Who here hates on-line sellers sometimes?

[understatement]

It's not hard to understand at all, it's simply that you don't understand how bidding really works on Ebay today. Contrary to your stereotypes about Ebay bidders, most of them aren't elderly people who just bid once at far less than they really are willing to pay and then either hope nobody else comes along and bids more or sits there thinking they will increase their bid if someone outbids them, only to get screwed in the last seconds because snipers like yourself come along. Admittedly, in the early days of Ebay there were bidders like that and sniping programs were all the rage. That hasn't been the case in a number of years.

Just my option but it sounds like your stereotyping me I seem to have a pretty good understanding of how it works, sometimes as shown by the OP...

.....WOW! that's how it exactly happen too. A 7 day auction it was sitting at 9.99 and 4.00 shipping, there was no traffic on the meter and I was the only bid. But I had a feeling there was someone else wanting this game too.The other games were really crap, So put a max bid of 29.00 on it.he hit it with 2 sec and won because I had no time to re-bid.. I really didn't know how much this was worth to me, looking back I should had put more. E-bay really is about luck or trying to get the seller to end the auction early, which I didn't try.

I'm not saying it's the majority but it does happen and here is the proof. I'm also not saying if the OP sniped he would have out sniped this guy but the fact is this guy sniped and won this action for $1 more than the OP but the OP was willing to pay more just didn't have time. Personally I'd rather have the chance of something like this happening with sniping than putting a big bid down from the start and having people nickle and dime it to the top.

Especially in the video games categories, everyone is generally pretty young and tech savvy. Those people are well aware of snipers like yourself and protect themselves by bidding their maximum from the get go or sniping themselves in the last minute for whatever their maximum may be. As such, whether you bid your actual maximum the day the auction goes up or in the last five seconds has no impact. You can't predict the behavior or pocketbook of other bidders and the outcome is identical. Whoever bids more wins regardless of when they do it.

I agree. (I consider myself the one in bold) I'll also agree that sniping doesn't translate well to big ticket items but for more mundane stuff it works quite often.


Edit:

You can't predict the behavior or pocketbook of other bidders and the outcome is identical.

I notices you say things like this but you can't consider it to work the other way? In other words other bidders will never bid the bare minimum and only raise only for nesesity? Sounds like a behavior you couldn't predict to me.

[Bojay1997]

Just my option but it sounds like your stereotyping me I seem to have a pretty good understanding of how it works, sometimes as shown by the OP...



I'm not saying it's the majority but it does happen and here is the proof. I'm also not saying if the OP sniped he would have out sniped this guy but the fact is this guy sniped and won this action for $1 more than the OP but the OP was willing to pay more just didn't have time. Personally I'd rather have the chance of something like this happening with sniping than putting a big bid down from the start and having people nickle and dime it to the top.



I agree. (I consider myself the one in bold) I'll also agree that sniping doesn't translate well to big ticket items but for more mundane stuff it works quite often.

Ok, provide me one bit of evidence, not speculation, that your sniping has ever resulted in you paying less for an item than if you had bid the maximum amount you were willing to pay on day one. The point is, unless you personally know the other bidders and they told you "gee, I was really planning on bidding again, but you made your last bid too soon before the auction ended and I couldn't", there is no way you can ever know if your sniping has ever saved you a dime or if every auction you have ever bid on ended exactly where it would have if you just bid the maximum on day one. You have also just proven that what you believe is the same fallacy myself and the others saying sniping doesn't work have been talking about. The OP has zero idea how much the sniper bid. What if the sniper actually increased his bid by an increment of $50? The way Ebay works, everyone's maximum bid is kept secret. Not even the seller knows how much the bidder really bid. All anyone ever knows is who bid the most by the minimum increment needed to beat the next highest bid. If the OP had bid again, there is no guarantee he would have won or beaten the sniper's bid. In fact, it's more likely that he wouldn't have beaten the winning bidder, especially if he was just going to bid $1 more. In the end, it was his unwillingness to bid his maximum that cost him the item, not when he placed his bid.

