start bid at a price they would sell the item at. They also can list the item as Buy It Now only.

Ebay is an auction. Which means nothing is guaranteed. A seller wants to get as much money as possible, a buyer wants to get a good deal. It is the name of the game, and I doubt Ebay would want to do anything to restrict who can bid and when they can bid. I've happened to log on and seen something that has a minute left, bid and won. I've also been outbid with a minute left and been frustrated.

I am mainly a seller, just to let ya'll know. I'm happy if people pay, leave postive feedback and I make a profit.

My 2-cents worth, although I think I inflated the value.  ;D

[tah]

I do not want to restrict bidding, I want to restrict bidding in the last 10 minutes, OR if it's simpler to understand, I propose to extend the time an auction lasts by 10 minutes as long as it has more than 1 bidder at the end of regular time.

Most easyest way to implement it is to do it same way than one finnish online-auction site has done it(www.huuto.net).

Closing time is like DD.MM.YYYY or 5 minutes after last bid... I have seen couple auctions extend over one hour when two bidders have started a war against each other ;)

[fvzappa]

I could certainly agree on doing it that way.

[Big Games Supply]

I admit that I do snipe from time to time.  Thank you for listining.  Ah, that makes me feel much better now.

[sylvanstu]

Wow i like the 10 minuete rule were you have to have a bid in to bid in the last 10 minuetes now sell that idea to ebay

[flatmatt]

I'd say the extend the auction rule sounds great.  For the sellers and eBay, of course.  Not for us cheapos.  ;D

[snarke]

<scratch head> This is very weird to me.

OK, there's an auction. You want an item? Enter in the actual, honest, truly true maximum amount you'd be willing to pay for it. Now go to bed; you're done. &nbsp;You're now "snipe proof."

If somebody snipes it, and you're all mad, that says that you didn't actually put a high enough number in when you first bid. If you bid $75 and it sells for $77.50, that doesn't mean that you missed that item by $2.50. That only says that somebody else was willing to pay more than you. You don't know how much more, just "more."

I love sniping as a buyer, because most people just can't be honest enough with themselves to put the right number down in the first place. If I bid "normally," they have a chance to go "oh, man, I've been outbid! I only bid $25, but now I realize I want it more than that. I'll bid a little more. Oops, Im still not winning. A little more. A little more. A little more. There!"

When I snipe, they can't play that game with themselves. I get it the item for less.

Now, mind you, I mainly use sniping on items that I'm not desperate to have. There'll be more Netrunner booster auctioned next week. There's plenty of hard drives out there. So I'll set my snipe traps on the low side, and lose a lot of auctions before catching that fluke one that other people didn't go after.

[Note: I use JBidWatcher, which does all the sniping right off my own computer; no sharing passwords with other sites.]

As a seller, I'm a little sad by sniping, because it can make an auction item sell lower than it would have. But having people do some nominal bid early won't help at all. That just means that some of the people who might have sniped (and thus paid more than the current bidders) can't, because they didn't notice the auction and get a bid in earlier. That sucks! The only real solution is to attach electrical shockers to people who won't bid what they're really willing to play, and zap them until they put the right amount in.

[OK, maybe I'm kidding on that last one.]