On Feb 9, 11:41 pm, wrote:
Bidding fever.Whatever you think something is worth,set your price and
stick with it.If you don't win the bid,there will always be a next time.
cuhulin

I started using Ebay when Ebay was new and most people never heard of
it. I've been using Merlin Snipe software for years. It allows
multiple auctions, as many as you want. It lines them up in a list
with item number, item description, current price, my bid price (if
any; you can just monitor an auction if you want), high bidder (if
any), auction ending time, and time left. Merlin also synchs your
computer clock to ebay time to the second. In the early days I hung
over my computer to manually snipe, but you can't do that unless you
work at a computer, which I don't anymore. I learned early that if
you want to get the best price, you had better put your bid in at the
end of the auction. People who disparage sniping don't realize what's
going on. Example: A Transoceanic A600 on ebay is currently at
$37.00 (not really, just rhetorically). Three days seven hours to
go. I want this radio so I click on the auction number, and because I
have "auction grabber" enabled the auction is automatically placed on
Merlin's list. There are other people vying for this radio, too. Two
of them use Ebay's proxy bidder, which Ebay uses to boost its profits
by causing auctions to automatically run up higher. One guy (newbie)
thinks that he will go up to 68 dollars, and another (doofus) thinks
$72.50 is his limit. He really doesn't want to pay that much, but he
doesn't know very well how this works. He doesn't think that the
auction will go up nearly that much. As soon as doofus places his
$72.50 bid into Ebay, the auction suddenly shoots up to 69 bucks from
37. What happened? Ebay's proxy engine working for both newbie and
doofus automatically and quickly bid against each other, and since
doofus is bidding more that newbie, and newbie's max is 68, and the
auction rises in $1.00 increments, the price for the radio is suddenly
$69.00. Newbie is done and leaves this auction. Doofus is high
bidder now, and is unhappy and wondering what happened to the price.
Time goes by and another bidder bids up one increment and now the
radio is $71.00 with doofus still the high bidder. From 69 to 70,
then Ebay's proxy engine on behalf of doofus goes up another increment
to $71.00. Later is see this auction and the current results, and I
calculate that this radio has a leatherette cover that is in dirty but
good shape, will dye nicely and the few bad spots will easily repair
with liquid vinyl patch. The latch is all there, the chart/log book
has it's dial, antennas all there as well as tubes, thumbscrews, and
suction cups. It even has a manual. The radio is inoperative but
that's fine since I will do an electronic restoration on it.
Restoration will not be too difficult and restored it will be worth
over $200.00. Shipping is a reasonable $24.00. I do not know what
others have bid, but I set my snipe at $86.00. My snipe program is
set to snipe at 8 seconds. That is about as close as you can get to
consistently snipe. The backbone of the Internet is routers, which
are computers that route "packets" of data. There are time lags in
each router. And between routers, bandwidth (read: speed of
transmission) has nothing to do with each other and vary greatly. Who
knows how many routers there are or what the bandwidth is between
each? Now there is another person (qtcat) that wants this radio
bad. She bids $75.00 and now the radio is up to $73.50; doofus's
$71.50 plus the bid increment of 1 dollar. If I was to get into a
bidding war with qtcat the radio can shoot up to well over $100.00.
But at 8 seconds Merlin Snipe puts in a bid, the bid arrives at 4.35
seconds later, the radio is now suddenly up to 76 dollars, qtcat can
do nothing about it, and I win the auction for 76 bucks. whew
That's the way it works

On Feb 9, 8:53 pm, SamSez wrote:
You still don't get it. If you place a higher value on it than I do,
fine, you still don't need to 'snipe' it to get it. Just bid what YOU
want to pay.

The 'stupid' part is thinking you are getting one over on somebody bysniping.

If everyone bid the most they were willing to pay the FIRST (and only)
time they bid, you'd be right. But a large % of ebayers don't
understand proxy bidding and don't bid their max.

So you're wrong.

There are other reasons why sniping is the best strategy, but since
you can't get past the obvious one, I won't tax your brain with the
rest.

On Feb 11, 2:44 pm, wrote:
On Feb 9, 8:53 pm, SamSez wrote:

You still don't get it. If you place a higher value on it than I do,
fine, you still don't need to 'snipe' it to get it. Just bid what YOU
want to pay.

The 'stupid' part is thinking you are getting one over on somebody bysniping.

If everyone bid the most they were willing to pay the FIRST (and only)
time they bid, you'd be right. But a large % of ebayers don't
understand proxy bidding and don't bid their max.

So you're wrong.

There are other reasons why sniping is the best strategy, but since
you can't get past the obvious one, I won't tax your brain with the
rest.


I do not believe that there is any further point in discussing the
matter of sniping. Perhaps the people who do not understand lack
experience, knowledge of the system, or just cannot get their minds
around the strategy. Let those that know what they are doing continue
to win auctions at the lowest possible price given the extant
circumstances, and let those who want to rely on Ebay's proxy system
continue to lose auctions, and pay more than they had to when they
win. If this debate continues, it may degrade into more name
calling. I'm done.

Moonman wrote in
:


Very informative, tack!

The last part of your narrative represents just how I have always
understood that sniping can confer an advantage. The first part nicely
exemplifies why it's not good to bid your maximum early.

As regards the contest with qtcat at the end, however, are you saying
that your snipe doesn't leave eBay's proxy bidding software time to
respond before the auction closes? Because, true, if qtcat is
PERSONALLY watching the auction and bidding in small increments in
response to each opposing bid, you've got her. However, if she wants
the thing as much as you postulate, then she probably put in a top bid
of, say, $150, as soon as she saw it, and your snipe bid will be
instantly and automatically exceeded by $1 in the last second of the
auction.

Please respond. I may learn something.

Cordially,
Moonman

And you wound up paying $1 more than she considered it to be worth in the
first place. Whoopee. She goes away happy, and you go away stupid.
Have you never attended an auction? Do you not set a personal limit for
each item when you preview the goods? You could have bid $151 on the
first day, without giving up your personal details to a sniping service.

[Learn something? Yes, you have shown us all the kind of myopic
reasoning that leads one to believe that sniping is beneficial to anyone
other than the seller.]