[Porksta]

In the end, it was his unwillingness to bid his maximum that cost him the item, not when he placed his bid.

This. I never understood why people say complain about willingness to pay more for an item. Ebay lets you automatically bid up to a maximum. If you are willing to pay "x" for an item, then why not bid that much? It isn't like it automatically records a bid for your maximum.

[understatement]

Ok, provide me one bit of evidence, not speculation, that your sniping has ever resulted in you paying less for an item than if you had bid the maximum amount you were willing to pay on day one. The point is, unless you personally know the other bidders and they told you "gee, I was really planning on bidding again, but you made your last bid too soon before the auction ended and I couldn't", there is no way you can ever know if your sniping has ever saved you a dime or if every auction you have ever bid on ended exactly where it would have if you just bid the maximum on day one. You have also just proven that what you believe is the same fallacy myself and the others saying sniping doesn't work have been talking about. The OP has zero idea how much the sniper bid. What if the sniper actually increased his bid by an increment of $50? The way Ebay works, everyone's maximum bid is kept secret. Not even the seller knows how much the bidder really bid. All anyone ever knows is who bid the most by the minimum increment needed to beat the next highest bid. If the OP had bid again, there is no guarantee he would have won or beaten the sniper's bid. In fact, it's more likely that he wouldn't have beaten the winning bidder, especially if he was just going to bid $1 more. In the end, it was his unwillingness to bid his maximum that cost him the item, not when he placed his bid.

It's strange having this kind of debate I agree with so much of what your saying, but I have the opinion that sniping gives someone that little bit of an edge. If you don't have that opinion there's next to nothing I could say to change your opinion (I tried) and that's cool you do it your way and I'll do it mine.

[PROTOTYPE]

So now its my job to tell the seller what a game is worth? it was a open auction that's what she was trying to find out? I still don't know what it's worth, its the first one I seen for sale. I'm really just guessing what he will sell it for. but to me it was worth a lot.The real point is it drives inflated prices on games and we all lose, unless we sell!

[Jaruff]

So now its my job to tell the seller what a game is worth? it was a open auction that's what she was trying to find out? I still don't know what it's worth, its the first one I seen for sale. I'm really just guessing what he will sell it for. but to me it was worth a lot.The real point is it drives inflated prices on games and we all lose, unless we sell!

Exactly.

It's not your job to inform the seller of their lack of knowledge. It's also not the job of another bidder (a reseller as you claim) to give you the courtesy of a good deal for your collection. As you said yourself, it was an open auction. It's not "unfair" that someone who might resell the items outbid you by a dollar. It was within the confines of the auction rules. My point is that the "fairness" complaint goes both ways.

Your collection is essentially a portfolio of various stocks which you will keep for a long time. A resellers inventory is essentially a portfolio of a day trader. Different methods but essentially the same activity.

[understatement]

Exactly. That's what most bidders do which is why sniping doesn't work plain and simple.

I think it’s funny you posted something like this with this posted right before basically showing that your wrong.

like in my auction I bid has high I wanted to get it for... but its not as high if push comes to shove. People don't really want to put the max on right away because we trying to get a deal.

Maybe you guys that bid on thousands of dollars of stuff a week have lost sight that most people try to live within their means and not outside them. In other words say I don’t have thousands of dollars to work with from the last few sales of my games, I might give myself $25 a week to blow I put it all in a bid for something that normally goes for $50 on Sunday and on Monday I give myself another $25 do I go and put that with my bid? No I’m already winning it there’s no point I’d rather spend this $25 on something else but if push comes to shove I will put it to the bid but I really don’t want to.

I think more people bid like this than you think. There’s no way to prove my theory but the OP is a good example of it and I myself have done it in the past and still do it if I don’t have a lot of cash to work with because sometimes you can get lucky. The reason I think this happens is there’s a big difference in $100 made at a day job and $100 made off some game that I paid next to nothing for at a yard sale. I can see where someone that makes hundreds of dollars an hour can be relaxed with their money I’m not even that hard off but it still takes about 3 hours for me to make a $100 at work and I can see if someone had a manual labor job getting paid the minimum would be even more likely to bid like this.

