ebay - why do people bid snipe?

[RealmofOpeth]

What in the hell is the point of bid sniping?

If you don't know what bid sniping is, it's placing a large bid right in the last seconds of an auction to make sure you get it and nobody else does.

However, this is retarded for several reasons.

Bid amounts are hidden. So the last person who bid before you could have a higher amount than what you think you're going to secure the auction for yourself.

All this does is jack up the price for the person who bid higher..but it doesn't exceed what they bid so it's not more than what they're willing to pay.

If you put in the max price you think the item is worth to begin with, and no bid sniping occurs, the process is the same except just extended.
To bid snipe is to make sure you're paying the max price than anyone else is going to pay and it just pisses people off when the auction is at a certain price then all of a sudden it shoots up into oblivion in the last seconds.

Its bad for everyone.

[lxskllr]

That's the only way I bid, and it's the smart way to bid. If you bid early you get in stupid bidding wars with other people, and the price invariably goes up way more than the item's worth. I put my maximum bid in when there's about 15" left. That way you get 1 shot at winning, and there's no time for emotional bidding.

[Xobeloot]

Bad for the loser, good for the seller and the winner.

I always wait until the last few seconds to enter my max bid. When it gets to about 1 min left I put up whatever max amount I am willing to pay for that item and let it ride.

The food-saver I won a few days back was at a whopping $6 when I placed my forst bid. I already had a number in my head that I was willing to pay, but my forst proxy bid was for half that amount (approx 5 hours before it ended). When I was outbid, I let that person sit as the winner for the next 4h59m30s at whgich point I upped my bid to what I was willing to pay. Wound up getting the item for about 2/3 of my willing amount.

It is just the smart way to do it. If you win it, you win it. If you lose it, the person who wins is still willing to pay the raised amount or they wouldnt have entered it in the first place.

Just my .02

As a side note, chances are you can find the identical item in a bunch of other auctions (unless you were bidding on something super rare like Jenna Jameson's chewed bubblegum )

[RealmofOpeth]

That's the only way I bid, and it's the smart way to bid. If you bid early you get in stupid bidding wars with other people, and the price invariably goes up way more than the item's worth. I put my maximum bid in when there's about 15" left. That way you get 1 shot at winning, and there's no time for emotional bidding.

yeah but taking into consideration different ways auctions are noticed...you could put in what you're willing to pay to begin with say on an item you think is worth $50. sometimes few people are looking for it and will only bid maybe up to $20 or some crap like that. sometimes nobody else but you bid, and you get it for mainly the shipping or something.
otherwise if a person bid snipes...they just cheated you out of getting it for what it's worth and they stick themselves for paying more than you'd want it for. of course there are items that are rare but only worth so much, so that person cheats you out of having it and there are few to be had, yet the other person paid some silly high price for it.
i can understand bidding in the last half hour or 15 minutes or something. i do that myself especially if the price is rather low. but the idea of doing it in the last 10 seconds...goofy.

take for example:
bidding on an R/C helicopter, used. new it goes around $350. but since it had a broken servo that needed replaced it was only worth about 290$ which i had it for. some joker comes along 5 seconds to auction and bids up to $360. i could've had it at the proper price, but noob comes along thinking he's crafty...cheating the bidders out of the item it should go for but at the same time he pays too much. so it's kind of a bittersweet thing...pisses you off, at the same time you laugh at him.

[Subtilo]

something super rare like Jenna Jameson's chewed bubblegum

... which reminds me: anyone interested in a fairly big collection of air guitars? Bidding starts at 900 USD.

[Zero]

Yup, same here. I don't buy anything on ebay anymore, but when I used to that's all I would do - one bid right at the end. Anything else is just counterproductive. I have a fixed price that I'm willing to pay for something and the best chance of keeping the price low is complete disinterest until the last minute. The less bidding that goes on beforehand, the lower the price stays. Then it's one bid and you either get it or you don't. Who gives a crap if someone else has to pay more - they have to because if they didn't then you'd have had it at the lower price. That's the law of supply and demand.

I mean, say someone bids $100 for something and they get the incremental bid up to $70 with reserve up to $100 on auto-bid. Now you come in and bid early too - if you bid less than $100, you don't get the item and the price gets auto-bid up to your amount for the other dude. Now, you still don't know what the other guy bid, but you know it's more than the current price. End result - the guy pays the same if not more than if you'd have tried to snipe it at the end, but now the price is higher and anyone else who bids can only push up the price again. If you do get the bid, now you're stuck out in the open with the winning price and you've got a ton of time left for other people to impulsively push the price up again. It just doesn't make sense to bid early.

[RealmofOpeth]

well what you're talking about Zero is normal. I guess I should clarify. bidding late is one thing. bidding extremely late at a stupid price is another.
and of course it's not bad for everyone, seeing as the seller can benefit from it.
however, let me give a more extreme example:

say there's a part for your car that's hard to find. there's one auction for a used part not worth more than $100 and there's a buyitnow for a new one at $150.
some goofball thinks it's worth $200 so of course he snipes you with that. the problem is that you're stuck with finding the stupid part again and he could've bought it new for much less than what he spent on the auction.
you both could've won out if he just went to the buyitnow and the auction you were on finished at the reasonable price for what it was. but otherwise you both lose because jackass doesn't know how to use ebay except for the sneaky 'trick' he has stuck in his head that he's winning except he's losing and you're losing. the seller is overjoyed.

that's what i'm talking about. not bidding late in general.

