Is ebay about to end all sniping?

[evilsly]

The expression.."Bid early and bid often" is almost as obscene as "Let them eat cake".

 

I laugh every time I see that phrase. "Yeah, I'm going to do something to screw myself because of your clever little mantra"

 

Almost as much as "if this doesn't sell, it's getting locked in my collection forever!" Yeah right jack@ss

 

Oh yeah, on this note, this is by far my favorite bit of ebay wisdom...

 

"Do not miss your chance.....Bid now !

 

Why wait to snipe ? If you do not bid I will never know about your interest in this piece.

When someone sees a piece they really want they reach out to me right away.

I travel to shows and people come to my office all the time.

If someone wants to buy it before your bid is heard it would be a shame because

I will end it and sell it without even knowing about you."

 

I have read that before. I forget whose auction uses that line. If he had someone on it so hot and heavy, then it wouldn't have made it to eBay in the first place.

 

 

that's Neatstuff

 

 

[Mr. Zipper]

"Do not miss your chance.....Bid now !

 

Why wait to snipe ? If you do not bid I will never know about your interest in this piece.

When someone sees a piece they really want they reach out to me right away.

I travel to shows and people come to my office all the time.

If someone wants to buy it before your bid is heard it would be a shame because

I will end it and sell it without even knowing about you."

 

 

Creepy.

 

The other piece of salesmanship I hate is the "Have a Blessed Day" types.

 

I have no problem with religious folks, however an ebay auction punctuated with religious messages just seems so phony and a transparent attempt to add an aura of "honesty" to the seller.

[DrWatson]

The expression.."Bid early and bid often" is almost as obscene as "Let them eat cake".

 

I laugh every time I see that phrase. "Yeah, I'm going to do something to screw myself because of your clever little mantra"

 

Almost as much as "if this doesn't sell, it's getting locked in my collection forever!" Yeah right jack@ss

 

Oh yeah, on this note, this is by far my favorite bit of ebay wisdom...

 

"Do not miss your chance.....Bid now !

 

Why wait to snipe ? If you do not bid I will never know about your interest in this piece.

When someone sees a piece they really want they reach out to me right away.

I travel to shows and people come to my office all the time.

If someone wants to buy it before your bid is heard it would be a shame because

I will end it and sell it without even knowing about you."

 

I have read that before. I forget whose auction uses that line. If he had someone on it so hot and heavy, then it wouldn't have made it to eBay in the first place.

 

 

that's Neatstuff

 

Ah, that's it. Which also explains why I never bid on it.

[armydoc]

"Do not miss your chance.....Bid now !

 

Why wait to snipe ? If you do not bid I will never know about your interest in this piece.

When someone sees a piece they really want they reach out to me right away.

I travel to shows and people come to my office all the time.

If someone wants to buy it before your bid is heard it would be a shame because

I will end it and sell it without even knowing about you."

 

 

Creepy.

 

The other piece of salesmanship I hate is the "Have a Blessed Day" types.

 

I have no problem with religious folks, however an ebay auction punctuated with religious messages just seems so phony and a transparent attempt to add an aura of "honesty" to the seller.

 

Maybe they're hoping they'll guilt us heathens into buying.

[chromium]

The expression.."Bid early and bid often" is almost as obscene as "Let them eat cake".

 

I laugh every time I see that phrase. "Yeah, I'm going to do something to screw myself because of your clever little mantra"

 

Almost as much as "if this doesn't sell, it's getting locked in my collection forever!" Yeah right jack@ss

 

Oh yeah, on this note, this is by far my favorite bit of ebay wisdom...

 

"Do not miss your chance.....Bid now !

 

Why wait to snipe ? If you do not bid I will never know about your interest in this piece.

When someone sees a piece they really want they reach out to me right away.

I travel to shows and people come to my office all the time.

If someone wants to buy it before your bid is heard it would be a shame because

I will end it and sell it without even knowing about you."

 

I have read that before. I forget whose auction uses that line. If he had someone on it so hot and heavy, then it wouldn't have made it to eBay in the first place.

 

 

that's Neatstuff

 

Ah, that's it. Which also explains why I never bid on it.