[PROTOTYPE]

There is the link.. Maybe you are right about the seller just going for the lot, that just makes me feel worst.The last comment says it all. We want to win but at what cost? People over bid on everything,They over bid a brand new copy's they can get cheaper in the store! No get me started on Btu-rays as this happens all the time. Yes, the one with the most money does usually win and that is fair... but sometimes life is not fair and we are not so fortunate...

[jb143]

You want a great deal for your collection. A reseller wants a great deal for their wallet. It's the same concept. If you feel that game would command $100 on the market, you should have placed a higher bid. Better yet, if you really wanted to be fair, you should have messaged the seller about their rare item. You're concerned with a "good" deal but what about the uninformed seller? Don't they deserve a "good" deal too by receiving closer to appraisal value for their rare item? Exactly.

So now its my job to tell the seller what a game is worth? it was a open auction that's what she was trying to find out? I still don't know what it's worth, its the first one I seen for sale. I'm really just guessing what he will sell it for. but to me it was worth a lot.The real point is it drives inflated prices on games and we all lose, unless we sell!

---------------------------------------

<from a re-seller forum>
Who here hates collectors sometimes?
Just lost a bid to one of them. Granted anybody can bid but they just want it to collect. As you can see I'm a little pissed about it.The auction was for 8 ps1 games, the seller didn't know she had a very rare game in it. I was hopping nobody else did either, I really thought that I was going to win when this collector came out of nowhere and won. It doesn't matter to them that's more valuable, they just want to collect it. I wanted it to re-sell it for profit to help feed my family. Has this happen to you?

<from a selling random stuff on eBay forum>
Who here hates collectors and re-sellers sometimes?
Just lost out some fair value profits to one of them. Granted anybody can bid but they have more knowledge about these items. As you can see I'm a little pissed about it.The auction was for 8 ps1 games, I didn't know I had a very rare game in it until afterwards. They obviously did and were hopping nobody else noticed. I just wanted to get for it what it's worth and they were taking advantage of my ignorance. Has this happened to you?

[wiggyx]

The problem with the Earthbound data is that for me personally, sniping on highly public auctions doesn't tend to pay off. On a copy of a Mega CD game where I'm maybe competing with <5 other people it'll work fine, on an auction where there are possibly thousands watching each copy of Earthbound it doesn't make sense to me.

Highly visibility and sought after items on eBay almost always reach the average price, sniping only works for me on less high profile stuff.

However, with a high profile item it makes sense to reach the average price, or just a bit below average, sooner rather than later to discourage people from bidding on that item. Reach the "average price" early and most bidders will just move onto the next similar listing.

For example:


Either way it's all conjecture since you can't completely understand the players for every auction, but you do the best you can based on the evidence.

tl;dr - Sniping works best (but not always) for me on a low profile item.

I would argue that point (again, based purely on speculation) as a Mega CD game would have a far more "hardcore" group of bidders. As a more hardcore crowd, they seem far more likely to be tech savvy and thus more likely to be snipers themselves (based on how many folks how employ the practice). Snipers against snipers seems like a total waste of time based on how everyone seems to feel about how it affords advantage over other bidders. If everyone is bidding last second, then the guy who's willing to pay the most still wins and it's not likely that he or she got some great deal on it as long as there are at least a couple of other bidders because everyone bidding last second is of course bidding the max that they're willing to pay.

You can only assume that you got a good deal because you sniped. You simply cannot prove that it did in fact give you an advantage. There simply isn't enough evidence to make any reliable data to add to the pool.

There’s no real way to track a data point there are just too many variables. Just saying that less bids equals sniping won’t work, just because item A) has only 2 bids and item B) has 32 bids doesn’t mean item A) was sniped. Say item A) starts at $100 and item B) starts at $1, more than likely item B) will be the one targeted for sniping even if it has 25+ bids and is up to $70+ at the end.

