| Author | Message | ||
     Lake_bueller |
I'm feeling kinda guilty because I signed up to use a sniper service for an Ebay item. While I generally believe it's not a great idea, circumstances led me to this route. The auction item ends during the middle of the day. Because of my meeting schedule this week, I needed to find an alternative to the "sit & wait". What are your feelings on using these sniper services? | ||
| Wyckedflesh |
Depends on the item. If I really want it and don't think I can be there to get it then I would. I just haven't found anything on Ebay that I REALLY wanted. | ||
| Buellerthanyou |
I don't see any real reason to use one, unless your goal is simply to win, as opposed to getting the item you want for a price you want to pay. I think the thing to do with Ebay is decide what you would pay for the item if it was on the shelf in front of you in a store. Subtract estimated shipping and the result is how much your maximum bid should be. Input that amount and walk away and fuggeddaboudit! If it goes over your bid by $1.00, well, that's a price that would have made you walk away without it in a store, so no big loss. It's so easy to get sucked into the competitive bidding thing (like gambling; that's what they're counting on!) and spend more than you wanted. If it's a "must have" item, bid twice what you think its worth!  HellBuelly J http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hellbuellies/ "You start the game with a full pot o' credit and an empty garage... The object is to fill the garage before you empty the pot of credit!" --Anonymous Ebay Sage | ||
| Daves |
I think it's funny that they call it "winning" an item. What it really is, is that you paid more for it than anyone else would. Great marketing idea! Ride to the edge! Dave Iowa HD/Buell (Buell Cycle Center) | ||
| Phatkidwit1eye |
The more I look at the stuff on Ebay, I see less and less on savings. Ebay used too be like going too a garage sale and finding pretty good deals. Now people are asking close too new prices for a used item. The funny thing is people are actually buying them. If I'm going too pay those kinda prices I would rather buy it brand new and if something was too happen at least I would have the chance of returning the item. Another thing that annoys me is all the spam on the site. I hate that when people have one product and they put every single motorcycle brand in the description and leave you too sort thru there junk just too find what you are looking for. | ||
| Josh_ |
>asking close too new prices for a used item Not asking - *getting* Hell I just sold a non-working 10? year old IBM laptop for $85. Opening bid was $4.99 (the 8year old use AST laptop bag that was included was probably worth that) but put in a high buy-it-now for enticement. Someone hit the BIN 30min after I listed it. Auctions are funny that way. I remember going to a hardware-store-closing auction and watching people bid more than the price stickered on the items (which the store across town sold the same stuff for). I don't mind snipers when I'm selling  | ||
| Roc |
Some POS just tried to snipe some soft luggage I just bought, only raised the price $30 for me. I think it is kind of weak, even for sellers, but whatever. | ||
| Al_lighton |
Sniping is just the way it is. You decide what YOU are willing to pay, you enter it as late as you can as to not tip your hand and have someone take it for 1.00 more. Snipe SW just lets you do that without having to sit next to a computer. I personally like it. It lets me separate my emotions from the bidding. I put my price in, and don't bother looking again unless I end up winning. There are other styles of auctions that Ebay doesn't use: Auctions without any end date at all. The price just goes up until no one is willing to pay more. Just be glad that Ebay isn't like that, or there would be NO good deals. Al | ||
| Ezblast |
I just leave a max bid and leave it at that - I'm only willing to pay so much for something, and thats a free service by Ebay - works for me - I just got some banke rear sets on Ebay and am quiet happy with the price and saved over 50 bucks off of my max bid. GT - JBOTDS! EZ  | ||
| Court |
>>>I just leave a max bid and leave it at that - Ditto...except for the $115 timing cover I bought just for the fun of screwing with a guy's mind. I chalked up $20 to cover and $95 as entertainment. Much cheaper than the theatre. | ||
| Dullorb |
Snipers aren't anything bad. They are only trying to save themselves money. So if you are a seller they are bad. If they didn't snipe they would put in what they thought it was worth at the same time you did and the result would still be the same. The only difference is that by waiting till the end of the auction they keep others from bidding the price up by letting them think they are getting it cheaper. Sometimes I have fun looking at the attempts at sniping on items I win. When a guy puts in 4 bids right before the closing and whether he wins or loses I don't pay any more than I wanted. I do try to gauge the market before I bid, looking at similar items that have recently closed and check out the closing price. If it has a very inconsistant price I might consider sniping myself because it means that there are fools out there that are getting caught up in the bidding and would just push up the price. There is a psychology to eBay that can be worthwhile to learn but it is an inexact art at best. The only problem with snipers is it gets you to wonder whether someone is shilling for the seller but personally I think that is the case in only the smallest percentage of cases. | ||
| 02buells3t |