[lxskllr]

There is no "stupid price", well there is, but sniping helps prevent that. In your example maybe that car part /is/ worth $150 used to somebody, or maybe they're just an idiot, but in a free market any price is valid.

I've been buying saxophones on Ebay lately, and if I bid early I wouldn't have gotten any of them. Especially with a musical instrument you get invested in the object, and if you aren't careful a stupid bidding war will ensue. When something sits there for a week , you start to think of it as yours before it's won. when someone outbids you it gets personal, then you /have/ to have that sax at any cost, and things get out of control :^D

Bid late, and bid your max. That's the only way to play the game ;^)

[Zero]

well what you're talking about Zero is normal. I guess I should clarify. bidding late is one thing. bidding extremely late at a stupid price is another.
and of course it's not bad for everyone, seeing as the seller can benefit from it.
however, let me give a more extreme example:

say there's a part for your car that's hard to find. there's one auction for a used part not worth more than $100 and there's a buyitnow for a new one at $150.
some goofball thinks it's worth $200 so of course he snipes you with that. the problem is that you're stuck with finding the stupid part again and he could've bought it new for much less than what he spent on the auction.
you both could've won out if he just went to the buyitnow and the auction you were on finished at the reasonable price for what it was. but otherwise you both lose because jackass doesn't know how to use ebay except for the sneaky 'trick' he has stuck in his head that he's winning except he's losing and you're losing. the seller is overjoyed.

that's what i'm talking about. not bidding late in general.

Ok, but that's how capitalism works, man. It doesn't really matter when the guy drops a stupid bid - early or late - it will push the price up just the same. Had he not sniped it and bid early, then you wouldn't have even been looking at the auction in the first place, right? It would already be over your price limit. Supply and demand gets messy when there's low supply and low demand - it's tough to get buyers and sellers together so the price distribution tends to be high. That happens on eBay or anywhere else. I guess one just has to stop thinking of the current bidding price as being in any way indicative of the actual price. It may not be worth more than $100 to you, but obviously it was worth $200 to the other guy, so he gets it. When supply is small that's what happens. Yeah, it's shitty when you feel so close to a deal, but whaddayagonnado?


I mean - think of it this way. If an item starts at 1¢, then it doesn't make sense for anyone to bid on it. If only all of the buyers would just cede to the winner a-priori, then the winner could save a ton of money all the time. It's not like the losers would have gotten it anyway, so what's the point of making someone else pay more, right? But why doesn't anyone do that? :idea:

[RealmofOpeth]

nope you guys are completely missing my point.
I understand bidding late and not early.
I understand supply and demand.

But on an item that could be had anywhere else for the same or less price he snipes for, what in the flying **** is the purpose of that guy coming to that auction to bid snipe? zero. he is just an ignorant jackass stumbling around thinking he's getting a 'deal'. there is no point to his bidding on the item if he's willing to pay a super high price when he could simply spend 5 more minutes (or 5 minutes less instead of waiting for the auction to end) and get the item for sure at his price instead of depending on a snipe.
I don't care if 'to him' its worth something he gets it somehow makes it all well and good. that is very simplistic. These guys are dipshit buyers screwing up perfectly normal sales. In economics it's usually known that consumers try to find the best deal. but if they don't even bother to spend a modicum of research then of course the average prices are going to stay high because of their ignorance and laziness in expecting cheaper prices.

And in terms of Ebay, it doesn't really change the fact that the same deals could be had repeatedly in the future at around the same rate they happened in the past. You just got screwed on that item at that time..a total fluke and not regularly happening...and have to wait for the deal to emerge again. It's not necessarily true that the lower prices of the item is going to go up because random goofballs have money to burn and are willing to spend the same price it goes for new when the item might not be necessarily rare, but there's just a few sellers selling them at a certain interval. You can have that deal again as many others had. it's just you have to wait to find it again, you know it's likely to happen again. unless you have the luck some yahoo comes around and snipes you again instead of going to the other store to blow his money for the same price. the average price yes, does go up a hair, but it doesn't change the the low-end of the range..only if it was happening all the time would it do so.

Say there's an item on ebay that has gone for $100 consistently in the past, and then there's other ones of the same item for buy it nows at twice the price. Why would anyone bother with those much higher priced buy-it-nows? Because some are entirely ignorant that it goes for much less. or don't like to wait so they pay more despite there's some buyitnows for in between. These same types of market-ignorant people will bid on used stuff for the exact same price that it is new, fouling up the chance to get any 'deals' because they're ****ing idiots and don't spend 5 minutes to search and realize if they went to a cheaper buy-it-now they'd get the same or better deal instead of dicking with sniping.
It's unreliable/irrational as hell..sure you could put in a thousand dollars for a ridiculous item at the last minute. but why when you could get it elsewhere for $100?
it doesn't make any difference what it is worth to you if you can get the same/better item for the same price elsewhere much easier. all it does is piss people off and shake their head at how ignorant you are.

let me repeat, I understand bidding late. but considering other factors, like is it worse/equal than the other item you could've easily bought for the same or less (but higher than the bid before your bid) price you bid for.


if we're talking one item and that one item only, that is another story.
not ones with clear histories and regular intervals of being posted.

