Why Snipe?

[MarioAllStar2600]

I am always reading about people sniping and in the LE PSX thread Buy Atari sniped and won last minute. But why? WIth ebay having proxy bidding why snipe? Why not just put in the most of what you want to spend instead of re-entering it over and over again?

[anagrama]

This has been gone over loads of times before. Basically, in a perfect world you wouldn't have to snipe because everyone would be equally sensible and place the full amount they wish to pay and leave it at that. However, that simply doesn't work because there's always some fool who will try to win something for the lowest amount possible and then go into some kind of rabid frenzy and bidding 11 times in increasing $0.50 increments until they are on top again. Or they get carried away in a bidding war and end up paying far more than something is worth.
To put it simply, you WILL save money by sniping. It's certainly not infallible, and bidding wars can still erupt, but in the long run it saves money. End of story.

[mcgrail0007@netzero.net]

Sniping saves money and it also allows you to bid when you are not at a computer.

[MarioAllStar2600]

and it also allows you to bid when you are not at a computer.

That Is what a proxy is for. ;)

[NE146]

Because like they said, once you bid your proxy early, other bidders will eventually like to see how much you've bid and will keep chipping away at it to either a) max you out, or b) find out where you're at (since if they bid lower they'd lose anyway) and smoke you out to get an idea of where they should aim their snipes (or if they should even bother).

That make any sense?

Say an item's at $1.00. You bid a proxy of $15 seven days in advance. So throughout the week, if it's a popular item you can BET there will be others chipping away at your bid.. seeing how high it was you went. Usually they'll stop once they outbid you (at $15.50). So what often happens is your proxy bid, 1) didn't get you the win and 2) raised the price right away over what you thought was your max, and basically... you've shown all your cards.

But to answer your question.. think of it this way. What's the difference between sniping and putting in a proxy bid? NOTHING! They are EXACTLY THE SAME THING. The only difference is in the timing! One (the snipe) is done as close to the auctions end as possible thereby showing your hand as LATE as possible, thus giving other potential bidders less time to react to it. That's the idea in theory anyway. Of course, any and all snipes and proxy bids can be beaten by simply bidding an large amount of cash. Cash is king. But if you don't want to do it that way, you gotta get strategic.. and sniping is a time-tested way :) But again, in the end, cash is king and whoever bids the highest... will win.

[Iron Draggon]

I used to bid by proxy all the time, until I finally got sick and tired of all the punkass newbs who think that having the highest bid means a damn thing before the auction ends. Nevermind that days remain before the auction is over, these clueless brats think it's a pissing contest, and they're determined to piss all over everyone by staying on top of the heap for the whole week. And worse yet, they never understand how they still lose it in the last few seconds of the auction by only 50 cents! As if they really were outbid by only 50 cents when all the snipers nuked it to teach their asses a lesson.

So now, if I'm REALLY interested in an item that has days left to go and no one else has bid on it yet, I'll go ahead and stake a claim on it by placing the opening bid, but I won't place my max bid on it until the last minute. More often than not, I barely even get my opening bid on the table before some jerkoff newb comes along and starts that penny ante "I must outbid him!" crap, but at least it ferrets them out so I can monitor their daily activities. Then I start planning what size nuke I should bring to annihilate them. I do wish that they'd figure out how to play the game though, they annoy me.

"Oh yes, I'm gonna outbid this guy, and that guy, and I'm so gonna win this because I've outbid everyone all week long!" And all their ignorant asses are doing is driving MY price up. It must really suck to always get outbid at the last second like that, and have no clue how it happened. Especially when they have the nerve to email you and ask if you would PLEASE let them buy it from you! Sure kid, you send the nice seller the money on my behalf, and as soon as he sends the item to me, then I'll forward it to you. Get lost, kid! Sometimes I think that buying on ebay should require a common sense test.

But the absolute worst is when two or more newbs get in a pissing contest with each other. I just want to bitchslap everyone who continues placing bids after some newb with less than 50 feedback places a bid on an item. I'm sitting there watching in horror as the size of the nuke that I'm gonna need just keeps going up and up for no good reason at all. I even scream it at my screen sometimes. HELLO! There's a NEWB bidding now! No more bids until the last few minutes of the auction! You're only making it cost more! Do they not understand that the idea is to pay the LEAST amount possible?

[esquire]

My personal favorite is the clown who puts in 3-5 proxies. That is just inviting someone to drive up the final auction value. x_x

[Iron Draggon]

OUCH. I made that mistake a few times myself, when I first started ebaying.
:embarrassed:

[anagrama]

Also, following on from what Iron Dragon said about not showing your hand - if you're waiting to snipe, you can check the previous bidding history of any other bidders who've already placed their bid and can see how they eBay - will they be likely to come back with a massive bid at the end? Do trhey have a history of overpaying? Or do they stick one bid in early on and leave it at that? You can see all this, but they can't tell anything about you until you bid.

