[warubozu]

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Originally posted by tbdoah vwap, indeed, 50th-state has take a few of our wanted items....I have yet to see him lose an item.

I've seen him loose before, and when he did loose the winner ended up indeed paying. At least more than what I think he or she wanted to.

 

[fractus2]

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Those who bid too early, thus driving the price up above what it normally would sell for;

Some of those are called shills.

 

[chadbang]

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I actually don't understand this. So if I bid 10,000 and the next highest bid is 200 I win and only pay 200? If this is correct I can let someone make a small 10 bid and then I bid 10000 and I win and only pay say 11?

Yes, proxy bidding. BUT THIS CAN ALSO COST YOU.

An example;

I was looking for a vinyl copy of "Live at Folsom Prison". I'd seen a pristine copy at a store priced at $25. I found a VG+ copy on eBay among maybe 10 others. So I thought I'd bid on it.

Well, I was going to be away, so I tried my first proxy bid. What should I pay. Well, what the heck, the one I saw at the store and was contemplating buying was $25. I'll proxy bid $25 -- which I knew was high (one reason I'd didn't buy the store's copy). If I was sniping, I'd probably try to get the LP for $5-$8 bucks. But I figured there wouldn't be that many bids as there were a lot of copies on eBay.

Well, I won the auction: For $23 dollars! What the hell?

I check the bid. Somebody had bid $4. Then he saw my proxy bid had outbid him. So he bid $6. Again he saw he was outbid again. He bid $10.

Here's where I think psychology plays a factor. You keep getting hit in the face with "Sorry, you've already been outbid by another bidder!" And it gets you mad. You start anger bidding. Well this guy the bid. $14, $18, $22!! At that point he must have got fed up and quit -- but he left me hanging there at a price WAY above what I thought I would pay.

So, yes, it's a good idea if you ABSOLUTELY must have an item and you don't mind paying more than the average person might. But don't expect a bargain with a proxy bid, and beware of someone getting pissed and driving up the price you pay.

 

[Hirsch]

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Originally posted by chadbang So, yes, it's a good idea if you ABSOLUTELY must have an item and you don't mind paying more than the average person might. But don't expect a bargain with a proxy bid, and beware of someone getting pissed and driving up the price you pay.

The use of shills has been pointed out. Shills have a problem with snipers. There are no bids out for them to raise. There's also no time for them to raise the bid (unless the seller has a shill snipe in place instead of a reserve, in which case you were never going to get a bargain anyway).

I bid what I'm willing to pay, but am NOT willing to have that bid out on the table where people can see that I'm bidding. If I really want something, I'll snipe it. I may lose...but so what? If someone else snipes for more money than I was willing to put up, why should I win? Electronic sniping also keeps me from getting caught up in auction fervor... a point that cannot be overemphasized.

Not all auctions get sniped. For items not in high demand, proxy bidding works fine, and I use it.

 

[drp]

A few weeks ago, I read this thread out of curiosity as I'd never bid on Ebay. This all changed over the last few days because I saw a D-465 and spent two days watching and bidding and trying to play the game fairly. I had the high bid, up till the last FOUR SECONDS, when a sniper swooped in and outbid me by one measly dollar. It took a while for the last browser refresh, and I look in amazement and disbelief for about a minute at the "you looser" message.

Even what I though was a high but fair proxy bid (in retrospect, I was trying to get too good a deal) was useless.

This thread now makes a lot more sense. It's kind of heartbreaking to want an item very badly, play the game the way it's supposed to be played (so much for fair bidding) and loose to someone that had not bid once on an item.

Do all bidders go through this trial by fire, loose their virtual virginity, and eventually toughen up and say f^%$ it, I think I'll snipe the next one. I can almost hear Darth's amplified breathing in my ears, but will resist the temptation, knowing first-hand what it feels like. Or will I…….

 

[PeterR]

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Originally posted by drp I had the high bid, up till the last FOUR SECONDS, when a sniper swooped in and outbid me by one measly dollar.

If you're the second highest bidder, you'll *always* have been outbid by one measly dollar (or whatever the bid increment is, that depends on the bid amount). This is how ebay auctions work.

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It took a while for the last browser refresh, and I look in amazement and disbelief for about a minute at the "you looser" message. (...) This thread now makes a lot more sense. It's kind of heartbreaking to want an item very badly, play the game the way it's supposed to be played (so much for fair bidding) and loose to someone that had not bid once on an item.

What do you mean by "fair bidding"? It's an auction. Somebody was willing to pay more than you, so he won. Highest bid wins, don't see what you're complaining about?

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eventually toughen up and say f^%$ it, I think I'll snipe the next one. I can almost hear Darth's amplified breathing in my ears, but will resist the temptation, knowing first-hand what it feels like. Or will I…….

There's nothing unfair about 'sniping'. Let's say that guy hadn't sniped you, and you'd have had another hour to react. What would you have done? Put in another higher bid? If so, there would be two possibillities. Either your first bid didn't reflect your actual willingness to pay. If so, why ? The way ebay works, there's no good reason to do so. Or your first bid was in fact what you were ready to pay but now you're getting carried away and are ready to pay more than the item's worth to you because you can't stand to loose that auction. In this case be thankful somebody sniped you.
Sniping is in no way against the rules, and the reason it works at all is incremental bidding. As explained at length in this and other threads, incremental bidding is no advantage at all with the type of auction used on ebay. So if somebody's bidding incrementally he's either naive, reacting emotional, or trying to drive the price up because he's (or working with) the seller.

