? about sniping

[jann1033]

i was attempting to get a teleconverter on ebay, using auction sniper to get it...they sent my snipe when there was 11 seconds left ( i told them 8) and someone else got in after me and beat me( by 2 bucks and 8 seconds )... they may have sniped as well so i might not have gotten it anyway but just wondering if all sniper services do that( send in your bid before you tell them to) they claim it's because it's busy at the time the auction ended but they also tell you to raise your lead time which i did from 5 to 8 sec like they said to. i've used esnipe before and always won but just wondering if this is common for snipes or not since if not i won't use auction snipe again

 

[MICKEY88]

i was attempting to get a teleconverter on ebay, using auction sniper to get it...they sent my snipe when there was 11 seconds left ( i told them 8) and someone else got in after me and beat me( by 2 bucks and 8 seconds )... they may have sniped as well so i might not have gotten it anyway but just wondering if all sniper services do that( send in your bid before you tell them to) they claim it's because it's busy at the time the auction ended but they also tell you to raise your lead time which i did from 5 to 8 sec like they said to. i've used esnipe before and always won but just wondering if this is common for snipes or not since if not i won't use auction snipe again

I use auction sniper all the time, with great success, it's possible if someone had their max bid set higher than your snipe, that your snipe would trigger their bid to be raised..

check the bidding list to see if the winner had a bid prior to your snipe..

also, If I'm online when an auction is about to end, I'll have 2 windows open , one with my highest bid, ready to send it, the other monitoring the auction refreshing every few seconds so I can send my bid at the very last second..that could have happened to you as well..



just a random thought on the converter, due to the stop or 2 of lost light, I prefer to shoot with my longest lens, then crop via computer..

 

[jann1033]

no he didn't which is why i thought he might have sniped it... it just frosted me that he literally got the bid in the second it closed and if they had sent mine at 8 he might not have had the time .curses ! foiled again oh well what's another hundred for a new one

i've been going back and forth on the converter as i also want to see if it would help with my macro..hoping it magnifies it enough i don't have to use the filter to get 1:1 or closer to that at least. if not i will end up with a new macro someday and so i figured the ebay was good since i never see the kenko pro used anywhere...

 

[MICKEY88]

if I'mm following your times right he may have very well used my second techinique and just waited 'till the last second to click verify bid.., even if they had sent your bid at the specified time, he still would have beat you..

 

[jann1033]

i just keep telling myself the lens was probably filled with fungus anyway

 

[MarkBarbieri]

Let's assume that you and the other person were both sniping. Because you were both sniping, neither expected to have the opportunity to place a second bid. That means that you both bid the most you were willing to pay. In that case, it doesn't really matter that his bid was after yours. He was willing to pay more for the converter. He got what he wanted at a price he was comfortable with. While you wanted the teleconverter, it sold for more than you were willing to pay. What's the problem?

 

[MICKEY88]

Let's assume that you and the other person were both sniping. Because you were both sniping, neither expected to have the opportunity to place a second bid. That means that you both bid the most you were willing to pay. In that case, it doesn't really matter that his bid was after yours. He was willing to pay more for the converter. He got what he wanted at a price he was comfortable with. While you wanted the teleconverter, it sold for more than you were willing to pay. What's the problem?

excellent point

 

[jann1033]

i would have paid another 2 bucks ...but the main thing i wondered about was the fact they sent my bid in so early...why have the customer put the lead time there if you are going to ignore it? and i do know with ebay ever second counts...on their site they tell you you determine when they send the bid and recommend during busy times you set 7-12 sec. but today when i emailed them and asked them( after i got a email from ebay saying it was sent in 11 seconds before the auction ended) they said they always send the bid in early which they should mention imo so you can watch the auction if you want that item...if i had known that i probably wouldn't have used them for the auction since i can sit by the computer and hit send myself for free rather than pay them to send it earlier than i want it sent and have to watch it anyway....the auction didn't really have much activity at all till the last few seconds ( which i think is how it usually is)then someone bid 2 less than me 2 seconds before they sent my bid then the other guy sent his bid. but i don't think i'd use auction snipe again since they do that...if seems like it would be easy to lose it if that is how they do it.

 

[Taqwus]

Personally I use more of an anti-snipe bids
Secret is most people bid in easy to guess incriments so my highest bid is usually a few pennies over
I have won lots of auctions this way, I put what I am willing to bid on, usually withing the last few minutes that way if someone tries to snipe it I am usually outbidding them already
My best was the original star wars deathstar playset with a mint box won by 1 penny

 

[jann1033]

Personally I use more of an anti-snipe bids
Secret is most people bid in easy to guess incriments so my highest bid is usually a few pennies over
I have won lots of auctions this way, I put what I am willing to bid on, usually withing the last few minutes that way if someone tries to snipe it I am usually outbidding them already
My best was the original star wars deathstar playset with a mint box won by 1 penny

that is kind of what i did, there was a new one from hong
kong for 96 so i bid 102 figuring someone might bid 100 but the other guy got in with 104 so guess there really isn't an easy way to make sure unless you just forget the beauty sleep and stay up late & watch it before doing it that way I usually lost as we had dial up at the time...my dsl still isn't that fast but maybe i need to go back to the basics

 

[JR6ooo4]

that is kind of what i did, there was a new one from hong
kong for 96 so i bid 102 figuring someone might bid 100 but the other guy got in with 104 so guess there really isn't an easy way to make sure unless you just forget the beauty sleep and stay up late & watch it before doing it that way I usually lost as we had dial up at the time...my dsl still isn't that fast but maybe i need to go back to the basics

Speaking of basics... I am trying to figure out dsl...

darling sister law, no
daughter son lazy... no

Oooohhh! Digital subscriber line! hehehehehee

My snipe time is set at 5 seconds. And I also bid $102.23 instead of $102.00. Or smaller items $x.53

