E-bay bidding question

[MYU]

Shill Bidding Detector Tool

 

Useful Shill Bidding Resource

Thanks for these links, Andy. Very useful.

 

 

As for bidding practices, it depends on the item. If I'm definitely sure of how much I'll pay, I'll use a sniping tool (JustSnipe.com is free!). If I'm not sure and I can be around the time the auction closes, I'll watch it to the end.

 

Bidding your maximum early only works well for certain kinds of items. Some items attract "outbidders"... the bidder isn't sure how much the item is worth, but they figure your maximum bid is an acceptable level and will keep bidding until they surpass it. Or, they may get exhausted near the top end of your bid, forcing you to end up paying top dollar (if your bid is the "absolute maximum" you'll pay). Remember, it only takes *2* people to make a bid go up. I've seen some ridiculous bidding wars between two people that put an item well above its fair market value, just because they were "competing" with each other. This is what sellers and eBay thrive on--the design of the website and marketing encourage this.

 

For items that are fairly common, look at the history of the item model. From that you can gauge the "current going rate". And if you're not urgent about getting the item, keep putting bids in at the level you'd like to pay (maybe a low figure that closed earlier at one point)... eventually you'll reach a period where there aren't enough bidders that time around to raise the price higher than your bid--you win. It doesn't take much energy and time to do this and in the end, you'll likely end up paying what you want.

 

Also keep in mind that some items experience periodic price surges. For instance, the Pilot MYU 701. I've seen periods where auction after auction ends up closing above $200. Then eventually, the current pool of people who were interested end up getting their pens and the average price starts to slip downward. Just the other day one closed at $130.

[finalidid]

In the real world many bidders do not fire a single bid that represents their would-be "maximum". It does not matter if we think they should do so. They don't.

 

In the real world many bidders do not have a clear, FPN-defined (yeep!) sense of what "maximum" even means, as demonstrated by the oft heard (in such debates in general about sniping), "i would've changed my maximum if i'd seen someone else bidding higher", or "i might increase my maximum if i get caught up in the auction".

 

The above two points lead to a third point, that psychology of bidding has impact on auctions, making outcome different from what might be guessed based on simple monday morning quarterbacking a closed auction as to the value of what sold there. Bidding strategies that recognize the presence of auction psychology amongst the bidding herd, will lead to advantageous position.

 

Yeah, this is the salient point. Funny nobody made it until then. Silly me, expecting humans to be rational.

 

[Deirdre]

Yeah, this is the salient point. Funny nobody made it until then. Silly me, expecting humans to be rational.

We were busy bidding on the debate, then David had to go ruin our fun by sniping. :ltcapd:

[DustyBin]

Sniping is a rush.... the highs of winning.... the lows of losing.... About 10 minutes ago I used one of the sniping tools mentioned in this debate and I'm still coming down from the victory.

 

Spotted a Stipula Silvestro Lega LE that's listed elsewhere on ebay for $1300.... Was prepared to go up to just over $500 to get it...

 

Used Bid-O-Matic to set my limit a couple of days ago to stop me from wavering upwards at the last moment and the exhilaration of not only winning the pen, but getting it for $320 is fabulous.

 

Now, must get back to selling a few other pens to finance this purchase....

 

PS - Apologies if this comes across as a gloat... it is!

Edited February 1, 2008 by DustyBin

[finalidid]

Ah. One of those "frenzied" people heard from at last ... rationality in pricing takes a back seat to the thrill of the hunt. Were I in retail sales, I would pray that all customers were as emotionally dependent and reactive as you. Congratulations, you're the American dream! Just ... the wrong side of it ...

 

[Johnny Appleseed]

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.

 

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.

 

Before I knew about sniping software and bid groups, I had a situation where two nearly identical pens I wanted (blue Modern Stripe Skyline) were closing at nearly the same time, for identical opening bids. I put in a bid for the one that looked better, and got outbid, but the other closed without a bidder. It got relisted, I got outbid again, and it closed way above the opening bid. Had I set a bid group, I would have (probably) gotten the one that had no bids.

 

 

Here is a perfect example of why Sniping works

Vintage Webster Four Star 14K Fountain Pen on ebay.

 

Look at the bid history:

 

steviebarrett91( 150) US $21.49 Jan-31-08 15:09:22 PST

 

davisrgv( 513) US $20.99 Jan-31-08 05:17:36 PST

 

steviebarrett91( 150) US $20.03 Jan-31-08 15:08:17 PST

 

steviebarrett91 put in a bid of $20 and change, and found he had been outbid, so he upped his bid by a dollar. Had Davisrgv sniped, the other bidder would not have had a chance to up the bid. This happens all the time in ebay auctions.

