auction sniping

[XaeL]

Um, no. Without auto-extension a la Yahoo Auctions Japan, sniping is indeed effective and very much what you should do if you don't want to incite early competition and drive up the price. Even then, you should still hold off on bids until near the first scheduled close time. But let's not derail myndzi's nice thread any more, ok?

Personally, I just have a lot of trouble forcing myself to use the new inputs. I'm very conditioned to use a conventional input and I haven't had much success getting myself to incorporate the shortcuts. I'm sure I could pick them up with practice, but there are other things I'd like to work on at the moment.

explain why sniping is the dominant strategy...



[!--quoteo--][div class=\\\'quotetop\\\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\\\'quotemain\\\'][!--quotec--]should do if you don't want to incite early competition and drive up the price.[/quote]

if the price is high, it would remove competition wouldnt it? the price will drive up by the same amount regardless of whether you snipe or not.

[Zircean]

explain why sniping is the dominant strategy...
if the price is high, it would remove competition wouldnt it? the price will drive up by the same amount regardless of whether you snipe or not.

It will end up driving it up by the same amount if it takes no time to do something as bidding does, but if someone posts even a mediocre winning time for Finessetris less than 5 minutes before the deadline, it might take people a few tries to beat it and the deadline may pass by the time they are done (and therefore it won't go up as much as it did).

[XaeL]

It will end up driving it up by the same amount if it takes no time to do something as bidding does, but if someone posts even a mediocre winning time for Finessetris less than 5 minutes before the deadline, it might take people a few tries to beat it and the deadline may pass by the time they are done (and therefore it won't go up as much as it did).

i meant for buying crap on ebay.

Not finessetris

I'm talking about an ebay bidding system (price bid may not equal price paid) whereas you are talking about traditional

obviously in traditional sniping is the dominant strategy.

[Rosti_LFC]

Because people are stupid, and in an auction environment tend to talk themselves into paying more than what they actually originally wanted to pay for an item.

For any individual item, supply tends to be outstripped by demand, and there's not a guarantee that a similar item will ever come up again if it's fairly niche and rare. It's easy for people to convince themselves that it's worth just that extra bit more over the price it's currently posted at.

Putting the price up high early doesn't really do a huge amount, because people are only likely to stop watching it if the price is so high that they feel totally outpriced - ie. you've massively overvalued the item in their opinion. It also means you're revealing your hand a bit early in terms of how much you want the item or might be prepared to pay.

Also, regardless of what you're actually paying for an item, sniping tends to mean you win the auction, and as a result people who try sniping will win, and figure that it's a good strategy for winning auctions. There's no solid reference for how much this items are really worth, because there's no established price for second-hand items, so even if they pay too much they still feel like they've come out of it well.

[Ravendarksky]

My friend did a year long project for uni about sniping and found that it didn't decrease the average price paid for things.

What it DOES do though is make it more likely that you get to be the person paying that average price rather than someone else.

[XaeL]

Putting the price up high early

u can't do that in ebay.

as a result people who try sniping will win

If you mean by "choose bid price add $1 and bid at last second" that might not even work in ebay.

[Rosti_LFC]

u can't do that in ebay.

Maybe not by yourself, but all it takes is one other person.

If you mean by "choose bid price add $1 and bid at last second" that might not even work in ebay.

That's not what I meant, because that's stupid and only works if other people on eBay are being idiots or you're lucky.

With eBay the best strategy to avoid paying more than you want and to win more auctions is to snipe. Pretty much always.

Say there's an item and you want to pay $20 for it. Someone has already bid $15. If you bid early, you'll end up with the winning bid on $16. This then gives information to the other person that you want the item, and that you're willing to pay more than $15 for it. So they consider "hmm, maybe it's worth more than $15" or "maybe I'm willing to pay more than $15", and bid again. Perhaps they only bid $17 and you still end up proxy outbidding them. Maybe they keep going until eventually they're winning on $21. Now you're either forced to pay more than you really wanted (and they might still outbid you), or you lose the auction.

If you'd sniped, then you'd have won the auction outright, and you'd have won it at $16. Or maybe the original bid you couldn't see was $19 and you'd have won it with $20. It's irrelevant.

When you snipe you're not only sticking to your own budget, but you're denying people a chance to respond and to potentially decide the increase theirs. You're putting yourself in the position of control in the auction, and you're stopping yourself from getting involved in bidding wars which push you above what you're willing to pay, or which increase the price above what you could have nominally won the auction at.

Anyone who regularly shops on eBay will snipe, and those who don't either don't really care about what they pay for stuff, or have a naive understanding of how auctions and people work.

[XaeL]

Maybe not by yourself, but all it takes is one other person.
That's not what I meant, because that's stupid and only works if other people on eBay are being idiots or you're lucky.

With eBay the best strategy to avoid paying more than you want and to win more auctions is to snipe. Pretty much always.

Say there's an item and you want to pay $20 for it. Someone has already bid $15. If you bid early, you'll end up with the winning bid on $16. This then gives information to the other person that you want the item, and that you're willing to pay more than $15 for it. So they consider "hmm, maybe it's worth more than $15" or "maybe I'm willing to pay more than $15", and bid again. Perhaps they only bid $17 and you still end up proxy outbidding them. Maybe they keep going until eventually they're winning on $21. Now you're either forced to pay more than you really wanted (and they might still outbid you), or you lose the auction.

If you'd sniped, then you'd have won the auction outright, and you'd have won it at $16. Or maybe the original bid you couldn't see was $19 and you'd have won it with $20. It's irrelevant.

When you snipe you're not only sticking to your own budget, but you're denying people a chance to respond and to potentially decide the increase theirs. You're putting yourself in the position of control in the auction, and you're stopping yourself from getting involved in bidding wars which push you above what you're willing to pay, or which increase the price above what you could have nominally won the auction at.

Anyone who regularly shops on eBay will snipe, and those who don't either don't really care about what they pay for stuff, or have a naive understanding of how auctions and people work.

o i c ty.