ebay bidding

[Paul Saffold]

Last night a handsaw I had bid on was getting down to the final seconds. Now, I've gotten a few things on the bay before, but I've never sat and watched the seconds tick down. This wasn't anything I was dying to have but I'd like to get one someday (a 20" handsaw). I couldn't find anything I wanted to watch on the idiot box (not unusual) and happened to be surfing when the auction ended. I had the winning bid until 3 seconds to go when the price went to 3 times what I would have paid.

So my question, is there some kind of program people use to wait until the last few seconds to make their bid? Or are they glued to their computers and submit a bid within the final seconds.

Thanks, Paul

[Van Huskey]

Both. Search "bid sniping software".

[Jay Jolliffe]

I use to think it was unfair that there was a program that would bid for you. I couldn't figure out how I was always getting out bid in the last few seconds. So I decided to do what everyone else was doing..Snipe bidding...You still can loose but you have a better chance with it. They do charge something if you win but I don't remember what since I haven't used it for years now...

[Ron Natalie]

I use to think it was unfair that there was a program that would bid for you. I couldn't figure out how I was always getting out bid in the last few seconds. So I decided to do what everyone else was doing..Snipe bidding...You still can loose but you have a better chance with it. They do charge something if you win but I don't remember what since I haven't used it for years now...

I use auction sniper. You get to try it with three free (wining) snipes (you only pay if you win the auction that they placed a snipe on).

The first thing to understand is Ebay's proxy bidding system. EBAY isn't really designed to mimic a live auction. When you bid on EBAY you place the bid that is the maximum you're authorizing. The bid amount that is exposed is only sufficient to outbid the next highest bidder (though he may also have a higher proxy bid than exposed, so your bid jumps up to clear his max). Ideally, you'll bid ONCE with the maximum amount you're willing to spend. The problem comes from two related personalities on ebay:

1. The nibbler...this guy probably really isn't interested in buying anything but he figures at $100 he can't let that $500 saw go so he starts throwing in minimum bids over and over to drive the price up to where he loses interest but way below market value.

2. The intemperant...this guy has a max price but he's one of those "caught up in the moment guys" and when the late bids start coming in he starts bidding beyond his max to try to win.

All sniping does is allow you to place your proxy bid without tipping your hand to the other players prematurely...sort of a way of doing sealed bids.

[Brian Elfert]

The second type of bidder is exactly why people use sniping software. People bid emotionally and pay more than they would otherwise. They get into the win at all costs mentality even if they way overpay. I won't put in a proxy bid because it just reveals my maximum to other bidders. There are some who will just keep bidding until they go past my max. They may not have been willing to bid so high if they were the winning bidder up until the last seconds.

Ebay could easily end the sniping if they just extended the auctions until there was a period of two to five minutes with no bids. Personally, I hope they never do this, but I mostly buy stuff that is Buy It Now anyhow.

[Mac McQuinn]

If I'm not mistaken, When you place your ceiling bid, only the minimum amount to out bid the other person will be used until your ceiling amount is used up countering other bids. As far as winning an auction, I've been told that the best way is to bid silly money at the last 15 seconds and while you will more than likely win the auction due to the fact the other person bidding does not have enough time to raise his ceiling amount. You might very well spend more money than you intended though.....
Mac

[Paul Saffold]

Thanks for the info.

[Mike Henderson]

If I'm not mistaken, When you place your ceiling bid, only the minimum amount to out bid the other person will be used until your ceiling amount is used up countering other bids. As far as winning an auction, I've been told that the best way is to bid silly money at the last 15 seconds and while you will more than likely win the auction due to the fact the other person bidding does not have enough time to raise his ceiling amount. You might very well spend more money than you intended though.....
Mac
When you use a sniping service, you specify your maximum bid - exactly the same as if you put your max bid in to eBay. The difference is that your bid is not entered until the last few minutes. When you enter it in eBay, other bidders can "test" your bid to learn a bit about what you bid. When your bid is entered at the last minute, it's more like a sealed bid auction.

So there's no reason why you would pay more for a snipe when you're using a sniping service. Could be true if you do your own sniping.

Mike

[Myk Rian]

I watch an auction I want right to the last seconds. I'll put my highest bid in about 15-20 seconds before the end. Win some, lose some. About 50-50.

[Al Stramiello]

After losing too many bids during the last 20 seconds, I finally settled on using PowerSnipe. It's very effective.
But, if you're going to snipe, then you better decide how badly you really want the item . . . . and what the maximum is that you're willing to pay for it.
What I find frustrating about ebay is when sellers yank their items off the auction block during the last seconds of the bidding.

