Do you use sniping on Ebay or what is your bidding strategy?

[DocHolliday]

Originally Posted by moonman

I have never used a sniping service and definitely don't know how they work. But it sounds to me from what I have read in this thread that they submit a single fixed bid at the last second. Is this correct?

The eBay proxy bidding service, which I use routinely, is a "set and forget" kind of thing. You tell it the maximum bid you are willing to submit and it watches the bidding for you electronically, including the last few seconds, and submits progressively higher bids up to your maximum bid.

If a sniping service (or multiple sniping services) submit one or more bids at the last second the eBay proxy service will still outbid it if the bidder using the proxy service's maximum bid is higher than the sniper's bid.

Yes, this is right. But the snipe service is no more trouble than the proxy bid, and has the advantage of not driving up the bid price. Entering a max bid at the last second is the same as entering one earlier on, only without giving other bidders the time to drive up the price/get mad at being outbid/decide they're willing to pay more/etc. You won't pay any more by sniping, and quite possibly will pay less.

I can't tell you how many auctions I've seen where someone, usually a newbie to eBay, enters 10 or more bids in small increments until they become the high bidder. Then they get outbid and the process starts again. Clearly such folks don't have a reasonable maximum in mind, and I don't need such folks driving up the price. Unless I'm the seller, of course. Then I'm all for it.

 

[HomerJ]

Originally Posted by DocHolliday

Yes, this is right. But the snipe service is no more trouble than the proxy bid, and has the advantage of not driving up the bid price. Entering a max bid at the last second is the same as entering one earlier on, only without giving other bidders the time to drive up the price/get mad at being outbid/decide they're willing to pay more/etc. You won't pay any more by sniping, and quite possibly will pay less.

I can't tell you how many auctions I've seen where someone, usually a newbie to eBay, enters 10 or more bids in small increments until they become the high bidder. Then they get outbid and the process starts again. Clearly such folks don't have a reasonable maximum in mind, and I don't need such folks driving up the price. Unless I'm the seller, of course. Then I'm all for it.

Ah, nibblers. I have a love hate relationship with them.

 

[moonman]

Originally Posted by DocHolliday

Yes, this is right. But the snipe service is no more trouble than the proxy bid, and has the advantage of not driving up the bid price. Entering a max bid at the last second is the same as entering one earlier on, only without giving other bidders the time to drive up the price/get mad at being outbid/decide they're willing to pay more/etc. You won't pay any more by sniping, and quite possibly will pay less.

I can't tell you how many auctions I've seen where someone, usually a newbie to eBay, enters 10 or more bids in small increments until they become the high bidder. Then they get outbid and the process starts again. Clearly such folks don't have a reasonable maximum in mind, and I don't need such folks driving up the price. Unless I'm the seller, of course. Then I'm all for it.

Got it. Thanks. I'll have to try this some time.

 

[nsoltz]

I use auctionstealer.com and generally prefer to snipe. It basically controls my own impulse to bid an item higher and higher. I decide what it is worth to me and then enter my snipe bid.

 

[Phoenix11372]

Hello
Another eBay sniping service that you may want to try is Hidbid.com.
It is a web based service so it doesn't matter what type of computer that you have, a pc or Mac.
All you need is an eBay account and internet access so that you can get to the site to schedule your snipes.
You'll have to submit your eBay log in information when scheduling a snipe. This worries some eBayer's and understandably so, but there's no way around it.
Personally, I wouldn't bid on an auction without using a sniper, it wouldn't make sense to me.

 

[TRINI]

Thanks for all this info.

I got sniped for the first time last night on an auction I'd been tracking for a week and the winner's bid basically went in at the last 10 secs so that by the time I even found out I'd been outbid, it was too late.

Frustrating to say the least but I've learnt my lesson.

Snipe others as they would snipe me.

Or something to that effect.

