54 replies to this topic

[Room 34]

This seems to be the common argument in favor of using sniping software. But it doesn't hold water. eBay has already provided a mechanism for you to place your bid in advance... it's called proxy bidding.

[Inky]

The main thing with sniping is this:

You can never eliminiate it.

Period.

Regardless of what EBay does, you will still be able to bid up until the last minute of an auction.

And as much as I think sniping is sleazy, it will never go away.

[hhwolfman]

Proxy bidding as long as there is sniping is not that great of choice. YOu will just get chiped away tell use lose it. I have won over 250 acutions. Two were on Proxy bidding.

[Cropsy]

Room 34 said:

This seems to be the common argument in favor of using sniping software.  But it doesn't hold water.  eBay has already provided a mechanism for you to place your bid in advance... it's called proxy bidding.

True, but the way Ebay runs there auctions sniping is arguably a better option than placing a proxy bid. I can see some arguements against sniping full stop but I just don't see the difference between sniping manually or using a program. Except that a sniping program means I can avoid having to run my life on US time to win US auctions.

[Mendon]

I'd like to bring up one issue that no one has addressed that happened to me about 7 mos ago:

I was running an auction and it was getting pretty good results as the item was selling for a little more than what I expected to get; not a great or large amount by any means but still a few dollars more than I thought it would get. With about a minute left, a sniper came in and won it with one bid.

I looked at his feedback and he was at 84percent and had 4 bid retractions in the last 6mos. But his last 5 or 6 bids he had gotten positive feedback. In all my auctions I state "I reserve the right to cancel bids from those with excessive negative feedback or bid retractions". I was in a quandry: my gut feeling was I shouldn't sell to this guy because of his overall feedback and bid retraction history; but his last few transactions had turned out good. What should I do... what should I do?? I thought about it alot and knew that if he had bid with a day or so left in the auction, I probably would have cancelled his bid. But the auction was now over and he had recently had good transactions. So I decided to let it go and see if the deal would turn out good.

It didn't. I sent him an Email with his total amount due and he responded that payment would soon be on its way. It didn't come. I sent him a total of 2 more Emails and never got a response back or payment. I gave him negative feedback after 16 days went by and sent messages to the 2nd and 3rd high bidders offering the item to them for their bids but both responded that they had won auctions for the same item since mine ended. I ended up relisting it but lost $18 over what the 2nd highest bidder bid on my original auction.

My entire point of this post is that I fully realize that there is no way in hell you can ever stop (or should stop) a person from placing a bid during the last few minutes of an auction; that last second bid might very well be a bid from a person who happened to just spot your auction as it was ending and not the result of a sniping program. But there are ways that sniping and/or sniping programs can have a negative effect on an auction and one of these is that you cannot screen out anyone that you feel could be a risk to your having a successful auction.

All you can do is realize that if you are going to dance to the eBay Shuffle, then you better get used to getting your feet stepped on occasionally.

I made my original post in this thread just as kind of a story (not as a moan, whine, cry, etc) that while I might feel frustration at losing some auctions at the last second, it was fun to cause frustration back once in awhile.

I've enjoyed reading all the posts in this thread and have learned alot about the workings of eBay and how people place bids. Thanks to everyone who contributed to it.

Mendon