[David Weaver]

I've been using esnipe for a while. I noticed before that, that people were outbidding me at the end of an auction for 50 cents more than I was bidding, and because I didn't want to enter a high max bid. Plus, sometimes someone will have an auction that ends on a tuesday at 2am or something. Those are often the better auctions to bid on, as opposed to saturday afternoon at 3 or something when everyone in the US can get to their computer.

I'm sure a lot of the snipe services are the same, but here's why I like esnipe better than ebay no matter what. Let's say I want a few jennings pattern bits, maybe a set in a box. there's sometime half a dozen of those or so, and they go all over the board in terms of price. I'll usually look at completed auctions, get an idea about what I want to pay, and find four or five auctions and enter them in esnipe. Esnipe will then go through the auctions in order, bidding right at the end of each auction. If the first one goes high, then I don't have to log back into ebay to bid on the second, or the third, or whatever it takes to win. Then when I get an email notice that I've won one of the auctions, I can go back to esnipe and cancel the rest of the pending bids. I wouldn't be able to do that on ebay, because they'd say I had placed bids on all four or five items, and they're not keen on bid retractions (plus it's a nuisance).

With esnipe in that case, I will have had to log into ebay once and esnipe once, and watch nothing until I collect one of what I want. If all five are losers, I do it again later, no big deal, and no sitting around watching.

I really like being able to effectively bid on something outside of ebay and then being able to cancel the bid later without it having ever been on ebay's system.

[Ron Natalie]

I've been using esnipe for a while. I noticed before that, that people were outbidding me at the end of an auction for 50 cents more than I was bidding, and because I didn't want to enter a high max bid.

You LOSE because you don't bid high enough. PERIOD. END OF STORY.
The reason you appear to lose by small amounts is attributable to one thing:

1. The winners proxy bid is only exposed to the next bid increment over what is necessary to beat you (this increment changes depending on what the current bid is) *OR*
2. The proxy bid the other bidder put in is less than a bid increment over what you bid (but was higher than the bid increment over what was currently shown at the time they placed it).

The latter and the propensity for people to bid even numbers like $50 is why the recommendation someone else made earlier to bid "silly" numbers. If you bid 50.01 and both your bid is placed when the bid is down at $40, then you'll beat out the $50 proxy bid by 1 cent.

The downside to sniping is there are a couple of things that can lead to your bid not being placed:

1. The minimum "current" bid may be below what your max bid is (even if the auction hasn't reached that).
2. You miss placing the snipe either manually or automatically because you are late through your own fault or that ebay has bogged down (there are times when lots of auctions are closing like weekend evenings where things really slow down, and if you wait until ten seconds, you'll be too late). The better snipe services monitor the ebay latency and figure out how early they need to queue up their bids to get things to work.
3. You didn't bid high enough. Of course, that's not a real loss as you sniped what you were willing to pay (and sniping gives you discipline over overbidding).

If you really want to dig into the realm of sniping policy, there are forums on the AuctionSniper.com (and I suspect elsewhere) that can get you into the fine details.

Just don't bid against me :)

The people who pull their auctions early (except in certain categories which permit it, which unfortunately the industrial tools are one I believe) is against ebay rules. Report them.
It won't get your item, but at least it discourages people from doing this further. EBAY (rightfully) regards it as a way of avoiding paying their commission.

Ron (TEN+ years of buying and selling on ebay. I like snipers).

[David Weaver]

You're right, I didn't bid high enough *on that particular auction*, but I may have bid another 10%, say, if I'd have been online to do it. I just wasn't, and in a world where there are 5 more of the same thing ending that week, it's a whole lot easier to just use the snipe software.

Who knows what the guy who outbid me by 50 cents actually bid. he may have bid 10 cents more to test the water, I was just a minute or two too slow in those cases.

But I can say for sure that the average price I've gotten items now has dropped by a lot more than the 1% commission the sniping service takes on winning bids, because I don't get tempted to add a little on top of my max bid to "make sure I get" something.

What never bothered me is when I got sniped by more than 1 person at the last second and the price of something went out of hand because:
1) there's no reason to bid against fools and be out money that you'll never see again
2) sometimes you bid on something that looks like a nice user tool and it turns out to have collector value

Esnipe was invaluable in helping me put together a nice bunch of good straight razors on the cheap, too. There are often very good razors on ebay for $15 or so, and sometimes the same thing will sell for 3 times that. It's senseless to follow individual auctions when that happens, you'll just end up overpaying if you put yourself in the process as a variable.

I'd imagine the same is true for other folks

[Gordon Eyre]

My philosophy is never bid until the last 15 seconds. This precludes me from ever getting caught up in a bidding war or of artificially driving up the price. I win much more than I lose.

[Rick Prosser]

I have never used a snipe service, but I have put my highest bid value in Ebay. The max bid was not placed at the beginning, but worked it's way up to winning the item at a price lower than my max - or loosing the item to a higher bid. I understand how that works - I think...I have been burned on the even value max before, so now i know to use the "silly" values.