 

So they are the same as brianhowardart ?

 

This seller must hold the record of auctions where I've been the high bidder but without reaching reserve

[Stannum-migration]

I really have to laugh at the paranoia of "shills". My god, there must be around 2.5 million people employed as shills based on the amount of shilling you guys say happens. Every 1 in 4 people on that streetcorner is a shill! Heh. Funny how, if this were so common, there would be shilling programs out there. I know there are snipers, but no shillers.... Why would that be?

 

As for the people that min incremental bid. I do that a lot. I find out where I stand by incremental bidding. I'm not trying to drive up the price. I'm doing the same thing the snipers do, trying to get a bargain, and incremental bidding lets me bid my lowest value. Waah if it reduces the bargain you thought you were getting. As the snipers are so fond of saying, that's the environment, Adjust to it.

 

Got somebody (actually traceable, in particular, not some ghostly "shill") trying to up-bid you? Lowball (or medium-ball, so to speak) on a long list of items and never rebid. Let them actually purchase 800 items that you were wanting. Either they've just wasted a lot of money on spite, or you've just allowed another collector to fulfill most of their interest and move on, allowing you cheaper access to the next items.

 

Got someone that's tracking your bidding patterns and items of interest? So what? If they know you're interested in an item, and that you are a power bidder, (if they're the typical, most common, honestly interested individual) they likely wont bid at all, since they know their max price won't beat yours, thus actually lowering the final amount you may have to pay. I saw one of the boardies was bidding on a comic the other day that I might have been interested in, but I didn't bid, because I wasn't likely to outbid him.

 

God forbid you have people with limited incomes that might actually bid lower than your max on an item. You do know we can't tell what your max bid is until we actually put a bid in ourselves. It's not shilling, it's bidding.

 

The only real problem I have with sniping, and it honestly really sucks, is false hope that I might actually be getting a bargain. I have actually gotten one or 2, but most of the time I get sniped and out bid. As long as I'm aware of this factor, I'm fine.

 

Sniping is just a sad paranoid's waste of time. Set your max bid and go do your stuff.

[capt_comics]

I do snipe with my maximum bid, just no reason to do it until 5 seconds to go.

 

I hope they don't do this myself, I certainly don't think it will up their bottom line.

 

 

 

 

 

[homerwannabee]

There is a way to scare away snipers. Bid up an auction to just under what you want for it. Most people think when they see an auction almost at market price that the auction will go sky high and they will call of their snipes. In actuality though most of these auctions don't move upward when the auction ends.

[Transplant]

Sniping is just a sad paranoid's waste of time. Set your max bid and go do your stuff.

I do. I set my max bid on the snipe and go live my life.

 

You might want to figure out what you're talking about before posting. What you're referring to is called punish bidding. Shill bidding is when the seller assumes another identity and bids on his own auction to drive up the price.

[the blob]

I haven't read all 21 pages of this thread (just the first and last), but my guess is that ebay is simply working out the kinks on its own sniping "service", which they'll charge for while preventing the software for other services from working.

 

maybe an antitrust violation, but if they charge about what other services charge...

[TheShadowKnows]

 

That said, I've always used it with an "enjoy it while it lasts" attitude...I figure at some point they will do something (new restrictions, rule changes, etc) to irrevocably screw it up. I can understand how for others, that point may have arrived already.

 

That's my general take on it also - buying on ebay is not what it was. With more people joining and broadband use becoming the norm, along with ebay's gradual chipping away at what made the site great and different in the first place (bidder visibility on all auctions, etc.) it's much harder to find stuff at reasonable prices than say 4 or 5 years ago.

 

At least ebay did away with private feedback though - not all changes have been for the worse.

 

I put in a snipe on Saturday as I was going to be away.Set the snipe for 5 seconds before the auction was going to end.I looked on Sunday and the snipe went in with 35 seconds left.Makes me not want to rely on a snipe again.

Dennis

[october]

Sniping is just a sad paranoid's waste of time. Set your max bid and go do your stuff.

 

It takes the same amount of time to set a max bid with a snipe as it does to set a max bid through eBay. It might help to know what you are talking about before posting.