[Iron Draggon]

That's what I meant by monitoring their daily activities. LOL

[Simply Dave]

I snipe because I'm paranoid that if I put in an early bid the seller will use a friend or a bogus account to drive up my price with fraudulent bids. And also to save money. :)

[rpepper9]

I have a question that may be kinda dumb, but how do you snipe? Someone in this thread said you don't have to be at your computer to do it. So how is it done? Is it a software program, a service or what?

I have never sniped but I have lost my fair share of auctions at the last second by .50, when there seemed to be no activity on the item all week.

[Wookie]

I have a question that may be kinda dumb, but how do you snipe? Someone in this thread said you don't have to be at your computer to do it. So how is it done? Is it a software program, a service or what?

I have never sniped but I have lost my fair share of auctions at the last second by .50, when there seemed to be no activity on the item all week.

Sign up at www.esnipe.com. There may be others.

[Iron Draggon]

I snipe because I'm paranoid that if I put in an early bid the seller will use a friend or a bogus account to drive up my price with fraudulent bids. And also to save money. :)

You know, I'm 99% sure that's happened to me on several occaisions too. It's just too suspicious when time and again someone drives your price all the way up to your max bid, and then mysteriously gives up. It even happened to an item that I bid on recently. In the last few minutes of the auction, someone drove the price all the way up to the max bid of the person who had been sitting on it with the opening bid for days. But then they just stopped, even though there were still a few minutes left in the auction.

Then I placed my bid, and I was afraid that I hadn't made it high enough, because I was afraid that the mystery bidder was gonna keep trying to win it and I had only bid a few dollars more than the other person's max bid. But luckily I had no competition after that, and I got it for just a dollar more than the other person's max bid. Very interesting how the mystery bidder didn't bother bidding anymore though. They still had plenty of time, even after I placed my bid. I'm glad that they didn't try it though, that was a close one.

[SegaAges]

there are many times where i am interested in something, but not very worried about getting it, so I will place 1 bid of what I am willing to pay and leave it. Actually this is how I do most all of my auctions. 99% of the stuff I get from eBay i know it is either
1.) a guarenteed win because it is a car part or something

or...

2.) i could care less about winning it, but it would be nice to own it. i will place one bid and if i win, good for me, if i lose, oh well i save money.

i have only done this 3 or 4 times (just for fun), but i will get into a bidding war. it is kinda fun sometimes (especially when you are doing it for a game that will sell for a max of $5). Me and this 1 guy got into a $.50 increment bidding war over ninja turtles 1 for nes. i won it for like $3 because he didn't want to pay more than 2.50.

now for bigger items, i do snipe if i want it really bad (mortal kombat 3 for sms), but other than that, if it is big, i will just put the bid in.

[farfel]

What's the difference between sniping and putting in a proxy bid? NOTHING! They are EXACTLY THE SAME THING. The only difference is in the timing! One (the snipe) is done as close to the auctions end as possible thereby showing your hand as LATE as possible,

Couldn't a person proxy bid in the last 5 mins?

[rpepper9]

I went to eSnipe and started to read into the whole process. They provide a great service, at a reasonable price. I was about to sign up, but I stopped when they asked for my eBay screen name and password. I guess I should have known that they would need that information to place a bid for me, but I am not confortable giving that out. So I guess I won't be sniping anytime soon.

Also one other thing I noticed while on the signt was that the page that was asking for the screen name and password was not encripted. So if anyone was monitoring the page they could have gotten all my information. Not good, and not worth the risk.

:eek 2:

[number6]

I use esnipe quite a bit and have had no problems with my ebay account. Sniping saves money and also masks my interest in an item. Practically all of my wins on ebay are through sniping.

[NE146]

What's the difference between sniping and putting in a proxy bid? NOTHING! They are EXACTLY THE SAME THING. The only difference is in the timing! One (the snipe) is done as close to the auctions end as possible thereby showing your hand as LATE as possible,

Couldn't a person proxy bid in the last 5 mins?

Sure.. I'm sure there are some people that would consider 5 minutes a snipe..absolutely :) Whereas others wouldn't even bother until the last 3 seconds. It's all the same. Just depends on you ;)


I went to eSnipe and started to read into the whole process. They provide a great service, at a reasonable price. I was about to sign up, but I stopped when they asked for my eBay screen name and password. I guess I should have known that they would need that information to place a bid for me, but I am not confortable giving that out. So I guess I won't be sniping anytime soon.

If you don't want to use an online service (I don't either) there are stand alone programs that run on your pc and do it for you. I use Auction Sentry for example.

[Cmosfm]

I've been using www.ezsniper.com for the longest time with no problems. I recommend them, you get 3 free snipes, and then you can put 10.00 in your account and each winning snipe is .01% of the total winning bid (minimum of .10).

[charitycasegreg]

I am always reading about people sniping and in the LE PSX thread Buy Atari sniped and won last minute. But why? WIth ebay having proxy bidding why snipe? Why not just put in the most of what you want to spend instead of re-entering it over and over again?

DO you now understand? Its extremely simple to figure out how sniping is helpful.