eBay bidding strategy

[rolandtiangco]

I too am an occasional sniper, and I worked at ebay for 5+ years on the core product. Agree on the above point that sniping is within the rules as-designed. That doesn’t make me any less pissed when I loose an auction last second though.

Sniping programs are convenient but we didn’t care for them. FYI, placing bids from the app is just as fast, if not faster, depending on your connection.

[NYCfixie]

I think your first point is important because it ensures that the seller (and auction house) make the most money especially since people's egos gets into the bidding frenzy especially for in-person auctions. I think the Buy-It-Now is in response to the sniping and many more commercial rather than individual sellers. As we all know, eBay is simply not what it used to be when it was predominately individuals buying and selling. Now it is just another eCommerce platform.

I have been on eBay for more than 20 years and have always maintained "buy" and "sell" accounts. I use to bid on my buy account and list auctions on my sell account. Now I only snipe on my buy account and use Buy-It-Now on my sell account.

Originally Posted by pcb

I'm led to believe some other auction sites act more like actual auctions, meaning an auction isn't ended until nobody outbids the final bidder. Or they extend the auction time when late bids are placed.

One disappointing trend on ebay is the seemingly increasing numbers of non-auction, Buy It Now listings, even for things like used bicycles/gear. Seems like despite an increased number of listings, there's less to actually bid on.

[pcb]

+1 kinda to all of this.

I've found that sniping on my computers has always been easy and instant. Once in a while I'll blink one times too many and miss out, but I can usually bid in the last 3-2sec and get my bid in. These days, as I grow more ancient and more patient, I'm generally bidding the last 6-5sec.

My phone is another story, Galaxy S8, Android whatever. My cell coverage at home is generally pretty good, as is my wireless signal strength, but my last-sec ebay phone bids often are delayed by a few sec, so on the phone I generally want to snipe not later than the last 10sec or so.

Where sniping programs would come in handy, for me, would be auctions that are ending at inconvenient or impossible times. There aren't many things I would stay up till 4am to bid on, and in pre-covid times, when my workplace wasn't virtual, it was often inconvenient to bid on things at work.

And yeah, even though sniping isn't against the rules, and I know how it works, and I do it routinely, I can get pissed off if somebody outsnipes me. I usually try to console myself with "Well, sir, you placed your highest bid, the other fella's higher bid won, pip-pip, cheerio and all that," but I'm usually shouting "Dagnabbit! Why didn't I bid a little higher????!!!!! I was ROBBED!!!!!!"

QUOTE=rolandtiangco;2766594]I too am an occasional sniper, and I worked at ebay for 5+ years on the core product. Agree on the above point that sniping is within the rules as-designed. That doesn’t make me any less pissed when I loose an auction last second though.

Sniping programs are convenient but we didn’t care for them. FYI, placing bids from the app is just as fast, if not faster, depending on your connection.[/QUOTE]

[559Rando]

Bidding your top dollar later does help. And eBay used to (perhaps still does!) tell you to not do that, which I find funny. Of course they do!

Unless something's changed, to my knowledge a lot of sniping (most) is also done by 3rd party apps/bots/APIs, which are often a paid service. Timing wise, I don't think you can beat those things, but they do have to have a higher bid, of course.

Overall, I wish eBay would 1) modernize and 2) become friendlier and more interesting like it was in the 90s/early aughts!

[daker13]

I don't really buy more than a few things a year on ebay but back in the day I would use esnipe and I won many, many auctions this way. Mostly lps and stereo gear, but all types of things. It was more useful then, less useful now that the geniuses running ebay have ruined the site by trying to turn it into a version of walmartdotcom, where Joe Shmoe feels nice and safe saving seven cents on a video game that he could have bought in dozens of other places. But I still use esnipe sometimes even now.

The basic idea with esnipe--and again, this is less relevant now that so much stuff is sold using Buy It Now--is that just by bidding on something, you're alerting other bidders that another consumer sees it as having value. If you're the seller, you want lots of early bids on your item, driving up the price, and then, hopefully, the last second snipes drive the price up further. Snipe programs are particularly useful if, say, the seller has undervalued the item, listen it wrong, etc.

If you're very disciplined, it doesn't matter whether you use esnipe or not. You just decide on the price you're willing to pay, put in the bid, don't be irrational, and you're done; same thing if you're putting in a traditional bid. But ime it's much to your advantage to snipe if it's a traditional auction situation. The psychological aspect will cause many to bid unreasonably, as if they're never going to see the item again--or maybe, bidders allow themselves to see the auction as a competition and bid up the price for that reason.

The afternoon that Michael Jackson died, people were bidding trashed vinyl copies of Thriller up to $600 or more--an album that was barely worth $4 the day before, an album that sold in the tens of millions. I myself wouldn't want to make money that way, but there are people that do (and I know some of them).