It seems most people around here are pretty familiar with the intricacies of bidding on the Bay. Perhaps someone could help me understand this:

I am looking at a pen that seems to be at a decent price. When I look at the bidding history, there are currently a total of twenty two bids. Of that history, there are two episodes in which the bidder continually increased his bid despite the fact that no one else was bidding on the pen during that time period. When I say "two episodes," I mean that this happened with one bidder for a while, and then later with another bidder.

Why would one bidder incrementally increase the amount of his bid when there were no other bids coming in?

To put in a higher maximum bid, in case anyone else bids against him at a later time.

He's a Nibbler and someone must already have had a higher bid in. Is he second or lower in the list of highest bids?

eBay only shows the lowest high bid you would need to win.

If the bidder A set a highest amount he wishes to bid, then when other people place a bid lower than
bidder A's highest, the bidding list will show several bids before it reaches the bidder A's target price.
Hope this will help!

Joe

I'm thinking the person is mulling over the maximum amount they are willing to spend and acting on it incrementally. It's a matter of indecisiveness coupled with not being available for the close of auction. It's a weird observation but it does happen occasionally. I have often seen bidders put in a bid and then decide to make the bid larger to cover in case they are not available at close of auction. I've actually done this once or twice...but always in anticipation of not being available at close.

I suppose another explanation would be a shill pushing the price up incrementally...the more bids, the more desirable the object appears to be. If a shill is bidding up the price, then the seller will make more or, conversely, is less likely to see the item go at a loss. It's been shown that fewer people bid on items with a high floor price or with a reserve price. So to generate the maximum interest in their auction, sellers will start with a very low price an no reserve. The shill is like an insurance policy by assuring the seller ends up with a reasonable price or retains the item if it doesn't surpass the shill's bid price. A lot of people don't bother to check the bid history to see what's going on. I always check to see what's happening but I think I'm in the minority.

I much prefer to set my maximum and slam it.......

Shill Bidding Detector Tool

Useful Shill Bidding Resource

I don’t worry too much about how many bids there are on an item. Everything in an eBay auction usually happens in the final 5 seconds. There are people who are either trusting their reaction times enough to hold off entering their bids until then or using bid sniper services (like www.ezsniper.com) to place bids right before the very end. They usually determine the price. Their strategy is keeping the price from getting driven up early in the auction and catching others with their maximum bids too low with no time to react at the close.

Of course, the person with the highest maximum bid always wins but timing can really decide what they wind up paying for something.

If I am winning an auction and my high bid was $50, regardless of what the bid was up to at that point (I could be winning for $41.00 at the moment, ebay will automatically bid up to $50 dollars for me) and I raised my high bid to it would show another bid from me of the same amount I am winning the auction for. So I could have a winning bid of $41.00 and raise my high bid and the bidding history will show two bids in a row from me for the same $41.00.

True enough. Sniping is the only way to sensibly take part in auctions now.

My favourite Sniping Tool

The one above (no affiliation) charges 10p (20 cents) each time that it snipes for you. If you don't win it doesn't charge you.

You just have to hope that there aren't any of those fools that start having a bidding war with 6 days to go

I use bidslammer. I can't remember what it charges me but I've managed to get some great items (not just pens!) using it.

Yes, the 6-day 'bidding wars' are absolutely infuriating aren't they? I sit there shouting at my screen for them to wait!

Triojo and TNT are right on the money. I'm a long time eBay buyer and seller and this is normal bidding.


If you place a high proxy bid, everytime someone bids against you, but not higher than you, ebay bids against your proxy and shows your return bid. The name showing three or four times in a row is not the nibbler, it is ebay placing your proxy against the nibbler.

While shill bidding does take place this is not an example of it. And yes, sniping is the second key to winning any auction.....actually having the highest bid is the first. Snipe all you want but the highest bid still wins.


I have always heard that with an auction, YOU, the buyer sets the final price. But remember, if you win, and therefore pay the highest price you also paid more than anyone else thought it was worth <g>.

Tony

As a general rule, I will bid early and put down the top amount I am willing to pay. In that way, if a "sniper" comes in at the last second and matches my bid, I win because I had the earlier date.

