EBay Sniping

[Gatorboy]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( I could put a $100 lid on my bid, but it would only be used to top other actual bids or proxy bids. )</font>

Sniping is just a term describing WHEN the bid gets placed. A bid that is placed in the first minute of an auction is treated the same way it is at the end of an auction. If the bid coming in does NOT exceed the current high bidders MAX bid, it will increase the current high bid appropriately.

So, if the high bid is sitting at $50 and you are the high bidder and had placed a MAX price of $100 -- and at the last second somebody bids (snipes) with a bid price of $75, you will win the auction.

 

[OkeeDon]

beenthere, it's almost impossible for us to comprehend the scale of time with the computers. Think of each second as an opportunity to make a thousand corrections. The outside sniping services have direct T1 connections to the EBay computers. But, even they recommend not getting closer to the end than about 3 seconds. In the ensuing time, there could be hundreds, if not thousands, of changes.

Even my inexpensive little program has the ability to go online with EBay and make sure all the URL's are up to date. It also has the ability to synchronize your computer clock with atomic clocks, and posts both your time and EBay time so you can check synchronization. It also has the ability to start a dial-up process ahead of the sniping bid so you will be logged on to EBay at the proper time, so you don't have to leave a dial-up connection open.

EBay's proxy server will always examine every bid to see if there is a proxy bid that is higher, and will place the proxy bid. One way to defeat snipers is to simply enter a proxy bid high enough to beat anybody else. This could be a bit foolish if there are a lot of "normal" bidders. Proxy bidding can raise the price of an item REALLY FAST! That's why I prefer sniping; no one has any indication that there's another bidder lurking, and intermediate bids do not boost the price towards my bid, as proxy bidding does.

Once, before I was sniping, I found a part I really needed -- it wasn't available anywhere else that I could find. I simply entered a proxy bid of $1,000 for an item worth about $50, then sat back and hoped that no one else was as foolish. It worked, I got it for $75 and was happy to pay the premium, but it was very risky.

 

[OkeeDon]

Continuing Gatorboy's scenarios, let's look at EBay's proxy system.

Assume an item has a starting bid of $100 and a bid increment of $2.50. Clyde opens the bidding with $100, and waits to see what happens. Bonnie places a bid of $200, and is the current high bidder with $102.50, and $97.50 held in reserve by the proxy server. Clyde logs back in, tries $105, and sees it jump immediately to $107.50. He figures out that someone has placed a proxy bid, so he decides to do the same. He enters $125, and sees it immediately jump to $127.50. He keeps bumping it, and it keeps climbing, until it finally gets over $200, the limit of Bonnie's proxy bid. Clyde is now the highest bidder. And, there's still 6 days and 23 hours left in the auction! By now, Clyde has a $202.50 emotional attachment to the item, and keeps increasing his bid any time anyone bids over him. He's getting smarter, so to save time, he starts using proxy bidding, also. He enters $300. Bonnie, with a $200 "investment" in the item in her head, enters $400. The item is suddenly up to $305.

Sniper Jane is out of the picture in this scenario. She set up her sniping program to $300, her maximum she was willing to spend, and has no emotional attachment to the bidding process. At the appointed time, her sniping software tries $300, EBay sees there is already a higher bid, and ignores Sniper Jane's bid.

Sniper Bob decided the item was worth $350 to him. His bid is entered at the last second and accepted as higher than $305, but Bonnie's proxy bid tops him, and the bid is at $355.

Sniper Mary set up her program for $500. Almost at the same time as Sniper Jane and Sniper Bob, her bid is entered. It beats the current bid of $355 and is accepted. At this point, it becomes a simple proxy bid, just like Bonnie's, and the proxy server lets them fight it out until Sniper Mary wins at $405. For the computers, the last 2 or 3 seconds is plenty of time for all that to happen.

