How To Win An Ebay Auction, For Doubters Of Snipe Eficacy

[mhosea]

I suspect the point he is making is that if we take the same number of bidders and make fewer of them snipers, then the price will be driven up early enough that the remaining snipers will not be in play. The market will become more efficient, and bargains due to sniping will become more rare. This is not technically the "converse" of Jon's statement. I think I'd have simply called it "the opposite". OTOH, if we take the same number of bidders and make more of them snipers, then the new snipers will be forced to consider and to bid a maximum. I'd say in that case more snipers will win, but the winning percentage of a given sniper will fall commensurate with the increase in the proportion of sniping participants. It seems that as individuals, our interests are best serve by not upsetting the status quo very much. As long as there are but few snipers, we enjoy an advantage...on average.

[kirchh]

You know what? I choose not to even engage in argument about it.

 

That's fine. For others who are interested, I'll explain that snipe bids are reasonably characterized as representing bidders' rational maximums, whereas rational maximum bids placed earlier are susceptible to being raised due in part to emotional reactions due to either not becoming the leading bidder, or due to being outbid after having become the leading bidder. Snipe bids, by the generally accepted definition of such, are not subject to these conditions that result in bids being increased above the rational maximum.

 

The more bidders who snipe rather than bid early, the fewer bidders who will end up bidding more than their rational maximum. As a result, the fewer people that see the value in sniping, the less a snipe user will win, because the competing bids will include bids higher than the rational maximum that would have been entered had the early bids instead been entered as snipes.

 

--Daniel

[JonSzanto]

You guys are missing the fact that I said there are other reasons to snipe besides keeping a lid on the amount spent. But I am waaaaay tired from a long weekend with a lot of commuting. Carry on, I'm going to bed because, ultimately, none of this matters.

[kirchh]

if we take the same number of bidders and make more of them snipers, then the new snipers will be forced to consider and to bid a maximum. I'd say in that case more snipers will win, but the winning percentage of a given sniper will fall commensurate with the increase in the proportion of sniping participants.

 

I don't think so; in my experience, people who don't snipe also bid what they feel is their considered maximum, and that reckoning wouldn't change. But, as you describe, those bidders are susceptible to raising those bids in certain fairly common scenarios; had they entered those amounts as snipes, they would not have the opportunity to increase them.

 

--Daniel

[kirchh]

You guys are missing the fact that I said there are other reasons to snipe besides keeping a lid on the amount spent. But I am waaaaay tired from a long weekend with a lot of commuting. Carry on, I'm going to bed because, ultimately, none of this matters.

 

I was only specifically addressing the following:

 

the fewer people that see the value in sniping, the more a snipe user will win.

 

--Daniel

[JonSzanto]

Me too. Good night.

[mhosea]

I don't think so; in my experience, people who don't snipe also bid what they feel is their considered maximum, and that reckoning wouldn't change.

You might be right. It seemed to me that some folks bid what they want to pay, rather, expecting to have time to raise their bids later if needed.

[MVice78]

I was shocked. I won an auction with 32 seconds to go. Sitting there to see if there would be a last second sniper made it the longest 32 seconds I remember experiencing.

[gweimer1]

In the end, this is all very subjective. eBay is a place filled with people of all sorts, all avenues of thought and experience. There are no real rules on HOW to bid, only to list and to pay. Everyone bids according to their own personal philosophy, and if everyone gets what they want, at a price they are happy with, then the system works.

[kirchh]

You might be right. It seemed to me that some folks bid what they want to pay, rather, expecting to have time to raise their bids later if needed.

 

I agree that there's some of that going on.

 

--Daniel