I'll occasionally bid something low just to see if I draw fire. Then, I may bid higher. Or, I'll see that bidding is going up and I will cover my bid with something a bit more. Usually my initial number is my high bid. If bidding exceeds what I am willing to pay, I tell myself that I didn't need it that much.

I don't like tipping my hand about my interest in an item unless it's something where I just want to get notification when someone else bids.

I really like this sniping tool http://sourceforge.net/projects/bom/
and it's completely free. The only problem is that when you actually view the auction page through it, it takes you to ebay deutschland, so everything's in german, but I like that too. lol.
christa

This is a funny thread with a lot of good information in it...

"Yes, the 6-day 'bidding wars' are absolutely infuriating aren't they? I sit there shouting at my screen for them to wait!"

This is a funny statement because really it comes down to who is willing to pay the most for the item... when the bids are placed makes no difference in the end... except if you think it might cause some people to give up on it... so if that does take out some people psychologically that is part of the battle...

I like to put in a bid to show that I am interested... then come back at the ' last minute' with my best bid.... however, you guys are almost all on FAST INTERNET CONNECTIONS.... while I am not... I can't do that last 15 second bid or I will likely not get the bid in at all.... it takes me more than 30 seconds to refresh.... so my heart is pumping that last few minutes trying to time my bid as close as possible without missing out completely.... LOL
Greg

Greg: auctionstealer.com

So are you saying that something exists to help out people connected at 16 kbps ?
LOL... that is actually what I am connected at... funny in one way.... but NOT REALLY... LOLOL
Thanks Deirdre , will check it out...
Greg

Hi all

Many people for convenience just place the bid and walk away, the auto-bid-raiser from e-bay will take care of your money while you are ...making some more money Besides convenience this will help you to not going beyond certain amount of money, maybe you will regret for biding too much once your pen arrives.

But also there is e-bay countdown tool for those who likes the excitement of biding in the very last 8-10 seconds, besides excitement in this way you can help (lets say) to keep the price not so high, if you bid a lot of money since your first bid maybe some guy in the biding excitement will try to surpass you and will put the price insanely high (just take a look on 8-days auctions for celluloid Montblancs from the fifties).

So, first thing, get as much money as you can (LE-celluloid auctions goes wild), and bid just in the last 10 seconds, for keeping an eye on the price as long as auction goes, click on the Watch this item option, but try not to bid all your money on your first try.

Well this is just an opinion...I lost my last two e-bay auctions, one because I was away from the computer (I bid all my money and walk away), and the other because ...well I just have not enough money... any way a lot of money, some patience and some luck... because at the end (like for a lot of things) everything is about money (how much you can put on the bid)

Very best

Ricardo

Recently I was pleasantly surprised to win a new Pelikan M400 honey for less than $100.00 on e-bay. I placed the required minimum bid and won as the only bidder. I have since found the same pen on sale through a reference on FPN for the same price and at under $100.00 an M400 is a great pen value.

I had no plans to increase my bid and didn't check the auction at the close. I bid what I was willing to pay. If you do that you will win your share of items for the price that you are willing to pay or for less.

There's a wealth of information in these responses; thank you. I think I'll need to study at the Bay a little more even to understand some of the replies....

Ok Ricardo, after what you said I went back to Ebay and saw their little ' refresh' tag on the page .... I had not seen that... I had always had to refresh the whole page... taking 20-30 seconds or more.... that little tag allows refreshing at about 6 seconds at a time... very much better...
SO much better that I just won a test case...LOL
A pen was sitting with 10 minutes left on the auction... with only $1.85 shipping....and about $3.00 on the one bid... so I decided to bid about $15 total..... and I used the little refresh tag.... it was pretty close... when the smoke cleared... I had won and there were two bids between me and the bottom bid... so I was successful in placing my bid late enough that someone could not see it and raise the anty....
Sorry if some of you were one of those bidders... LOL
Thanks for all the info...
Greg

Really? I just bid as my "hidden maximum" whatever amount is the maximum that I'm willing to pay on an item, and then let the software do the work. I tend to get things at prices which I like. I also tend NOT to get things at prices I DON'T like. I've gotten about six tobacco pipes off EBay, and two vintage pens, and maybe five vintage safety razors. Always at a sensible price, by my definition. Why snipe? It's not necessary.