[Poe]

I think it will help eBay but at the expense of buyers. To be specific, it will encourage the abuse of shill bidding which feebay hasn't addressed and, frankly, will not address.

 

Since everyone can't be at their computer every time an auction is about to end many may decide to enter a bid early. Then the shilling begins and it doesn't even matter if the shill goes over your max. They simply cancel their last bid and just like that you are at your max.

 

That kind of activity is surpressed a great deal by last second bidding since there just isn't enough time for the price to be artificially driven higher.

 

I don't use a snipe service since what I buy is in abundance and my want list is pretty much down to a handfull of books. But until eBay committs to attacking the shilling that goes on at their site, which they won't since it produces a huge amount of revenue for them, I think the forcing of manual bidding won't bode well for buyers.

[Fan4Fan]

I haven't read all 21 pages of this thread (just the first and last), but my guess is that ebay is simply working out the kinks on its own sniping "service", which they'll charge for while preventing the software for other services from working.

 

maybe an antitrust violation, but if they charge about what other services charge...

 

Well, they have their BidAssistant, which allows linked bidding... so their own sniping service isn't too unbelievable.

 

As far as charging what other services charge? I can get quite a few free snipes in a week if I had items that I were interested in (about 9, if they were all ending concurrently). If it stays free, then I wouldn't mind... but free and eBay don't usually go together.

[ShoNuff-migration]

I really have to laugh at the paranoia of "shills". My god, there must be around 2.5 million people employed as shills based on the amount of shilling you guys say happens. Every 1 in 4 people on that streetcorner is a shill! Heh. Funny how, if this were so common, there would be shilling programs out there. I know there are snipers, but no shillers.... Why would that be?

 

As for the people that min incremental bid. I do that a lot. I find out where I stand by incremental bidding. I'm not trying to drive up the price. I'm doing the same thing the snipers do, trying to get a bargain, and incremental bidding lets me bid my lowest value. Waah if it reduces the bargain you thought you were getting. As the snipers are so fond of saying, that's the environment, Adjust to it.

 

Got somebody (actually traceable, in particular, not some ghostly "shill") trying to up-bid you? Lowball (or medium-ball, so to speak) on a long list of items and never rebid. Let them actually purchase 800 items that you were wanting. Either they've just wasted a lot of money on spite, or you've just allowed another collector to fulfill most of their interest and move on, allowing you cheaper access to the next items.

 

Got someone that's tracking your bidding patterns and items of interest? So what? If they know you're interested in an item, and that you are a power bidder, (if they're the typical, most common, honestly interested individual) they likely wont bid at all, since they know their max price won't beat yours, thus actually lowering the final amount you may have to pay. I saw one of the boardies was bidding on a comic the other day that I might have been interested in, but I didn't bid, because I wasn't likely to outbid him.

 

God forbid you have people with limited incomes that might actually bid lower than your max on an item. You do know we can't tell what your max bid is until we actually put a bid in ourselves. It's not shilling, it's bidding.

 

The only real problem I have with sniping, and it honestly really sucks, is false hope that I might actually be getting a bargain. I have actually gotten one or 2, but most of the time I get sniped and out bid. As long as I'm aware of this factor, I'm fine.

 

Sniping is just a sad paranoid's waste of time. Set your max bid and go do your stuff.

 

 

Please, everyone...allow me...

 

 

 

 

 

[TheShadowKnows]

I really have to laugh at the paranoia of "shills". My god, there must be around 2.5 million people employed as shills based on the amount of shilling you guys say happens. Every 1 in 4 people on that streetcorner is a shill! Heh. Funny how, if this were so common, there would be shilling programs out there. I know there are snipers, but no shillers.... Why would that be?

 

As for the people that min incremental bid. I do that a lot. I find out where I stand by incremental bidding. I'm not trying to drive up the price. I'm doing the same thing the snipers do, trying to get a bargain, and incremental bidding lets me bid my lowest value. Waah if it reduces the bargain you thought you were getting. As the snipers are so fond of saying, that's the environment, Adjust to it.