About the only way I can see to do it would be getting two people (with money to burn) one would only snipe and the other would bid early on (like 4+ days remaining) and making a list of 100+ items both must buy within a set time. Even then people would say the pool of buyers needs to be bigger but how are you going to find that many people to buy a ton of crap they don’t want?


The more I think about this the more it sounds like it would be a great Mythbusters episode.

Exactly.

There is simply no way to prove 100% either way.

This is a debate that has no resolve. For every thoughtful point that is made there is an equally well conceived counterpoint. If your bidding method works for you (i.e. you're winning items at a price that's satisfactory), then keep on keepin' on. I like my bid on day 1 method, and on the other end of the spectrum there are many of you that really like to bid in the final seconds

[jb143]

I like my bid on day 1 method, and on the other end of the spectrum there are many of you that really like to bid in the final seconds

One other important thing to consider. If you are there when the auction ends then you can pay right away and have a better chance of getting it sooner. Also, if you loose, you can immediately look for the same item and bid again. Otherwise you have to wait a week, unless you don't mind bidding on multiples of the same item just in case.

[Aussie2B]

Ok, provide me one bit of evidence, not speculation, that your sniping has ever resulted in you paying less for an item than if you had bid the maximum amount you were willing to pay on day one. The point is, unless you personally know the other bidders and they told you "gee, I was really planning on bidding again, but you made your last bid too soon before the auction ended and I couldn't", there is no way you can ever know if your sniping has ever saved you a dime or if every auction you have ever bid on ended exactly where it would have if you just bid the maximum on day one.

There's no way to show evidence that you've saved money, but it's pretty clear when you've lost money or the auction and could've avoided that. When you have over a decade of experience placing your own bid that outbids the previous top bidder and then seeing him/her incrementally try to outbid you in the final seconds, it's obvious that there are many people who don't understand how eBay works and bid only to claim the top bid, not to their max. Sure, you could theorize that some of these people would do this even without any competition appearing, just to try to protect their top bid status by putting in an even higher maximum, but I'm highly skeptical that that scenario accounts for more than a small fraction of these situations.

[JSoup]

I've been using ebay since day one and I still don't understand the need for all this crap. If I see something I want on ebay, I set my max bid for whatever I feel it's worth and leave it at that. If someone else wins, they obviously placed more value on it than I did.

[Bojay1997]

I've been using ebay since day one and I still don't understand the need for all this crap. If I see something I want on ebay, I set my max bid for whatever I feel it's worth and leave it at that. If someone else wins, they obviously placed more value on it than I did.

Exactly. That's what most bidders do which is why sniping doesn't work plain and simple. It's also why people who complain about losing an auction that goes to completion and don't end up as the highest bidder have literally nothing to complain about.

[jonebone]

Ok, provide me one bit of evidence, not speculation, that your sniping has ever resulted in you paying less for an item than if you had bid the maximum amount you were willing to pay on day one.

You've never seen auctions with an BIN option, that get bid up past the original BIN price?

Example, game with $19.99 starting bid, $29.99 BIN option.

I want it, not sure what I want to pay. I wait until the last 5 seconds to bid, to hide my intent. I can come in with a $29.98 max bid and probably win it 99 times out of 100, for closer to $20 than $30. Why? Because everyone else viewing the auction assumes it is not worth $30, otherwise the BIN would have been clicked already.

Or, I could just bid $29.98 on day one. Anyone else viewing the auction late doesn't even know the BIN existed, and just see my bid showing at $19.99. If they want it, they can push it up as high as they want it to go, well past $30.

Please don't argue with me. You asked for an example, I provided one. End of discussion.

[JSoup]

You've never seen auctions with an BIN option, that get bid up past the original BIN price?

Example, game with $19.99 starting bid, $29.99 BIN option.