On average, doing it the way you do it will mean that you pay more for the item in question.

Also, some inexperienced sellers will, in a panic, drop their price if there are no bids. Recently, I was watching an item that was listed at $100. It ended without anyone bidding.

Seller re-lists it at $75. A few days pass, no bids. Seller drops to $50. I bid on it, but just at $50, because I'm interested in the item, but not interested enough to really pursue it. At the last minute (literally), two other people bid it up to just over $60.

Had any of us bid early on, it'd have been at $75, but they wound up getting it for less.

If you go under options then server select the ebay.com ini and that will default you to the US site.

OK, I see that there might be some fine-tuning that can be done to my bidding process (the "plain" one), but the counter-example cited actually suggests nothing to me about auctions that I've been involved in. You're talking about either (A.) buy-it-now or (B.) reserve-price auctions where the reserve is not met by the deadline. I'm talking about auctions in which the behavior is open and incrementally aggregating upwards because of a "community."

I guess, if I and everyone else used my "plain" technique (just post up your own maximum at the outset, then let the software work), and then ONLY ONE person got involved with a sniping program, that person WOULD guarantee himself winning the item. Nevertheless, two other things would be guaranteed. First, he would win it at a price higher than my personal maximum, and therefore I would not have wanted the item. (Remember, we are presuming that I and all others have used the "plain" technique honestly.) Second, I would not pay more than my personal maximum for the item.

Therefore, the "plain" technique serves all my aims admirably. In the end, I'm not out to "win" something "from" someone else, and I don't want to be involved in last-minute frenzies; I'm simply interested in paying X, or less, for an item which I personally mentally evaluate to be worth X. Again, I don't see how I could personally benefit from engaging sniping software. My end price wouldn't change in any given circumstance, unless there are other factors at work that I don't understand.

If there are indeed those other factors, or if I've described the hypothetical situation incorrectly, please feel free to inform me. I haven't necessarily perfected this thing, and I'm happy to learn.

Hi all

Hey Greg congrats for your new pen! I am very happy to know this tips where useful!

Ok there is also another e-bay tool that you can use. The countdown. That is a kind of on-the-web-tool from e-bay that gives you a real time (there are some non-real time?) countdown for the auctions, and let you bid faster-that-any-other-method. Auctions must have this two proprieties:

1.- been in your Watching list in your My e-bay page
2.- been payable with PAYPAL. Why? I really don't know, but you can nott bid on no-PAYPAL auctions using E-bay Countdown

Link for taking a look on this tool:

http://countdown.ebay.com

With this tool you can actually see how the price for the auction rise in the last 10-15 seconds, is quite impressive (and scary) to watch how a pen rise its price 100 or 200 dlls in just 15 seconds. Of course you can be part of the excitement and bid in the very very last 5-3 seconds. I am using a cable broad band connection, I am not sure if this will work with dial-up, but dial-up users can try. For sure this works better than the Refresh button.

Ok good luck and please share some picts from your new pens!

Very best

Ricardo

Server load is also an issue, which is why you need to leave longer for a bid that ends exactly on the 1/4 hour.

Sniping also allows you to stack up a load of pens into a group. Say that you are after a snorkel and there are 6 up for sale one week. Place a bid on all of them and tell the sniping software how many you want to win. If you choose one it will stop bidding after you have won the first item.

This is all true enough presupposing that the majhority of Ebay buyers use your 'plain' maximum bid from the outset technique. It would interest me to see how many actually do?

Actually, just yesterday I lost an auction (or at least the seller lost out on some extra money) with that thing. For some reason it thought that my bid was below the current bid, when actually it was higher than the final closing price. I'm not sure if there was a server lag, or another glitch, or what, but it was too late to do anything about it, and my bid didn't get in. I'd used it several times before successfully, but this time it botched. I won't be depending on it for something I dearly want at least until it's out of beta.

