Ebay bidding days before
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I can see why sniping is effective but I think it's unfair on the seller, in a real auction bidders are always given a chance to raise their bids... Ebay should have a system where any bid in the last 5mins resets the countdown to 5mins, giving other people a chance to outbid them.
Bidding only ever gets out of hand when people get greedy and lack self control.
Bidding only ever gets out of hand when people get greedy and lack self control.
wow, people are crazy. it sold for 380.
there was a listing for identical item recently and seller counteroffered with 175, although it was slightly used and not boxed. so the real value of this brand new could have been around 300-320 max.
the world is full of Muppets and hence why sniper can work well. Not in this case as you would have sniped at a max of under 300
Soldato
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What is all this jive talk about "sniping"? You are bidding for some tat on eBay, not taking out Taliban foot soldiers in Kandahar.
i also do not understand what is so difficult about this
sniping is absolutely the best way
if you are going to put on 70 and thats it ..
put 70.01 in a snipe.. never put a round figure in, the next highest bid has to be a round figure over yours. most might put 75 but 75.01 was required
put the time at less than 5 seconds, most people seem to use 5
and as said, sniping stops others seeing your bid is higher than thiers and out bidding you (because tards will go higher just to win, and this is what sniping protects againsty
i dont understand how people cannot see the logical benefit
sniping is absolutely the best way
if you are going to put on 70 and thats it ..
put 70.01 in a snipe.. never put a round figure in, the next highest bid has to be a round figure over yours. most might put 75 but 75.01 was required
put the time at less than 5 seconds, most people seem to use 5
and as said, sniping stops others seeing your bid is higher than thiers and out bidding you (because tards will go higher just to win, and this is what sniping protects againsty
i dont understand how people cannot see the logical benefit
when your bidding on something hundreds of pounds you can save a significant amount
Soldato
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But if you're prepared to pay, let's say, £70 for an item and someone else is prepared to pay £80 for it, why does it it matter if they outbid you with 5 days to go or 5 seconds to go?
Soldato
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nvm
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Because a great many of those people who are willing to pay £80, will only enter £40 if the item is currently at £30.
If you enter a max of £70 with just a few seconds to go, you'd pay £41 or so and win, they'd have no chance to decide to keep upping their bid to their £80 max in the few seconds that are left.
If they have put in £80 max, then they'll still win but sniping is only aimed at taking advantage of people who don't put in actual maximum bids so this is no different whether sniping or not.
Soldato
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Why? If they are prepared to pay a maximum of £80 for it, then they'll put 80 in for it hoping to get it for 40 but wouldn't be gutted if they do have to pay 80.
Again you are implying that no one but yourself uses the maximum amount technique. Besides it still doesn't work anyway because if you put a maximum of £70 and have the current highest bid of say £31 and these 'snipers' wait til the last minute they still lose unless they put a maximum bid of £80 at the last minute. If they put a max of 40 in at the last minute they still lose and you get it for £41.
So sniping then only works under a very specific set of circumstances and isn't the 'obvious and logical' best bidding tactic as was claimed then?
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^
it really is the best way if you want to maximise your chances and not pay more than you put in the sniper
you dont have to be at your computer at auction end
you have a better chance than putting it in manually early on
you dont risk going beyond your limit on impulse
the first line you wrote, but that is not what happens, people dont all put in 80 hoping to get it for 40, they put in bids until they beat the last bid, then go away and come back later
it really is the best way if you want to maximise your chances and not pay more than you put in the sniper
you dont have to be at your computer at auction end
you have a better chance than putting it in manually early on
you dont risk going beyond your limit on impulse
the first line you wrote, but that is not what happens, people dont all put in 80 hoping to get it for 40, they put in bids until they beat the last bid, then go away and come back later
Soldato
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Quite but you don't need all people to think like that, you only need one person to put a bid in of 80 at any time and you either lose or are tempted to bid over what you are prepared to pay (in which case you still lose IMO even though you have "won" the item).
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You need to forget about how "you" use ebay and think about how other people use it.
Most people don't put their maximum bid in straight away because:
- They don't know or think about their maximum bid (e.g. they think they want to pay no more than £40, but when they see they have been outbid they will stick another £5 in, then when they get outbid they put another £5 in). You end up paying over £60 for the item because they kept putting another £5 in, compared to paying just over £40 if you sniped
- They see an item at £5 and think "oh I will easily get that if I stick £50", not even really thinking about their maximum budget, you get it for just over £50. If you bid early they can re-assess their budget and decide whether they should set a higher max budget
- They don't understand auto / max bidding and just put their current bid in
- Some people just don't like using the auto bid, and will keep increasing their bid until they are winning, by sniping they don't have chance to keep upping their bid.
The simple fact is using a sniping tool ensures you pay the least price by taking advantage of the majority of Ebayers who don't think about it as much as you do.
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Soldato
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When I bid depends a lot on the item. Mostly I'll bid in the last 30 seconds, either manually or via a sniping service if the item is ending at a time when I won't be available (quite often these are on international items where the end time is in the early hours of the morning) and use a random amount.
But some items I will place an early bid for the minimum as the profile of the normal buyers of those items is that they tend to try and avoid bidding against people as the item is likely to come up again multiple times at a low price again. Hence stating that you are looking at the item and are already willing to make a bid really does seem to diminish the chances of there being more bids which has meant that I've have got things for a lower total cost at the end.
But some items I will place an early bid for the minimum as the profile of the normal buyers of those items is that they tend to try and avoid bidding against people as the item is likely to come up again multiple times at a low price again. Hence stating that you are looking at the item and are already willing to make a bid really does seem to diminish the chances of there being more bids which has meant that I've have got things for a lower total cost at the end.
So much fail in this thread 
Why is it hard to understand? If you snipe with your maximum bid at the last minute then statistically you will win more auctions and pay less for them.
The end. That simple.
But the more people who don't understand, the more effective it is, so let's not try too hard to educate them
.
Also - sniping tools are for pussies. I'm old school and snipe manually. Such a rush
Why is it hard to understand? If you snipe with your maximum bid at the last minute then statistically you will win more auctions and pay less for them.
The end. That simple.
But the more people who don't understand, the more effective it is, so let's not try too hard to educate them
.Also - sniping tools are for pussies. I'm old school and snipe manually. Such a rush
What I want to pay and what I'm willing to pay are not the same thing, ergo I will snipe bid my maximum amount a few seconds from the end so that anyone else bidding has no time to revise their bid.
In my experience very few people actually understand how eBay bidding works, I have had to explain it to my mum countless times as she just doesn't get the concept of the maximum bid system.
In my experience very few people actually understand how eBay bidding works, I have had to explain it to my mum countless times as she just doesn't get the concept of the maximum bid system.
Soldato
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So much fail in this thread
Why is it hard to understand? If you snipe with your maximum bid at the last minute then statistically you will win more auctions and pay less for them.
The end. That simple.
But the more people who don't understand, the more effective it is, so let's not try too hard to educate them
Also - sniping tools are for pussies. I'm old school and snipe manually. Such a rush
Yes you are correct
You stick in a bid of £50.02 in the last 5 seconds of the auction. Congratulations, you just lost to another bidder who put in an earlier amount of £60 which ebay auto incremented to £51