Now, consider if Mary had entered her bid of $500 as a proxy bid, earlier in the auction. Bonnie and Clyde, both with emotional "attachments" to this auction that they have become committed to, keep bumping the bid until it is at $510 or more. And, there is still 6 days and 22 hours left in the auction!

Sellers love this to happen, but buyers usually get hurt. things can quickly get out of hand in an auction, especially if you are the type who feels like you have a stake in the item once you have bid. Emotions are a total no-no in auctions, but most people forget that in the heat of the moment.

 

[PineRidge]

I bid at eBay quite often. my last purchase was for a Nikon 8700 camera outfit. I don't sit in front of the computer to place my bid and I never bid till the last seconds, there is no sense in driving up the prices. I use www.auctionsniper.com it's very effective and the charges are insignificant compared to what I save. If a person places a bid at eBay and does not win the auction then it is because of their own action not because of a snipe bid. You bid too fast or you didn't bid high enough. When I sell at eBay I welcome all types of bids.


The smart bidders always wait till the last seconds to make their move. It always boils down to this, how bad do you want it?

 

[beenthere]

That's helpful on the possible scenario's, of bidding and emotion. My emotion is usually "cold feet" when I see that I am high bidder.

I was just outbid on an item that has a few hours to go. I have been trying to reconstruct the bidding, from the bits of information e-bay provides.

There were about 7 bids in on an item, starting at $49.91, and min. bid of $1.00.
At $62, I put in a proxy bid of $72.51, and had the top bid posted of $71 (guess someone had a proxy or snipe in for $70). After about an hour, I was outbid, and now the top is $73.51 (suggesting that someone was feeding a penny at a time bid until they found out what was $1 over my proxy).

The bid times posted are as followsmy dollar amounts)
3-30 11:49 $73.51
3-30 09:21 $71.00 (mine after $72.51 proxy bid)
3-29 23:16 $62.00
3-30 00:39
3-28 04:11
3-26 04:31
3-25 20:05 $49.91

Interesting.
My previous point was that e-bay proxy bids would (should?)always take priority over any last, split-second bid from outside, as long as the proxy amount was higher than any outside "last" bid. How could it be any different? The e-bay proxy, if it is higher than any outside sniper bid, should prevail, no matter how infinitesimally small the time is (IMO).
/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[OkeeDon]

A proxy bid will always prevail, no matter how late the snipe bid -- because the EBay computer is communicating internally, and thus always faster than something from outside. Besides, if two bids are identical (say you enter a proxy of $300 and I enter a snipe of $300, and we are the only bidders), the earlier bid will always win. In that case, you're better off being the proxy bidder instead of the sniper. That's one of the reasons why I tack an odd amount, like $0.63 or $3.52, onto the end of my bid. Non-thinking bidders (the vast majority on EBay) will most often bid round amounts, thus increasing the chances of a tie. Odd amounts don't guarantee you'll win, but they reduce the chances of a tie. That's important if you're the sniper -- you don't mind losing to a higher bid, but just when you're patting yourself on the back for being so smart as to snipe, you'd hate to lose to an earlier bid of the same amount... /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

 

[Gatorboy]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( The e-bay proxy, if it is higher than any outside sniper bid, should prevail, no matter how infinitesimally small the time is (IMO). )</font>

Of course it will, I don't think anyone has said or implied that it wouldn't.

 

[gws]

I make a proxy bid on what I am willing to pay for an item and then go away. If I win it they email me, if not it was over what I was willing to pay. If my max was 100 then 101 was to much.

 

[Junkman]

Would you "snipers" care to practice your theories on my fire extinguisher auction? I could use the money and it might help to prove or disprove the hypothetical theories that abound about sniping..... /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[OkeeDon]

Junkman, I think your fire extinguisher proves the "greater fool" theory of investing. "I'm a fool to pay this much, but there's got to be a greater fool than me." I'm afraid that at $1K, I don't have much faith in the theory. On the other hand, I'd have said the same thing at 50 bucks, so what do I know?