[Xobeloot]

You should try "bid sniping" some time. You may save yourself a few bucks. You will also save a whole lot of time by being able to say "look what I won" instead of "I'm mad... This is why I lost and you should all agree with me that people who do this are asshats"

Sorry if that sounds like me being a dick, but basically this whole thread sounds like you are mad that you lost, so you are trying to get everyone to agree that the person who won the item that you wanted (using a bid method that is pretty much "the norm") is a douchebag "bid sniper".

/puts on flame suit and prepares for the heat

-Xobe

[RealmofOpeth]

You should try "bid sniping" some time. You may save yourself a few bucks. You will also save a whole lot of time by being able to say "look what I won" instead of "I'm mad... This is why I lost and you should all agree with me that people who do this are asshats"

Sorry if that sounds like me being a dick, but basically this whole thread sounds like you are mad that you lost, so you are trying to get everyone to agree that the person who won the item that you wanted (using a bid method that is pretty much "the norm") is a douchebag "bid sniper".

/puts on flame suit and prepares for the heat

-Xobe

Well I hate to be a dick in return, but yes you are being a dick for the fact that you're ignoring what I have said since the initial post. I apologize for not being specific enough in my initial post, initiating a deluge of replies regarding generic bid sniping, but I have since made it more specific to a type of bid sniping that is just simply pointless. I'm not disagreeing further to get people to agree with me if they genuinely disagree with what I really mean, I'm disagreeing because those who disagree now appear to be disagreeing with something more general, and I'm being more specific to give a better idea that would could possibly be agreed with.

As I have already clarified bidding late isn't necessarily bad. Especially if it's a one of a kind item. Bidding late at a price that doesn't give you nor anyone but the seller the advantage is utterly stupid and I really don't know why this is hard to understand...other than my broad claim of bid sniping being bad. i conflated the stupid bid sniping with all of bid sniping and in that I see where I am wrong.

I'm not going to save any money whatsoever to bid snipe at a price that is equal or higher than what I could've gotten the item elsewhere.
I still think you're a cool guy though, maybe I just give off this vibration of "whatever i say after everyone's disagreement must be wrong because i'm mad" despite my attempts to not appear as such. I understand what people are saying but see that they're not entirely on target with what i mean and I apologize for not having made it exactly what i meant to begin with. further disagreement doesn't always mean 'agree with me' it may mean i forgot a detail or didn't explain it properly to get the suited response for the issue. that's a pretty normal thing, disagreeing doesn't always mean the other person is wrong, you may just disagree upon their initial statements and then come later to agree when you both realize what the other is talking about.

[Dead Rabbit]

Dude, I’m confused. In one example you use a rare car part and then claim it irrational that the item went up in price. The very next post you complain about morons buying common products for way too much money that traditionally go for a standard price. In that case, who cares? Just go to one of the many other auctions of the same good. I’ve read every word of your posts because free market economics interests me. And for the life of me, I can’t see your logic.

[Xobeloot]

[This Thread] Crit Snuson for 23,000 (Crushung Blow)

Please repair your gear before returning to the raid zone.

[RealmofOpeth]

Dude, I’m confused. In one example you use a rare car part and then claim it irrational that the item went up in price. The very next post you complain about morons buying common products for way too much money that traditionally go for a standard price. In that case, who cares? Just go to one of the many other auctions of the same good. I’ve read every word of your posts because free market economics interests me. And for the life of me, I can’t see your logic.

I understand why that's confusing. What I meant was that it was rare in the sense that there's not many, but they can be had on ebay on a regular interval, albeit not particularly often, meaning you have to wait several days/a week for the auctions on the others to end. Unlike say for ipods or something hugely available where there's an auction ending every minute so it's not a big deal.

If it's just one item or extremely rare where there isn't a regular occurence of the item, bid sniping at some stupid price is understood.
If I got bid-sniped on Jenna Jameson's used bubble-gum, I wouldn't raise this issue. Yeah I would be mad that I didn't get it, but then again, somebody else has the dough, so whatever.
But that I got bid sniped on a regularly occuring item, but one that isn't super popular/available, on a used item that was already over it's actual value for a new price...just makes me wonder what the hell people are thinking.

When you look at the history of items that regularly occur and what they went for, you can see a trend of the lowest range they go for and they don't go up more than that except on rare occasions (because said highest bidder didn't look around)...there's those 'fluke' buyers who spike up in the trend and I had the luck to deal with one of those. That is the only reason those buyitnow's at the not-a-good-deal price exist at all is because of people who don't know they could get it for cheaper...but sometimes those same people come to auctions to bid-snipe for a 'deal' when it's the opposite. They should've just went for the other on a buyitnow at the same price especially when the item they sniped for isn't as good.