The sniping topic

[Erl00]

Agreed, limiting bidding in the last X minutes would only decrease final prices for auction items.  Sellers makes less profit, eBay makes less profit.  There's really no incentive for the company.  Quite seriously, snipers are good for business.

That seems to me the exact contrary of what Celebrindor said.

Plus, there actually are people who don't find out about an auction until the very end of it.  There aren't as many people like that as there are snipers, but should they be excluded from bidding?

How 10 minutes could make a difference on 3 to 10 day-long auctions?

[misterpid]

How 10 minutes could make a difference on 3 to 10 day-long auctions?

Not everybody checks eBay every day.

[flatmatt]

That seems to me the exact contrary of what Celebrindor said.

I don't see how.  My only point was that limiting bidding in the last ten minutes only means that some bids that would have been placed in the last ten minutes aren't placed at all.

Celebrindor said that he has gotten some good deals on products by bidding in the last ten minutes.  I highly doubt that limiting bidding in the final minutes would make people who otherwise wouldn't bid on an auction bid earlier.  And by bidding, Celebrindor has of course raised the auction price.  So I don't see how the statements are contradictory.

[justybug]

i end up sniped a lot more often than i care to think about, but i also save myself from getting caught up in the last second bid wars that snipers end up paying extra for in more cases than me. (referring to the $100+ dollar endings where people figured no one would bid nearly that high, only to have it backfire horribly.)
if i happen to be online and checking auctions that are closing within 20 minutes or so, i'll hold off and bid last second, but if i'm not going to be near a computer at auction end, i set my high bid and hope for the best.
not that big a deal to get outbid by a quarter or whatever, i just don't have the free time.
more power to someone who does..
.02

[hammr7]

There are reasons why waiting until the last minute work.  A lot of people use different filters to screen what they want.  If you have a screen where you only look for auctions over $5, and something good is at $4, you might miss it.  On the flip side if an auction has some boring title, but has been bid up, I'll check to see why.  Sometimes there is a good reason, and the earlier bidding has gotten me involved.

If an auction is undervalued, and you know what it is worth, you can sometimes get a bargain by waiting and bidding close to that value, especially if the competition bids in small increments.  If they hesitate at all you win.

I like to wait, but have missed out on some great deals as a result.  Even when I bid late, I won't overbid.  I have seen some wild prices when two competitors try to preempt everyone else.  As an example, that miscut tempest deck that went for $565 seemed a bit excessive.

[AXIOS]

 As an example, that miscut tempest deck that went for $565 seemed a bit excessive.

That is the most stupid prize that has been payed for a miscut deck.
in case people don't know what is talking about:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... RK:MEDW:IT


celebrindor, i really don't get it, you do have almost 600 for this ****, but are reluctant with some CoK.......;)

[TerraFrost]

was celebrindor the winner?

anyway, fvzappa was the second highest bidder, i assume, since one need only replace the * with a . on theblacklotus*com to get the address to the store that fvzappa is trying to start up.

[AXIOS]

was celebrindor the winner?

anyway, fvzappa was the second highest bidder, i assume, since one need only replace the * with a . on theblacklotus*com to get the address to the store that fvzappa is trying to start up.

celebrindor previous nick was van8888, his ebayname is eps8888,
but why would someone pay almost 600 dollars for 60 miscuts??  ??  ??

[Erl00]

I don't see how.  My only point was that limiting bidding in the last ten minutes only means that some bids that would have been placed in the last ten minutes aren't placed at all.

Celebrindor said that he has gotten some good deals on products by bidding in the last ten minutes.  I highly doubt that limiting bidding in the final minutes would make people who otherwise wouldn't bid on an auction bid earlier.  And by bidding, Celebrindor has of course raised the auction price.  So I don't see how the statements are contradictory.

See it this way, instead of bidding in the last 10 minutes to get good deals, you bid in the last 20 minutes ...
This makes no difference

As I already said, 10 minutes on a 3-7 day-long auction will not change anything.

This 'rule' would impact the "sniping-for-winning-at-low-price" attitude, not the "bidding in the last minute because I did not see the object earlier" or "bidding in the last minutes because I think it's a good deal".

EDIT: As I'm thinking about it, I guess the right way to proceed would be to leave this as a selling option.
I am sure that some sellers would appreciate such an option because they believe sniping destroys value for their items.

EDIT2: In the brick-and-mortar life auction, a beatten bidder always has an option to outbid outbidders. Why would it be different in online auctions?

[Celebrindor]

Ok, so I don't have to explain it to every forum member individually:

That was a mistake.  I had the winning bid for about 45 seconds, with about 1 minute to go.  With around 8 seconds to go, all of a sudden I was losing.  So, I quickly re-bid, without taking the time to see who the high bidder was (or I probably wouldn't have bothered).  In my haste to place a bid before the auction ended, I put too many '0's in my bid, and ended up bidding '1000' instead of '100' (for the record, I would have been willing to pay about 300-350 for this deck, at some other time, not now, but with less than a minute left, I was winning at around 85, so I thought I had a chance.)  Anyway, I contacted the seller, and he sold it to fvzappa for a good deal less than my final bid.

And in my opinion, this was the best snipe i've done - it was quick, and hey, I won - too bid I mistyped my bid :)

[Celebrindor]

EDIT2: In the brick-and-mortar life auction, a beatten bidder always has an option to outbid outbidders. Why would it be different in online auctions?

Well, in a 'brick and mortar' auction, all interested parties are present at the same time.  The auction ends when a short period of time elapses, and no one has bid.  The equivalent on ebay would be like this:  someone places a bid, and everyone else has 10 minutes to place a responding bid, or the items ends.  ("going once, going twice, Alpha 'lotus sold for $10 because no one else noticed it yet!).  When another bid is placed, the 10-minute countdown would start again...

That would be **more like** a 'real' auction, but many items would end with exceedingly low bids, and sellers would stop selling on eBay b/c they wouldn't get anywhere near asking price, and eBay would go out of business becuase they wouldn't get enough fees.  

The answer is, just be there when the auction closes.  If I am bidding on something, even on the rare occasions I don't snipe, I try to be there for the last few minutes, just in case....

[Erl00]

Well, in a 'brick and mortar' auction, all interested parties are present at the same time.  The auction ends when a short period of time elapses, and no one has bid.  The equivalent on ebay would be like this:  someone places a bid, and everyone else has 10 minutes to place a responding bid, or the items ends.  ("going once, going twice, Alpha 'lotus sold for $10 because no one else noticed it yet!).  When another bid is placed, the 10-minute countdown would start again...

That would be **more like** a 'real' auction, but many items would end with exceedingly low bids, and sellers would stop selling on eBay b/c they wouldn't get anywhere near asking price, and eBay would go out of business becuase they wouldn't get enough fees.  

The answer is, just be there when the auction closes.  If I am bidding on something, even on the rare occasions I don't snipe, I try to be there for the last few minutes, just in case....

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

[dragsamou]

So, please try to be constructive

I will sniped you later on today  ;) ;D

[pickle.69]

I will sniped you later on today  ;) ;D

I think I will have a hugh snipe on the 15th!

[hammr7]

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.