ebay tactics?

ddraver

bails87 wrote:

andyrm wrote:

I've won plenty of items by sniping - and as has been said, it can and does work if you are on the ball at the last minute, as it denies other bidders time to put in a bid.

Is it fair? Life's not fair and 'fair' is a word much overused these days, much like 'luck'. I'll play to win thanks....

It's not about if it's 'fair' or not. If Mr Rich is willing to pay £11 for something and Mr Poor is willing to pay £10 for something, they can both put their bids in 2 days before the auction ends and Mr Rich will lead for the next two days and then win.

Or Mr Poor can bid early and then 10 seconds before it ends Mr Rich can put in his bid of £11, and , wahey, sniping works.

Or Mr Rich can bid early, there are no other bids so the price shows as £1, Mr Poor then 'snipes' but his max of £10 is instantly auto-out-bidded by Mr Rich's original max bid of £11, and uh oh, sniping doesn't work.

It all depends on if you're bidding against morons who don't know how eBay works, that's what makes it look like sniping works.

If you put in your max bid and you win the item then you have 'won'. If the item goes for more than what you would have paid for it then you have also 'won'. If you get sucked into a sniping war and bid more than you wanted to just to win the item, then you have lost, and ebay and the seller have won.

I like the idea of adding time when a bid is entered, it makes it more like a real auction than the game of bidding-chicken that eBay currently is.

Yeah but it's not that simple is it. In reality you have 4 or 5 Mr averages all trying to get their own bargin against people they ve never met or will never meet (and even if they did they would nt know) so it becomes easier to cheat

I used to do it in my student days mostly when saving 3 or 4 quid meant affording or not affording it. If I put may maximum bid in and someone bidded (bade?) 1 pound more I could nt have it, but by playing my cards close to my chest I might prevent that from happening, sometimes it worked, sometimes not!

bluechair84

ddraver wrote:

sometimes it worked, sometimes not!

This is the point though, I don't think sniping is a system you can say actually works. You'd probably win/loose at a same rate just putting in an autobid early. For someone to say that this system worked, they'd have to be able to conclude that they won regularly by sniping and at a bargain level too.

ddraver

It IS impossible to know as you never know what the outcome would have been if you played by the rules - however by sniping you give yourself a shot at saving a few squids (and I admit it is unlikely to be a significant amount) rather than no chance....

Andy

http://www.facebook.com/birminghamrockets

supersonic

Ebay is a bunch of arse anyway.

Anonymous

supersonic wrote:

Ebay is a bunch of ars* anyway.

No it isn't I just checked.
"your search "bunch of ars*" returned 0 results"

I'm rather disspointed.

supersonic

How dare you search my arse.

Anonymous

supersonic wrote:

How dare you search my ars*.

Curiously, "My Ars*" turns out to have a load of results!

ebay

colt

Going on my own experiences I have never won an auction by bidding early, even though I have put in a realistic maximum bid. When I bid early It seems to me that some one is always ready to keep on increasing their bid until they become the top bidder regardless of whether the item is actually worth it.

By sniping in the dying seconds with a realistic max bid I find I am far more successful winning auctions as it doesn't give rival bidders the time to react to being outbid by my automatic bid. I find that generally I'll get the item cheaper than my max bid as well.


I think the problem is that a lot of people out there just don't understand the concept of the automatic bids, you only have to look at some of the auctions to see somebody increasing their bid by £2 a time eventually ending up £20 dearer than their first bid, if they just put their max bid in the first place they could save a hell of a lotta time!!

So for me, Yes sniping works