From some of the comments, it seems that if I place a max bid value on Ebay, there is some way for other bidders to know the value of my max? How does that work? How can I determine the max value of other bidders? (without bidding up the price)

[Jerome Stanek]

I will bid with only 6 secs left and have 2 windows open with a different bid on each That way if someones bid is a little higher than mine 6 second bid i can hit the other one.

[David Weaver]

6 is the default time in esnipe as far as I know. I remember the early days of ebay with dial-up where you could have 30 seconds left, and get no server response for a while and miss out!

I think i registered my user ID in about 1997 or 1998. And for years the only thing I'd ordered was a $2 microphone for my computer.

[Mike Henderson]

I have never used a snipe service, but I have put my highest bid value in Ebay. The max bid was not placed at the beginning, but worked it's way up to winning the item at a price lower than my max - or loosing the item to a higher bid. I understand how that works - I think...I have been burned on the even value max before, so now i know to use the "silly" values.

From some of the comments, it seems that if I place a max bid value on Ebay, there is some way for other bidders to know the value of my max? How does that work? How can I determine the max value of other bidders? (without bidding up the price)

You have to bid to get information on another bidder's max bid. Many (most?) people bid an odd amount. They don't bid $50, they'll bid $50.27 or some other odd number. If you want to find someone's max bid, you bid in the minimum increment (let's pretend it's $2). As long as the reply bid is $2 more than your bid, you know you haven't found the other bidder's max. But then you reach $50 and the reply bid is $50.27 - you know you've found the other bidder's max bid because the increment is less than the minimum increment.

Even if they bid a round amount, say $50, you'll still get your information. So you reach the $50 bid level and the return bid is $50 because the other person bid $50 before you did. So you know you've reached their max bid. You can get burned here. If you bid $48 and the return bid was $50 you won't know that $50 was the max until you bid $52 and are now the winning bidder. So it's best to bid some odd amount in the hope you don't pick the same figure as the other bidder.

Then you wait until the end of the auction to put in your bid.

Someone mentioned that some bidders will do this process and then not make another bid, satisfied that they've made you pay your max for the item.

Either way, it's better not to put your bid in early because then no one can "test" your bid. Just make your bid at the end of the auction and it'll be like a sealed bid acution.

Mike

[Ben Hatcher]

I will bid with only 6 secs left and have 2 windows open with a different bid on each That way if someones bid is a little higher than mine 6 second bid i can hit the other one.

That's a great idea. I may try that the next time...though I probably wouldn't make the bid in my second window much more than the first. The only thing worse than losing an auction by a few cents is paying more than the max I really wanted to pay.

[Brian Elfert]

From some of the comments, it seems that if I place a max bid value on Ebay, there is some way for other bidders to know the value of my max? How does that work? How can I determine the max value of other bidders? (without bidding up the price)

You can't actually see the maximum bid someone enters. What bidders will do is just keep upping their bid in small increments until they put in a bid that is higher than your maximum bid. Had I held off on bidding until the final seconds the other bidder may have put in a bid that is lower because they didn't have any idea what my maximum is.

[Greg Portland]

I have never used a snipe service, but I have put my highest bid value in Ebay. The max bid was not placed at the beginning, but worked it's way up to winning the item at a price lower than my max - or loosing the item to a higher bid. I understand how that works - I think...I have been burned on the even value max before, so now i know to use the "silly" values.

From some of the comments, it seems that if I place a max bid value on Ebay, there is some way for other bidders to know the value of my max? How does that work? How can I determine the max value of other bidders? (without bidding up the price)
Rick, consider a case where the current bid is $10 and both you and another bidder enter a $100 max value. Assuming no other bidders, eBay will ping-pong up the value to $100 very quickly. Both bidders can not see the other's maximum bid amount. If you were both using sniping programs then the bid sits @ $10 until near the end of the auction. At the last second you and the other person would try to snipe the winning bid (e.g. $15). You can do this manually or via sniping program. As mentioned before, the programs tend to do a better job. I always snipe because it keeps the price down...

[Gary Hodgin]

I'm not a big ebay user (bought about 25 things in my life) but the best strategy for that type of auction is to bid the max you're willing to pay. Since some don't do this and get caught up in the emotion, it's best to make the bid in the last seconds with either a program or just watching. Don't make any bids until then. If you win, you win. If you lose, you win because you're not paying more than you're willing to pay. If someone else is willing to pay more, they get it and you don't want it at that price.

[Paul Saffold]

An update.
I used Auction Sniper and on my first try got a saw for less than my max bid. Sargent 128, 20" blade, 11ppi. It was in good shape when I got it. I sharpened it and it now it is my go-to saw at my workbench.

Thanks for all of your suggestions.
Paul

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