I want it, not sure what I want to pay. I wait until the last 5 seconds to bid, to hide my intent. I can come in with a $29.98 max bid and probably win it 99 times out of 100, for closer to $20 than $30. Why? Because everyone else viewing the auction assumes it is not worth $30, otherwise the BIN would have been clicked already.

Or, I could just bid $29.98 on day one. Anyone else viewing the auction late doesn't even know the BIN existed, and just see my bid showing at $19.99. If they want it, they can push it up as high as they want it to go, well past $30.

Please don't argue with me. You asked for an example, I provided one. End of discussion.

Your example is a fine example of imaginary savings.

[Cornelius]

I've been using ebay since day one and I still don't understand the need for all this crap. If I see something I want on ebay, I set my max bid for whatever I feel it's worth and leave it at that. If someone else wins, they obviously placed more value on it than I did.

Exactly. That's what most bidders do which is why sniping doesn't work plain and simple. It's also why people who complain about losing an auction that goes to completion and don't end up as the highest bidder have literally nothing to complain about.

I'm with Understatement and Aussie on this one, and this quote is the part of your argument that I disagree with. Many bidders get emotionally invested in 'winning' an auction they've already bid on. As a direct refutation that 'most bidders set their max and leave it', just look at all the times a bidder puts in ten bids raising it 50 cents each time until they claim the lead (or not). This is not the behavior of someone setting their max. Additionally, if you look at completed auctions like I do when trying to price something, it isn't all that uncommon to find auctions that ended higher than BINs for the same item. This is more evidence that people get emotionally invested in winning. This is what the term 'bidding war' defines. Heck, the existence and common usage of the term bidding war defies the 'most bidders set their max' claim.

I personally use a sniping website to take out any emotion on my part and because I believe it can help get a better price. It is real easy for me to say 'maybe just one more dollar' if I bid early on and get outbid. What can I say, I'm weak-willed compared to Bojay and GameboyColor. So instead I just punch it in goofbay and forget about it.

The only way to prove that you can get lower prices using sniping would be to get lots of data points and run some statistical analysis. That actually wouldn't be too hard on an item with a pretty steady price/value over time, it would just take a long time to mine out the data. I feel the evidence I mentioned above is pretty compelling, though.

[JSoup]

For the record, I wasn't claiming that 'make a bid and leave it' was what the majority (or, hell, even the minority) do. Just what I do.

[Bojay1997]

How is this relevant in any way to the discussion? Nobody else bid, so you got it for slightly less than the BIN. All you did is wait to see if anyone else wanted it and it turns out they didn't. So you paid $20 for something that nobody else wanted. Congratulations? It also shows you don't really know how much things are worth if you are waiting for other bidders to help you figure it out. That seems like a dumb way to run a small reselling business.

You've never seen auctions with an BIN option, that get bid up past the original BIN price?

Example, game with $19.99 starting bid, $29.99 BIN option.

I want it, not sure what I want to pay. I wait until the last 5 seconds to bid, to hide my intent. I can come in with a $29.98 max bid and probably win it 99 times out of 100, for closer to $20 than $30. Why? Because everyone else viewing the auction assumes it is not worth $30, otherwise the BIN would have been clicked already.

Or, I could just bid $29.98 on day one. Anyone else viewing the auction late doesn't even know the BIN existed, and just see my bid showing at $19.99. If they want it, they can push it up as high as they want it to go, well past $30.

Please don't argue with me. You asked for an example, I provided one. End of discussion.

[jonebone]

How is this relevant in any way to the discussion? Nobody else bid, so you got it for slightly less than the BIN. All you did is wait to see if anyone else wanted it and it turns out they didn't. So you paid $20 for something that nobody else wanted. Congratulations? It also shows you don't really know how much things are worth if you are waiting for other bidders to help you figure it out. That seems like a dumb way to run a small reselling business.

The example was purely hypothetical, but thanks for taking offense. For someone so "knowledgeable", you sure seem to argue with absolutely anything you don't understand. Also, I'm just a collector who collects for free, not a reselling business.