Sniping: rubbish. The highest bid wins -- pure and simple. People are free to bid as they like. You place your maximum bid; if it sells for more, then someone was willing to pay more -- period.

I agree, I have never used a sniping service and I see no need for one. It certainly has not hurt my buying experience, I have over a hundred buying auctions won over the years. Yes, I do get outbid at times, at prices I would never pay. Only a few times have I increased my bid over my initial amount. In all I think I have won a total of close to 40 pens, 150 books, several computers, knitting/tatting thingies for Diane, and any number of other items.

I LIKE eBay, I have been using it for nearly a decade and have dealt with some of the nicest folks in the world. I always check feedback before bidding and before bidding on a new (to me) item I always watch a few weeks worth of auctions first to get a feel for how they go and also for how the prices run.

I tend to bid early, bid my maximum and pretty much forget about it until the auction is finished. I think I average about 40% wins on the items I bid on. I start with a clear idea of what I want and then look for that item (as many as I can find), watch how the bidding, find out how the shipping costs run, and how the end of auctions go, then after a few weeks I pick an auction that looks good to me and bid.

If someone comes in at the last few seconds and takes it from me at a price higher than I wanted to spend, fine, I hope they are happy with their new whatever, it went for a price I was not willing to beat. If they bid higher than I did, great for them, they wanted it more than I did and were willing to pay a higher price to be the owner of it. I could be the top bidder, and winner, of every auction I bid on, IF I were willing to bid twice as high as every other bidder, but that is not, in my opinion, a smart way to bid on auctions.

Do I hate being outbid by $0.50? Yep, and it has happened to me, but that person wanted the item enough to bid that much higher than I was willing to go. At the same time I have been outbid by several hundred dollars and there was no way I was going to try to outbid those nuts. (Anyone outbidding me had to be nuts, after all. ;-)

It is pretty obvious that it was not worth $100 to any of the bidders, so no one bid on it.

It is pretty obvious that it was not worth $75 dollars to any of the bidders, so no one bid on it.

So obviously sniping would not do anyone any good in this circumstance.

When the price came down to a starting price of $50 it is obvious that several folks thought it was worth at least that much, so some folks bid on it, pushing the price up to just over $60. If I had been watching it and thought it was worth, to me, $65 I would have bid, and if outbid I would have figured that someone felt it was worth more to them than it was to me. They win, I go on and look for another auction. I don’t lose. I didn’t bid higher than I was willing to go, I didn’t end up the “winner” of something I had, in my opinion, paid too much for.

In my case sniping would not have changed anything at all as I do my bidding, based on what I think the item is worth, to me. I could not care less about what someone else thinks the price should be, if it is too high, in my opinion, I don’t bid, nor do I bid higher than I think the item is worth, to me. I actually get at least half the fun out of auctions from watching other auctions in order to find out what things are going for on average (plus how much higher/lower some auctions actually run.) The time spent in researching how auctions of that item is going to pay me back in the long run, I get the item I want at the price I am willing to pay, I may have to wait a few months longer than I really wanted to, but if the time spent waiting is too much, I raise the price I am willing to bid.

Getting outbid is just an expected part of auctions, it happens anytime the price goes too high for a bidder. Only one person can win, well, other than Dutch auctions, and as the price goes up more drop out of the bidding for this reason until only one person is left, the person who bid (in the opinion of every other bidder) too high a price for the item. Again, in my opinion, sniping does me no good. The only way it would help me to win is to go to a price higher than I am willing to go, taking into account other costs such as shipping/etc.

If someone wants the item badly enough and is willing to pay more for it than I am willing to pay, they get it. Again, I don’t “lose.” I just go on to another auction and take my chance at getting the next one at the price I want.

OK, now I see that there is actually a real use for sniping software, it still is not one I need, but I can see the use. I think that in the last decade I have only two had two auctions on the same item that ended at nearly the same time. I bid on the one I really wanted, then I went to work. When I got home the next morning I found I had been outbid, by better than $50 on that one, and the other had gone even higher.

A month later I got what I wanted at about $10 less than my maximum on yet another auction.

But at least now I see there is a legitimate reason, at least for this particular piece of software, for its use. Personally I had never heard of a good reason to use it before.

