Fed up with last second bids

[dercoggins]

I getting outbid 4 seconds before the end of an auction, when there has been no other prior bids. These bids are made by anonymous bidders, obviously professionals as they have 30 or so going at the same time. It's no fun any more - eBay must be losing buyers in droves - it's just becoming a commercial marketplace. There needs to be some changes made somehow - of course you can't contact anyone in eBay to complain directly. David

[clayloudermilk]

nonsense!
if people sniping didn't reduce the price for BUYERS they would not be doing it.
people do it because they pay less for items, not more. it's bad news for sellers. even worse news for eBay. they must be losing millions as a result.

[queenslander]

This Post started in 2013 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[clayloudermilk]

It's very strange how everyone defends sniping.

It's even stranger that people say that sellers and ebay profit from it too.
If buyers weren't getting lower prices they wouldn't be doing it. They would just place their maximum bid at any point during the auction.
Lower prices = bad for sellers.
And if it's bad for sellers and hence it must be bad for ebay too.
(Some of you are no doubt sellers, I am amazed this has not occurred to you before).

Instead of being a proper auction where people can revise their maximum bid based on other bids it just turns it into a miserly (and often fully automated) game of stealth where everybody hides their intention until the last few seconds.
Laugh at me (and no doubt you will) but I believe we're ultimately all worse off for sniping.

[clayloudermilk]

Yes, strange. Most forums will mark a discussion as "closed" after a few months.
I didn't notice how old the discussion was.

[mbselections00]

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@clayloudermilk wrote:

Yes, strange. Most forums will mark a discussion as "closed" after a few months.
I didn't notice how old the discussion was.

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Lol, me either, but huge thanks to  k1ooo-slr-sales post #37 (I think) at least now I've changed the date format

[davewil1964]

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@clayloudermilk wrote:

It's very strange how everyone defends sniping.

It's even stranger that people say that sellers and ebay profit from it too.
If buyers weren't getting lower prices they wouldn't be doing it. They would just place their maximum bid at any point during the auction.
Lower prices = bad for sellers.
And if it's bad for sellers and hence it must be bad for ebay too.
(Some of you are no doubt sellers, I am amazed this has not occurred to you before).

Instead of being a proper auction where people can revise their maximum bid based on other bids it just turns it into a miserly (and often fully automated) game of stealth where everybody hides their intention until the last few seconds.
Laugh at me (and no doubt you will) but I believe we're ultimately all worse off for sniping.

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It is legal. it is possible. It is the seller's risk for using auction. This is the BUYER'S board. This thread has moss between it's toes. eBay can't and won't stop people sniping.

How does it cost sellers? The winning bid is the highest bid at the time the auction finishes. Regardless of snipers.

Are you a buyer or a seller?

If a buyer are you disgruntled by missing out on 'bargains', which would negate your compalint. If a seller, use BIN if you think you are getting ripped off.

I do have issue with this -

Instead of being a proper auction where people can revise their maximum bid based on other bids

At a proper auction you can bid at any time up to your maximum, but the auction ends after the last bid. And if you bid above yopur maximum you certainly can't revise it down. Real auctions and eBay both allow you to revise your max UP.

eBay auctions are not auctions - they are time limited offers to sell. The highest offer to buy at the end time is the winning offer.

[leader-of-the-band]

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@clayloudermilk wrote:

I don't understand how that is meant to be good for sellers.

It's BAD for sellers as they will tend to get a lower price for the item.
Consider this:

Bidder 1 (who isn't able t snipe) sets the bid at $20 and maximum bid at $30.
Bidder 2 (a sniper) comes along and bids $35 five seconds before the bidding runs out.
If Bidder 2 had placed a bid earlier (ie a day before), bidder 1 might have come back and noticing that he/she had been outbid, decided to revise his/her maximum bid upwards. Instead, bidder 1 is wrongly given the illusion that no one else is interested in the item.
If sniping was good for sellers, buyers wouldn't be doing it.
eBay really has to fix this.

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okay, this 3 year old thread gets dragged up and our advice gets challenged, I can cope with that, BUT it shows why a thread that has not had a post added to it for three years SHOULD NOT be dragged up.  I'll address that in greater detail towards the end of this post.

clayloudermilk, eBay has been an evolving entity these last five years.  The comments that posters made three years ago were relevant for that time but may not be relevant now.

I'll address your post that was in reply to mine.  How can sniping be good for sellers you ask?  Your example shows that the seller would get an extra $11 because of the snipe bid.  Bidders have become more aware of the need to bid their maximum if they wish to increase their chances of winning an auction. If any bidder, including "Bidder 1" in your example, doesn't bid their maximum they are reducing their chances of winning.  If they "revise" their their maximum bid upwards then they were not bidding their maximum in the first place.

Additionally, if there is more than one bidder using a snipe then that too is good for sellers, regardless of how low the bid is with a minute to go, two snipers are more likely to get a seller a reasonable bid amount.

clayloudermilk, now to the subject of dragging up a three year old thread and why it can be really stupid to do so.  In the last three years, many regular sellers on eBay have come to the realisation that starting items at 99cents is no longer viable if they wish to get a reasonable price for their item.  Since eBay started using a flat rate 9.9% Final-Value-Fee structure and removed listing fees there has been no incentive to start auctions at 99cents.  Many sellers now realise that they need to start an auction at a value they are prepared to accept as the minimum they would accept for an item and if they get more than one bidder they will achieve a higher amount than their pseudo-reserve start bid amount.

clayloudermilk, my attitude towards running auctions has changed dramatically since I last posted on this thread.  I no longer run auctions, I use the Buy-It-Now format, sometimes with Best-Offer.  This lets me decide what I get for an item and not wait around for bidders and snipers.

That's why it is stupid to drag up a three year old thread where member's posted relevant info at the time they posted, but they would post differently if they posted now due to changes in eBay.

[leader-of-the-band]

clayloudermilk, I was preparing my post when you posted that you did not realise how old the thread was.  Sorry if I came across a bit harshly towards you for dragging up this thread in my post. 

There have been a lot of old threads resurrected lately, and it isn't even Easter yet!

[mbselections00]

There have been a lot of old threads resurrected lately,

I've noticed the same thing, but have also noticed they are often resurrected by what appear to be relative newbies, so quite possibly they have entered their question, and followed through from there without realising it is better to start a new thread.  Let's face it, there's no alert or anything that suggests - this is an old thread, we recommend starting a new one

I think as a newbie I made that mistake - once, as I soon learnt that's not the way it's done !  And I thought your explanation of why it shouldn't be done was an excellent example

[springyzone]

I don't usually look at the dates & it hasn't been till someone mentions that it is an old thread that i have realised. And yes, there have been a lot of them lately.

This topic is probably a good example of why a discussion may not always be as relevant as it once was. I would say that over the last 3 years, a lot of ebay ads have moved away from the auction format and towards 'Buy it now'.