 

On the other hand, there is a disadvantege to sniping as well - sellers are more likely to accept a backchannel buy-it-now offer and close an auction early if there are no bidders. When you snipe, your interest is not marked, and I think some sellers get into a panic and will take a back-channel offer rather than see it go with no bids. Since nobody has bid on the item, they don't feel they are selling it out from under anyone. I have seen a few auctions that closed early on the last day, and I think that was what happened. One option I have seen people do is to make a very low opening bid early, and follow it up with a snipe, to both keep the bid open and to get in the last bid.

 

John

 

[AndyHayes]

Used Bid-O-Matic to set my limit a couple of days ago to stop me from wavering upwards at the last moment and the exhilaration of not only winning the pen, but getting it for $320 is fabulous.

 

Well done Mr Bin! I love to read the success stories

[finalidid]

On the other hand, there is a disadvantege to sniping as well - sellers are more likely to accept a backchannel buy-it-now offer and close an auction early if there are no bidders. When you snipe, your interest is not marked, and I think some sellers get into a panic and will take a back-channel offer rather than see it go with no bids. Since nobody has bid on the item, they don't feel they are selling it out from under anyone. I have seen a few auctions that closed early on the last day, and I think that was what happened. One option I have seen people do is to make a very low opening bid early, and follow it up with a snipe, to both keep the bid open and to get in the last bid.

 

Ah yes, this I had not thought about either. The "reverse snipe" in which a seller lowers the price and uses a computer trick to ensure a sale despite evident lack of interest.

 

Someone should program a "gnipins" (sniping backwards) program. The seller, after putting the item up without a reserve price on EBay, enters his personal minimum "buy it now" price. Then, whenever anyone clicks on the item page, the Gnipings program finds that EBay member and contacts them through EBay to remind them to bid. After a failed auction, the Gnipings contacts the appropriate members in sequence and offers them the item at an incrementally slowly declining price, down from an astronomical high to within range of the seller's maximum. When someone accepts, Gnipings exectues the sale; if someone declines, Gnipings just moves on to the next person. Various safeguards could be put in place -- shipping cost over and above price; if someone doesn't respond within X amount of time, Gnipings moves on to the next person; so on. Basically, a reverse-snipe so a seller has power by means of an extraneous computer program. Sounds like a good idea. I don't have anywhere near the expertise to implement it.

 

Also kind of sounds like FPN's "Marketplace" ... hmm ...

 

[sumgaikid]

As the last person on this topic of this date(I assume),I would like to add my 2c--

 

I agree with both David i & finalidid--I snipe on a regular basis and have found that it(for the time being)works.

By that I mean that I have a general idea of what I

[sumgaikid]

As probably the last member with an opinon on this subject of this date,let me add my 2c:

 

I agree with both David i and finalidid--they are both right.I have been sniping on ebay for

the last several years and have found that sniping IS the only way to bid on ebay.Why waste

my time throwing in bid after bid if I know how high I wish to go?So I snipe.I wait and watch

the auction to see how it is going,and if it goes higher than I am willing to pay,I don't bid;I just

watch the auction.If by the final moments of the auction there still might be a chance,I'll throw

in my bid.If I win,I win.If I don't,I don't.

 

There are some benifits from this--one learns discipline and patience.Waiting is(we think)an un-

fortunate roadblock in life,and if we don't win that pen(or some other thing),we're disappointed

that we'll have to look for that same item again.We have to wait and be patient.It also means that

somewhere down the line another item like the one we were outbid on comes up again for our

chance to win it.In all the replies to this topic,omly one person correctly said that we should look at

a pen company's history.And they're right.As an example(And I may be vague on the facts),Kenneth

Parker stopped counting his "51" legacy @12 million pens.Over 31 years,the actual figure was closer

to 20 million.That means that even if over the course of 60+ years a few million "51s" are lost,there

are still millions that are still around.The same principle applies to other pen companies.

 

I might add that the ratio of vintage pen collectors to vintage pens is still microcosmic--therefore the

sky-high inflated price one wants to pay reflects what they paid--not what it's worth.

 

This means also that I don't need a sniping service to help me win an item--I gain no advantage by

letting someone else do my job for me.Again,if I win,I win.If I don't,I don't.

 

And at the end of the day,it's stil only a pen...

 

 

 

[finalidid]

I don't follow the "millions" argument. There have been literally millions of arrows fired by English longbowmen at French cavalry, but if you find just one, I"d suggest you put a REALLY high reserve on it when you post it up on EBay.

 

[david i]

deleted redundant

 

 

Edited February 15, 2008 by david i