 

[jml90]

Originally Posted by California Dreamer

Gixen sounds better than JBidWatcher, which is the sniper I use. I recently missed getting a near-new Hamilton watch for $1 because I left the computer off overnight. Would Gixen have prevented that? And does it work on a Mac?
I don't see why it wouldn't since there's no downloads and it just snipes through the site.

 

[EdenResident]

It's also a good idea to use more than one snipping service. I'm using both gixen and jBidWatcher.

 

[distinctive]

How much time before auction close does Gixen bid?

 

[spertia]

I haven't put in a "live" bid on ebay in probably five years, and I'm a frequent buyer there. I've exclusively been using esnipe.com all this time, and I still feel that the service is worth every penny that it costs.

 

[Mr T]

Originally Posted by HomerJ

..."master equation" for how bidding proceeds (it's nk(t+1) "” nk(t) = w(k-1)(t)*n(k-1)(t) "” wk(t)*nk(t) + sigma(k,1)*u(t) [/I]

I thought as much but its nice to have it confirmed.

 

[YoungAmerican]

Originally Posted by triniboy27

I got sniped for the first time last night on an auction I'd been tracking for a week and the winner's bid basically went in at the last 10 secs so that by the time I even found out I'd been outbid, it was too late.

This is precisely why sniping works.

People who have been outbid want to get back on top, even if it requires them to bid more than the proxy bid limit they'd already set. Sniping means you're competing against people's initial proxy bid limit, not against their bidding-frenzied limit.

 

[DunninLA]

Sniping has two advantages for me:

1) It forces me to think clearly, rationally and calmly about the true maximum value of a listing to me. And I can rethink it later and adjust my snipe price. It's a sort of internal, logical vetting procedure.

2) It keeps my maximum bid (using the ebay autobid or proxybid process) from causing another person to change from rational to irrational/emotional/pissed to outbid me. By that I mean this:

- I use ebay on a jacket listed at $9.99. I input $100 into the ebay Maximum Bid box the day before the auction ends.

- A guy who thinks $90 is his maximum inputs $90. Three seconds later his screen says "Sorry, you've been outbid". This produces an emotional (not rational) response in the bidder to enter another bid above what used to be his maximum. So he enters $95. Same thing. Now he's MAD. He's going to get that fu$&ing jacket now matter what it costs! So he enters $100, same thing, outbid. Now he is really pissed and puts in $120. Bingo, he's the highest bidder now. And I lost an auction I would have won if my $100 had gone in 5 seconds before the acution ends, and Mr. Emotional has no chance to get irrational and up his bid.

It is interesting how competitive and irrational people get when they realize they are competing against another person for something they want. All of a sudden they WANT IT MORE! Sniping removes all the emotional crap from the bidding process.

 

[DocHolliday]

Sniping in action, in an auction that ended only minutes ago:

I was watching an umbrella with a gold collar stamped "Tiffany." The umbrella drew few bids during the last week, and sat at $23 or so this afternoon. A few minutes before the end of the auction, someone bid it up to $33. Then, in the last minute, there were six additional bids. That's not counting my lowball snipe that didn't get entered because I had already been outbid. Final selling price: $152.99.

 

[Phoenix11372]

Hello
Hidbid.com, and probably other online sniping services, let you choose the number of seconds before the end of an auction your bid is placed.
Many people think that you want to wait for the very last second, but I disagree.
First of all, if there is any communication delay between eBay's and the sniping service's servers, your bid will be placed too late.
Secondly, you want your bid to be placed as early as possible while still being too late in the auction for manual bidders to react.
In the rare instance when your and another bidder's maximum bid is the same, or there isn't enough of a difference between them to meet the minimum bid increment, the first bid in wins.
Hidbid's default setting is set to place your bid 5 seconds before the end of the auction, and it is recommended that you keep it that way unless your bid will be placed during high-traffic periods on the Internet. During such times, you may want to change the setting to 7 or even 10 seconds.