No, sniping is not rubbish at all.

Firstly, in the area of collectables, some people become recognised as heavyweight and knowledgeable experts and they draw attention to an item when they place a bid for that item and if you are talking about stamps or coins but perhaps also old pens, other people may scrutinise the item more carefully and also discover what your expertise has revealed to you.

Secondly, by not revealing your hand, others cannot whittle away at you until they take the lead, because they just don't have enough time. Finally, it gives me peace of mind; I have revealed my maximum bid only to the sniping server and I don't bother to sit around anxiously and if it is a sale on ebay.com, I can even go to bed!

I have been sniping for years and use Hammersnipe which is very cheap and reliable and will not waste any more time on traditional bidding and re-bidding. I have won many auctions this way and in the case of those where I was almost pushed to my limit, I have no doubt that sniping won me the item.

Of course, when sniping occurs, it can represent a loss to eBay and to the seller who might otherwise benefit from 2 buyers battling it out for an item that then reaches ridiculous heights instead of them sniping and largely hiding their intentions.

Harry, your argument is very good except for leaving out ' auction fever' ....which can and does happen regularly even if the people are not standing in the same room as the auctioneer.... psychology can affect what one person decides to bid.

Oh, I don't think very many do, at all. But my story is still true even if only *I* use my own "plain" technique. My benefit from my technique doesn't require that others use my technique.

At least, not in so far as I currently understand it. So far nobody's succeeded in making a compelling case for me indulging in sniping next time I find an EBay item I might want. What is it, exactly, that would be the advantage of it? I can't see it yet. I'm sure I'll eventually see the light ...

I do indeed see, that if I were a "recognized" collector with a name that might attract attention, then sniping would give me an advantage. I could continue to bid on items with relative security that I would win within my desired range and not have to micro-manage it; but I could still refrain from "showing my hand" to others who perhaps rely on my judgment for their own assessment of the value of a thing. Sure, I see that. If David from Vacumania puts up a bid on a Vac that I was thinking about, I'll reconsider my likelihood of getting it, and I wouldn't blame him for using a sniping program to keep his identity hidden. But then, why doesn't he just use an anonymous EBay identity to keep his identity hidden? Anyway, that's ONE use for sniping. Doesn't apply to me. Nobody's following me around letting ME set the trends, lordie knows!

I have been involved with auctions since I was a kid. Real auctions, with the auctioneer up front getting the folks riled up and willing to spend money. My dad ran auctions for years, first as a way for the VFW to raise money, later just because he enjoyed it.

Auction fever is just like gambling fever, if you have it, you should not be at an auction with cash in your hands.

Rather than discuss the virtues of sniping, I would find it interesting to compare the different snipping services. If you don't care to snipe it's fine, but I have been pretty successful in business by not giving away any information until absolutely necessary. I have my maximum but I don't want anyone to test it because I announced it early in the process.

I had been using AuctionSniper but they have been having a lot of server problems. I read the post from KipWilliams and tried ezsniper as he suggested. It's great and they have a couple of utilities (shadow and snapper that really help, check them out). I canceled all my AuctionSniper bids and moved everything to EZSniper.

What is your favorite sniping service and why?

If I'm going to have my computer up when the auction ends, I use jbidwatcher, which is a desktop application.

If I'm not, I use auctionstealer.com. It's the only web-based service I've tried.

Or paid more than anyone else could AFFORD.

I feel for you mate. Might as well raise your hand at the auction at that speed.

Or, equally likely, they had other items they preferred and wanted to spend their money on those. There's been more than one auction I've bowed out that was a good deal simply because I wanted something else more.

Favourite is Snip www.snip.pl

10p/20 cents per winning bid. No charge for losing bids. It has only ever dropped the ball once on me and that was probably down to server load at electronicBay.

I went from rarely winning anything to almost always winning, unless of course the item went for much more than I was willing to pay in which case I was happy to let it go. I decide on a price an stick to it. I never sell on eBay. I only buy. I prefer Buy it Now, but when that is not an option sniping is my best friend.

I use esnipe. And it is certainly not rubbish.