Mikeeee

 

[AZ JazzyJ]

Personally I use more of an anti-snipe bids
Secret is most people bid in easy to guess incriments so my highest bid is usually a few pennies over
I have won lots of auctions this way, I put what I am willing to bid on, usually withing the last few minutes that way if someone tries to snipe it I am usually outbidding them already
My best was the original star wars deathstar playset with a mint box won by 1 penny

Ok, this is where I confess that I really need to get a life. If I am watching an item on eBay, I will look at all of the other bidders through bid history. I will then go to their feedback and look over the items they have previously won. I can usually find a pattern that shows what they are willing to spend on items within a certain genre. People are typically creatures of habit so they will usually also show in previous auctions a pattern in the dollar amounts. Once I have that information I can make a calculated decision of what I am willing to bid and adjust the cents so that if I am close to the other bidders I stand a good chance to win it by a few pennies. This works for people who have already bid. It is a little more difficult when they haven't bid. For those I will do a search on completed items and look at the user IDs of people who did not win. Chances are they will play again so I can collect data on those whose snipes didn't work one time but may the next time.

To me eBay is the ultimate sociology and psychology experiment. You can learn more about human behavior and personality tendencies watching an auction than you could from studying humans for months in every day life. The stupid thing about this is I tend to get caught up in figuring out the person rather than buying an item. I've been known to bid on items to validate a psychology hypothesis even though I don't want the item. Granted I don't usually do that on big-ticket items. I seriously need to find a different outlet for my intellectual curiosity otherwise I may end up being the world's largest collector of porcelain cow figurines.

Jeff

 

[Anewman]

Ok, this is where I confess that I really need to get a life. If I am watching an item on eBay, I will look at all of the other bidders through bid history. I will then go to their feedback and look over the items they have previously won. I can usually find a pattern that shows what they are willing to spend on items within a certain genre. People are typically creatures of habit so they will usually also show in previous auctions a pattern in the dollar amounts. Once I have that information I can make a calculated decision of what I am willing to bid and adjust the cents so that if I am close to the other bidders I stand a good chance to win it by a few pennies. This works for people who have already bid. It is a little more difficult when they haven't bid. For those I will do a search on completed items and look at the user IDs of people who did not win. Chances are they will play again so I can collect data on those whose snipes didn't work one time but may the next time.

Yes I do similar, with an advanced search for bidders you can see what they bid on identical items even if they lost.
I was out bid on a muslin background yesterday and I went through the bidders previous auctions(won or lost) and noticed he never exceeded $15.00(higher than I wanted to go) on many other backgrounds, but had I wanted that muslin bad enough I would have sniped one penny over that.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I usually find the various auctions in progress for the item I am interested in. I then decide how much I'm willing to spend. I take that and set up snipes for the various auctions, being careful to factor in shipping costs and making risk adjustments based on feedback. I sometimes shift up my bids by a few sense here or there to keep people guessing. I then set it up so that once I win one bid, the sniper stops submitting the others.

Of course, that strategy only works for items that are sold fairly regularly.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I'm surprised that no one has posted on how they think snipes are evil, immoral, unethical, anti-American, or whatever. It is often a hot-button topic.

 

[Anewman]

I'm surprised that no one has posted on how they think snipes are evil, immoral, unethical, anti-American, or whatever. It is often a hot-button topic.

While I dont use snipers, I hardly think they are evil. I have been sniped at the last minute hundreds of times, but in the long run I feel I have come out way ahead. I set my max price and I wont go over even by a penny, if a sniper is willing to pay more he would win the item even if he bid ten days b4 the end of auction(against me anyways).


Ebay auctions are crazy though, I dont understand how the SAME EXACT ITEM can fluctuate in price from day to day. I am talking about items that are sold multiple times a day, EVERY DAY of the year.

Take one of these umbrellas, I won one for 99cents, the day b4 one sold for $18.50. Funny thing is that the guy SNIPED $18.50 thinks he WON because of the sniping.

http://search-completed.ebay.com/DP...tZQ2d1QQsatitleZDPUQ2dSRQ2fWQ2036QQsofocusZbs

 

[0bli0]

whilst not a sniping proggie - has anyone seen San Dimas? it's a really nice interface and great to use to view while sniping/manual last minute bidding in another window (and just general searching, etc.)

 

[jann1033]

I'm surprised that no one has posted on how they think snipes are evil, immoral, unethical, anti-American, or whatever. It is often a hot-button topic.[/QUOTE

so does that mean the photo board has more than the average share of the above?
but sheesh no wonder i don't' win...i have to get a masters in ebay to win anything anyone here is bidding on...guess i should forget the photo bids and stick to the "lightly used furry bunny slippers" section:

the thing that shocks me is sometimes the items go for more than they could buy it from adorama or someplace they know is legit and will still be in business if they have a problem... I just don't get that "auction fever" mentality i guess

 

[JR6ooo4]

I am suprised ebay allows sniping. it keeps the price from being bid up by the impulse buyers who see someone else bidding on an interestig item, then they often get jealous and bid more. Then more people see more bids for an item and they think they have to have it because so many others want it.

Mikeeee

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I am suprised ebay allows sniping. it keeps the price from being bid up by the impulse buyers who see someone else bidding on an interestig item, then they often get jealous and bid more. Then more people see more bids for an item and they think they have to have it because so many others want it.

Mikeeee

A lot of other auction sites handle this by keeping bidding open until some period of time after the last bid has been received. In other words, if you snipe with 1 second left, they keep the bidding open for something like another minute.

Personally, I don't really care what the rules are as long as they are consistently followed. I then tailor my strategy to minimize my purchase price under the rules given.