 

[daycart1]

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Originally posted by warubozu Sniping services works great. Only problem is that the service can't guarnatee a success bid on your behalf if the connect between the snipping service and Ebay is bad. I once loss an item on Ebay using a snipping service because at the moment I had set the snipping service to place my bid, Ebay was very busy and it couldn't successfully place my bid.

Same here. And I've had esnipe fail to connect a couple of times when the item I wanted went VERY CHEAPLY after all. Aaaaargh!

 

[drp]

Peter - Being new to the bidding game, I read several Ebay forum posts as well, including the controversy over sniping. There was even one about a seller that was going to refuse a sale if won by a sniper. He/she was of course, blasted to the high heavens. I initially took the wrong view of sniping so concede to your comments and views.

To answer your question, I would have bid higher, again. In retrospect, what I did not do was put in a bit that reflected what I was willing to pay for the item. I was proxy bidding, incorrectly, so easily fit the "naive" of your possible scenarios.

The real jest of my email was that it's tough to loose a first bid (virginity) from sniping and was certainly a lesson learned; that sniping must be the way to win. This must also be the best possible sales tool for sniper software.

 

[Sovkiller]

And what about a combination of the two, I mean to use a proxy-snipping, just place an amount you are willing to pay in an snipping service, the service will do the proxy bidding for you, but just in the last minute or so....this way you keep the price low, up to the last 10 seconds, and at the end, you will not pay more of what you consider a rational value for the article.....

BTW which is the best snipping service available, I'm trying to get a Bacamarte CD for a while, and the last time I failed miserably on eBay....

 

[aeberbach]

I love bidders who make proxy bids in the first days of an auction. If I'm the seller, the higher the price the better (obviously) but when I know a lot of people are going to hang back and snipe I almost rely on early bidders so that the snipers have to pay a reasonable amount. I'f I'm a buyer, every person who chooses to bid early is one less sniper that I have to fight in the last 15 seconds - unless they're crazy and bid both ways.

Bidding without sniping is just not smart, unless cost is no object. The smart way to buy at auction is to decide what the item is worth to you and snipe for that amount. If you do it that way you will always pay less than your maximum should you win and if you don't win then it wasn't meant to be, keep looking. Don't get carried away or you end up feeling bad about winning.

Don't underestimate the power of "buy it now" - I just snagged an almost-mint early Nikon F, 20 minutes after it was listed. It's always worth a quick look at "newly listed" for "buy it now" only to see if the item you want is there.

 

[tbdoah]

Sovkiller,

I used eSnipe to successfullly when my MG Head, although about $100 more than I truly wanted. I would of gotten it for $161 but some newbie bid at $200 something so in the end, I won it for the too high price of $287.77, not worth it imo (pricewise that is

)

 

[Sovkiller]

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Originally posted by tbdoah Sovkiller, I used eSnipe to successfullly when my MG Head, although about $100 more than I truly wanted. I would of gotten it for $161 but some newbie bid at $200 something so in the end, I won it for the too high price of $287.77, not worth it imo (pricewise that is )

My question is: if you do not want to pay that much, why you did it? You should let it go.
MGHead is very common amp nowadays, you could get any other, any day soon, it is not the case of the HPA-1 or HP-1000, or HP-2, those are out of production for while now, but an MGHead, come on!!!!, OTOH, I personally do not consider $287.77 that bad, I sold mine for 300.00, and very quick...of course, I included some additional tubes, anyway I won't use them anymore so, was not worth to keep them....

 

[Hirsch]

Quote:

Originally posted by tbdoah Sovkiller, I used eSnipe to successfullly when my MG Head, although about $100 more than I truly wanted. I would of gotten it for $161 but some newbie bid at $200 something so in the end, I won it for the too high price of $287.77, not worth it imo (pricewise that is )

If the price is too high, let it go. It was clearly worth that much to you. After all, you made the bid. If the price was too high, the solution is obvious in retrospect.

Sometimes you get lucky on eBay. Sometimes you don't. But you should never pay more than something is worth to you. All you need to do is be willing to lose an auction when it goes skywards. There will always be a next time...

 

[warubozu]

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Originally posted by Hirsch If the price is too high, let it go. It was clearly worth that much to you. After all, you made the bid. If the price was too high, the solution is obvious in retrospect. Sometimes you get lucky on eBay. Sometimes you don't. But you should never pay more than something is worth to you. All you need to do is be willing to lose an auction when it goes skywards. There will always be a next time...

I agree, many times I catch myself paying way more for an item than what I originally intended to. The simple reason is that I was unwilling to loose an auction for the fear that I may never have another opportunity to score on a similar item again. Also I think greed plays a part in this. Most of the time the same item appears on Ebay again, sometimes within a few days and ends up closing at a much lower price than what I had paid for mines. You just have to be able to know when the price is too high and just say no.

 

[Sovkiller]

That is why mainly I proxy bid all my auctions, now I will snipe/proxy them, if I get it, good, if not, what can I do? but I will not pay more of what the item is worth to me...so I usually never look at the auction until it ends....