Imagine there is only one other bidder, who has bid $10 on a pen. Imagine this buyer will pay up to $20, but has only put in the bid for $10. I can put in my $15 max, but as soon as the other bidder sees it, she will out bid me. However, if I snipe, the initial $10 bid will stand and I'll win for $11 (or whatever the increment).

Now, if my opposition bid by proxy, and put in her $20 max, then my snipe will not work.

But saying that sniping does not work, well, that's rubbish.

I still don't get it.

OK, the scenario. A pen is available. I am WILLING to pay $20. The opponent is WILLING to pay $15. The term "WILLING" means, that's our personal maximum at the outset. We assess the item, look at the dings and scratches, decide.

According to you, JMKeuning, if we both put in our bid-by-proxy in "plain" (non-sniping) fashion, something won't work. To me, I think I'd get the item for $16. (The EBay increment at that level is $1?)

You're describing a situation in which BOTH participants (me and the opponent) are both sniping. So, say he has a sniping program that puts in a $10 bid and I have one that therefore hits $11. His sniper increments up to $15, mine up as far as $20. But it never gets to $20, it stops at $16 when nobody outbids it. Again, I get the item for $16.

Exactly the same result. Mine for $1 more than his maximum, because my maximum is higher than his. Either by snipe or by plain, same result.

I think what you're saying is, that if I am sniping and he isn't, then I can "fool" him into bidding poorly. He bids $10, I get it for $11. But if he isn't sniping, why wouldn't he put in his personal maximum of $15? If he's put in $10, then his personal maximum isn't $15, but rather $10. Whatever it is, in all scenarios I win the item at $1 more than his personal entered maximum.

I don't get it. "Sniping does not work" isn't what I'm saying. That might or might not be rubbish, I don't care. What I notice, and am asking about, is that there seems to be no REASON for me to use it. I GET NO BENEFIT because in all situations I will simply either (A.) win the item at a price lower than or equal to my maximum or (B.) not win the item because the price is higher than my maximum. It doesn't require a sniping program to distinguish between (A.) and (B.) there. What's the benefit of sniping for me?

What I THINK people wrongly believe about sniping, is that it somehow gives them an advantage because their price will "definitely" be lower. It won't. To snipe and yet use a program which has a maximum set limit, is simply to take the reins away from the EBay proxy-bidding software and put EXACTLY THE SAME REINS into the hands of the Sniping program's proxy-bidding software. Aside from some internet clogging that might prevent the sniping from working (which quite frankly seems to me like a detriment not a benefit) THERE WILL BE LITERALLY NO DIFFERENCE IN PRICE.

The math turns out the same, as long as the computer connections don't break. Therefore there is no benefit to sniping, and the potential detriment is that the computer connections are mildly more likely to malfunction.

I can see one benefit to sniping: not letting other people "know" your personal maximum. However, I don't let them know. I offer my bid to the EBay system, which only indicates it IF THE PRICE EXCEEDS IT. In which case, it's beside the point. Again, the math is the same, and the ultimate result (either at or below my price; or not mine) is the same.

If someone can explain the math differently, or point out some misconception that I have, please do. So far all we've got is examples which claim "benefit" where no change has happened. "Well, I won the item at a price I wanted" doesn't prove sniping works, since that's a result identical to non-sniping.

The real point is "at the outset." See, if you snipe (and everyone else does as well), at the outset remains the case throughout the course of the auction. Instead, people's behavior changes as they see what other people are willing (or not willing) to bid.

No. . . Only I am sniping.

I must just be kinda slow about math or sumpin ...

Ah but even if you win you can lose!!

I sniped a wireless mouse for about £2 (US$4) because the only other bidder put in a really low bid. The seller was obviously really annoyed and took 3 weeks to send it. I had paid for signed for next day postage on top of the £2, but he sent it by normal post with insufficient postage. So the Post Office wouldn't deliver it before I paid a fine. I asked the seller for a refund, but he wouldn't give me one so I left a neg. He left a retaliatory neg.

I have given up leaving feedback after leaving positive feedback for a seller recently who then obviously lost the plot as I had said that he was slow with feedback so he left me a neg!!

Thankfully I don't sell on eBay!