[LobsterSan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by progo /img/forum/go_quote.gif Wow, doesn't Ebay extend the time if a bid is placed near the closing time? Our "national" mini-eBay extends the time to 5 minutes if a bid is placed when the auction has less than 5 minutes left open. This place also has this sniper feature on its own. I wouldn't know if it's very good for the buyer if the auction ends up in fixed time. What happens if multiple snipers are onto same auction?!

Yahoo! Japan Auctions implements this "5-minute auto-extend" as a feature, and believe me, it makes the ending prices of the auctions go much higher than a fixed-time ending. The bidding wars can get pretty frantic, and sometimes last an hour or more. Sometimes it becomes a battle of endurance between two bidders (unless one is using some fancy auto-extension sniping software).

On the flip-side, sometimes sellers choose not to or forget to enable the auto-extension. It's a rarity, but it does happen, and when it does bidders usually aren't prepared for it. When a seller forgets to enable the auto-extend option, those auctions go for a lot less than usual.

I'm often curious why eBay does not implement a similar system, as it seems it would probably increase their margin. They, in conjunction with PayPal, have been raising fees and making some fairly major changes recently, and I find it interesting that they decided not to implement the "Real Auction" feature. I guess they felt it may alienate the buyer base which is already feeling a bit of an economic crunch?

In any case, while I do sell on eBay, I also buy a lot on eBay too and I hope the auto-extend feature stays far away from eBay USA.

 

[DemonicLemming]

Just as a sort of side note, but has the fact that so many people bid snipe driven anyone else to only purchase stuff with a Buy it Now option? After having been outbid at the last 2-3 seconds of 3 different ebay auctions for the same item, I gave up and paid the $30 more to not have to deal with the whole auction bit.

I did, however, get someone to pay $400 for a replacement headlight once because they were using some sort of bid sniper that evidently didn't have a price cap on it.. I think the headlight was about $45 new.

 

[stevenkelby]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DemonicLemming /img/forum/go_quote.gif Just as a sort of side note, but has the fact that so many people bid snipe driven anyone else to only purchase stuff with a Buy it Now option?

No that's illogical too

.

What you are supposed to do with an auction, is to decide what the maximum you are willing to pay is well before the auction ends.

If you have the ability to figure that out, use a snipe program!

Hopefully you'll win it for less, but if you are outbid by another sniper, so what? You weren't willing to pay that much anyway.

Can you think of a reason not to use a snipe program? Seems like a waste of your $30 to me.

 

[DemonicLemming]

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevenkelby /img/forum/go_quote.gif No that's illogical too . What you are supposed to do with an auction, is to decide what the maximum you are willing to pay is well before the auction ends. If you have the ability to figure that out, use a snipe program! Hopefully you'll win it for less, but if you are outbid by another sniper, so what? You weren't willing to pay that much anyway. Can you think of a reason not to use a snipe program? Seems like a waste of your $30 to me.

Well, it seems like the majority are pay-per-use programs, and that's one turn-off for me. After having to go through the process of getting my last bank debit card canceled, my bank account fixed, a new bank card issued, and all my online ordering profiles updated with the new card, I'm leery of sending information to very iffy-looking websites (even IF other people have used them with no problem...that's what caused the card issue I had before).

Plus, I don't always have a set number I'd use for a specific item. I might really only want to pay $50 for something, but if the bidding ends at $52 and the other person wouldn't go over $55, I could probably toss a few extra dollars out there to win the auction.

Plus, in all of those auctions I was screwed out of, the winning bid was quite literally only a few cents more than what I had set my maximum bid at. I just really personally prefer either "best offer" or buy it now options when it comes to ordering things. I've also seen setups on ebay where someone has a friend set up a bid sniper program that lasts until the last 5 minutes of the auction, to artificially drive up the auction price. If the other person accidentally wins, he just relists the item under his ebay account and gives the original seller the money.

 

[stevenkelby]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DemonicLemming /img/forum/go_quote.gif Well, it seems like the majority are pay-per-use programs, and that's one turn-off for me. After having to go through the process of getting my last bank debit card canceled, my bank account fixed, a new bank card issued, and all my online ordering profiles updated with the new card, I'm leery of sending information to very iffy-looking websites (even IF other people have used them with no problem...that's what caused the card issue I had before). Plus, I don't always have a set number I'd use for a specific item. I might really only want to pay $50 for something, but if the bidding ends at $52 and the other person wouldn't go over $55, I could probably toss a few extra dollars out there to win the auction. Plus, in all of those auctions I was screwed out of, the winning bid was quite literally only a few cents more than what I had set my maximum bid at. I just really personally prefer either "best offer" or buy it now options when it comes to ordering things. I've also seen setups on ebay where someone has a friend set up a bid sniper program that lasts until the last 5 minutes of the auction, to artificially drive up the auction price. If the other person accidentally wins, he just relists the item under his ebay account and gives the original seller the money.

That's fair enough then, sorry bout your bank trouble, that sucks. I suggest getting back up on the horse (you normally get the money back in the end) though and using a free service. I think they all give a few free snipes a month. I use justsnipe.com and get 5 free a month. Could use a few different snipe programs if I wanted more.

Can't go for the rest of your life not trusting anyone, sure you get bitten sometimes, but most of the time, you save $30

Quote:

Plus, I don't always have a set number I'd use for a specific item. I might really only want to pay $50 for something, but if the bidding ends at $52 and the other person wouldn't go over $55, I could probably toss a few extra dollars out there to win the auction.

That's a problem, don't ever go in a house auction! You really need to think it through, down to the last cent, how high you would go if you had every opportunity to bid more. If I won't pay more than about $50 for something, Ill put a snipe on at a random amount like $55.83 or something, and will have decided that if it was offered to me for $55.84, I would definitely refuse it.

If you were screwed out of something by a few cents, it is easy to let go of that bummed-ness if you are happy that you sniped your absolute maximum, and that few cents was more than you were willing to pay.

You need to do make that decision at some point with real auctions, and it's best to do it 3 days before an ebay auction ends, put on a snipe and forget about it. When it's over you either get an email saying you one, an email saying you were outbid (if someone else sniped more than you) or no email at all (if the current price was already above your snipe, the snipe program obviously doesn't bother taking any action).

Quote:

I've also seen setups on ebay where someone has a friend set up a bid sniper program that lasts until the last 5 minutes of the auction, to artificially drive up the auction price. If the other person accidentally wins, he just relists the item under his ebay account and gives the original seller the money.

Happens ALL the time, and I don't mind at all, it makes sense to me. I don't, wouldn't and never have done it (can't be bothered and it doesn't fit my world view, I would prefer to let nature take it's course, but I'm a weirdo, clearly) but don't have a problem with other people doing that at all, they are just making the most of the system. I don't think it's illegal and don't feel it's immoral.

Having a friend bid on and win your item, then sending a second chance offer to the second highest bidder, ensures that the seller gest the maximum money for their item,why wouldn't they want to sell their stuff for as much money as possible?

If the eventual buyer pays a higher price than he would have if there was no shill bidder, that's his problem. He still paid less than or equal to his maximum prices (obviously), so he should be happy that he won it. If he didn't want to pay that much, he shouldn't have bid that much!

That's capitalism, and that's how the world works, love it or hate it, might as well play it as well as you can IMO.

 

[bcjohnst]

I use auctionsniper.com, but I haven't compared other services. I think sniping is definitely the way to go if you can't be there at the end of an auction. It gives other people less time to consider upping their bid price, and it saves you time.

 

[hmai18]

ezsniper.com for me.