Hey Court, Send me some money and I'll do a tap dance for ya - is that entertainment enough???  | ||
| Jst |
I use a sniper once in a while. Ebay has recently put in a new policy the is a bid comes in from a new bidder in the last minute the auction is extended 2 minutes. This means that now if you want to snipe you have to enter a bid during the auction and then have you snipe tool bid for you at the end. As a seller I don't have a problem with people sniping. I figure it just comes with the territory. BTW: I use auction stealer, the free version. auctionstealer | ||
| Midknyte |
I tend to loose auctions where I've shown my hand (placed a max bid and left alone), so I've changed my tactics with items I really want and either do not want the hassle of waiting for another auction or if rare. I'll now place a high but not my personal max bid. It'll hold it for a while but someone will invariably come by and submit several bids until they take it away from me. I'll let it sit til near closing and let everyone believe that that person has bid it to an unreasonable level and put in my real max bid in the last two minutes. This also keeps my final / winning price lower because if I had entered my max, there is the potential of nut trying to outbid me and just driving the price up till they give up. Holding back my real max allows these people to think they've accomplished something [with an interim win] without it going out of control. I already have a laptop and GPRS, so there is no need for a sniping service for me... | ||
| Hoser |
I use the same tactics that Brad has described above , only using " snipe " when I really gotta have it. This does not always work though , I'll let the snipe service place my max bid for me in the final seconds , if I know I will be away from the computer , some times I get " pre-outbid " , usually if that happens , the price has already exceeded the price that the item would sell for at the retail level. Other times if possible , I will withhold my max bid , choosing to count down with a stop watch and place my bid within the final minute of the auction , this has proved to be successful for me a number of times , there is always a chance that , if timing is not precise a sniper can "win" the auction in the final seconds , I feel it is fair to give participants a " sporting " chance , sort of a skill testing way of " winning an auction " But if bidding gets stupid it's time to back off before even trying to make a bid. " Win the auction " ? sounds like marketing BS to me. | ||
| Dullorb |
You do win the auction, everyone is competing to get the item when they bid so where there is competition there is a winner. The same way you can win customers by being a good salesman, you get the customer your competition doesn't. You just need to realize when you win the auction you lose your money. | ||
| Lake_bueller |
WTF  The item I wanted sold for less than the snipe amount. It also sold to someone that hadn't made a prior bid on the item. Oh well, I guess I learned a leason. but I'm still pissed!!!!!! | ||
| Jst |
The item I wanted sold for less than the snipe amount. It also sold to someone that hadn't made a prior bid on the item If your snipe amount wasn't higher than the minimum bid increment it won't be accepted. IE: The current bid is $100.00, the minimum bid increment is $10.00 and you sniped with $101.00. The snipe bid won't be accepted. Sniping is not a perfect science. I've lost a few auctions because the snipe tool didn't work right for whatever reason. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Also, last I checked, ebay had policy against using robots for sniping, you had to click the mouse fair and square like everyone else. It would not suprise me if they detect these things on a regular basis, and stop them from being able to place bids. So it kind of becomes an arms race between the sniping service developers, and eBay. eBay will never be able to stop them, but can make them unreliable. Just to be clear, this is against automated sniping, not just sitting there with your finger over the "submit" button waiting for the last few seconds. That is perfectly acceptable with ebays terms of service. | ||
| Dullorb |
So, if you don't mind saying, what was the item#? | ||
| Jst |
Ebay doesn't currently have a policy against sniping or bots. As long as the bid is valid they will honor it whether it comes from a person hitting the enter key or a bidding tool. Quoted from Ebay's web site Bid Sniping (last minute bidding) We always recommend bidding the absolute maximum you are willing to pay for an item. eBay uses a proxy bidding system, so you may bid as high as you wish, but the current bid that is registered will only be a small increment above the next lowest bid. The remainder of your Maximum Bid is held, by the system, to be used in the event someone bids against you. | ||
| Reepicheep |
From ebay policy page:
But elsewhere (and this bit is new to me) it does say you are allowed to use "automatic bidding software". So that is a change, and you are right, the sniping services are OK with ebay. | ||
| Phillyblast |
Reep - the robot policy probably applies to search engines and the like. As a ferinstance apache web server (and maybe others, I don't use them) has a robots.txt file that tells the spiders/crawlers what directories it can and cannot access. | ||
| Jst |
Bill, Let's both say we're right. | ||
| Evaddave |
Hey Philly, This is getting off onto a tangent, but the robots.txt file isn't specific to Apache. Actually, there's no code within Apache to handle that file different than any other text file. The robots.txt file is simply a convention that well-behaved search engines follow. |
