As far as I'm concerned, no part of an eBay auction matters except the last 10 seconds or so, since that's when the serious action takes place. But something I see on occassion has me perplexed, which is, buyers placing rather high bids on an item in an auction that has 4-5 days left. Assuming that the seller has not employed a friend to place a shill bid, what is the point of doing this? Is the buyer prepared to go a lot higher than what they already bid, and are just drawing a line in the sand in some kind of macho display of "come high or stay home"? Really, what's up with this tactic?
I do it all the time. I see something I like, so then I bid what I'm willing to pay. I don't have time or patience to wait until there are exactly only ten seconds to go in order to bid. If I browsed ebay on a continual basis though, maybe I wouldn't ever look at anything that still had several days to go If I think the item will fly under radar for some reason and it has no bids, then I might use a sniping service. Tactic? nah, just bidding on what's there
I guess I look at this like a long distance race -- you gotta save something to kick with at the end. Putting it all out there with 4 days left just doesn't make sense to me. To each their own, but I will continue to snipe away in the closing seconds.
I don't see what difference it makes. Won't my final bid just be as much as I'm willing to pay? How will bidding later save me any money
When you place a bid on ebay, it only shows $1 higher than the previous bid. So what you are seeing is a high starting bid. No matter what time the bid was placed you have no idea what the bid was, because it only goes 1 dollar higher than the previous bid. I beat a sniper the other day by placing my high bid 4 days befor the close of the auction. I had a price that I would pay and just let it ride. In the last minute some JackA$$ bid up up up trying to snipe me. Little did he know that his final bid, seconds before the end of the auction was the same price as mine. Earlier bid takes precedence and I won.
I am not a fan of sniping software, and often am not sure if I will be around for the auction ending, so I just put in my bid. If someone snipes me, if it is lower than my bid, it doesn't matter, if it is higher, they would have won even if I sniped. I do snipe if I know I will be at my computer, or if I decide to bump my bid up. I do this because if the seller sees I have two bids, they can have someone bid until their bid is higher than my first, and not have to worry about eating it.
I gotta agree with Lee here. If I want a razor, I figure out what I would pay for it, and then bid. Often it gets overbid at the last minute, but that only means that someone is willing to spend more than I for that razor. I suppose if I wanted something no matter the cost, I'd just come in at the end, but that seems crazy (given my bank account, anyway. I suppose there's a place for sniping, but it takes too much work. cass
Here's my strategy...maybe I shouldn't tell you either, but I'm feeling generous. If an item has a "Buy it Now" price that is reasonable and within my budget, I will consider it. If it requires a bid, I won't. Period. I suppose that one of these days, I will find something I simply HAVE to have and will actually figure out HOW to bid. But since I rarely even LOOK at ebay, the odds are slim. I think the only thing I have ever purchased there was a carton of Derbys. One thing that has always piqued my interest is the auctions that have a BiN price, but the high bid is within a few dollars of that price. If BiN is $50 and the hi bid is $45, why doesn't hi-bidder spring for the extra 5 bucks and guarantee the buy? Never understood that.
Okay, here is what I am thinking. A buyer sees something he wants, and decides that he would pay a max of $100 for it, so he submits his high bid and lets the proxy system take care of the rest. Now, I come along and decide I want this item also, but I'm willing to pay $105. I submit my bid the same way, and immediately, the high bid jumps to $101 (actually, I believe the increment would be higher, but for the sake of argument let's stick with $1), and the auction still has 2 days left. So, the first buyer sees that he has been outbid, but decides that he really wants it, and changes his bid to $110. Now the high bid sits at $106, and I have to decide if I want to go higher, or just let it go. All of this "nickel and dime" nonsense would have been avoided if I had just set a snipe and gotten it in the closing seconds for $101. That's what I meant by saving something to kick with at the end. I know everybody says, "I bid the most I'm willing to pay, and if I don't win -- oh, well", but people do change their minds.
That's true, BM, but the important link in your chain of logic is where the original bidder changes his mind and decides that he wants to spend more than $100 for it, and that he can't live without it. You're right -- the sniper could have come in and got it, and not allowed the initial bidder to rebid -- but I set my bids at what I'm willing to pay, which of course, differs on want/need. Of course, ebay is a money-making enterprise, and everyone has their own angle. Your strategy works for you, and mine for me! cheers, cass
I get lots of stuff on eBay where I'm the only serious bidder. They often fall into one of these categories: 1) Something esoteric with a thin market, where an auction will often close without a bidder, and I happen to want it 2) Something that usually has only one auction for it at any one time, that happens to have two or more auctions 3) Something mislabeled, misspelled, or poorly described that otherwise would sell for a lot more 3a) A large lot of junky-looking stuff with one or more well-hidden gems, often sold by someone who doesn't know what they're are selling 4) Something that is not considered another context is considered valuable, but not in the context used in the auction. I know of a DVD box set that is always available cheap, but one of the discs sells consistently for a lot more by itself under its own title 5) Something with a closing time in the dead of night (I've sold things for cheap a few times by making this mistake.) 6) Luck - fewer bidders than usual, someone's snipe fails, etc.
Yes. Manual sniping takes a proper emotional detachment, which I don't have. Software doesn't have emotions. So I set and forget it in my sniper and get the best of both worlds: Last minute bid and not having to be there at the end. I also record all my TV for time shifting purposes...