 

Got somebody (actually traceable, in particular, not some ghostly "shill") trying to up-bid you? Lowball (or medium-ball, so to speak) on a long list of items and never rebid. Let them actually purchase 800 items that you were wanting. Either they've just wasted a lot of money on spite, or you've just allowed another collector to fulfill most of their interest and move on, allowing you cheaper access to the next items.

 

Got someone that's tracking your bidding patterns and items of interest? So what? If they know you're interested in an item, and that you are a power bidder, (if they're the typical, most common, honestly interested individual) they likely wont bid at all, since they know their max price won't beat yours, thus actually lowering the final amount you may have to pay. I saw one of the boardies was bidding on a comic the other day that I might have been interested in, but I didn't bid, because I wasn't likely to outbid him.

 

God forbid you have people with limited incomes that might actually bid lower than your max on an item. You do know we can't tell what your max bid is until we actually put a bid in ourselves. It's not shilling, it's bidding.

 

The only real problem I have with sniping, and it honestly really sucks, is false hope that I might actually be getting a bargain. I have actually gotten one or 2, but most of the time I get sniped and out bid. As long as I'm aware of this factor, I'm fine.

 

Sniping is just a sad paranoid's waste of time. Set your max bid and go do your stuff.

 

 

Please, everyone...allow me...

 

 

 

 

Everytime I see that it makes me laugh....

[armydoc]

I really have to laugh at the paranoia of "shills". My god, there must be around 2.5 million people employed as shills based on the amount of shilling you guys say happens. Every 1 in 4 people on that streetcorner is a shill! Heh. Funny how, if this were so common, there would be shilling programs out there. I know there are snipers, but no shillers.... Why would that be?

 

As for the people that min incremental bid. I do that a lot. I find out where I stand by incremental bidding. I'm not trying to drive up the price. I'm doing the same thing the snipers do, trying to get a bargain, and incremental bidding lets me bid my lowest value. Waah if it reduces the bargain you thought you were getting. As the snipers are so fond of saying, that's the environment, Adjust to it.

 

Got somebody (actually traceable, in particular, not some ghostly "shill") trying to up-bid you? Lowball (or medium-ball, so to speak) on a long list of items and never rebid. Let them actually purchase 800 items that you were wanting. Either they've just wasted a lot of money on spite, or you've just allowed another collector to fulfill most of their interest and move on, allowing you cheaper access to the next items.

 

Got someone that's tracking your bidding patterns and items of interest? So what? If they know you're interested in an item, and that you are a power bidder, (if they're the typical, most common, honestly interested individual) they likely wont bid at all, since they know their max price won't beat yours, thus actually lowering the final amount you may have to pay. I saw one of the boardies was bidding on a comic the other day that I might have been interested in, but I didn't bid, because I wasn't likely to outbid him.

 

God forbid you have people with limited incomes that might actually bid lower than your max on an item. You do know we can't tell what your max bid is until we actually put a bid in ourselves. It's not shilling, it's bidding.

 

The only real problem I have with sniping, and it honestly really sucks, is false hope that I might actually be getting a bargain. I have actually gotten one or 2, but most of the time I get sniped and out bid. As long as I'm aware of this factor, I'm fine.

 

Sniping is just a sad paranoid's waste of time. Set your max bid and go do your stuff.

 

 

Please, everyone...allow me...

 

 

 

 

Everytime I see that it makes me laugh....

 

It's my first time seeing that, and it's funny as hell.

[the blob]

it's much harder to find stuff at reasonable prices than say 4 or 5 years ago.

--------------------------

 

yet people here show off all the cheap goodies they grab on ebay on a pretty regular basis. yeah, the top graded slabs aren't going for reasonable prices, whatever those are.

[lizards2]

I put in a snipe on Saturday as I was going to be away.Set the snipe for 5 seconds before the auction was going to end.I looked on Sunday and the snipe went in with 35 seconds left.Makes me not want to rely on a snipe again.

Dennis

 

That happened to me using auction sniper last spring - cost me an extra hundred + bucks..., as it gave the second place guy time to slam in two more bids. That incident probably cost me every penny of what I've "saved" using the service over the past couple years.

[armydoc]

The only real problem I have with sniping, and it honestly really sucks, is false hope that I might actually be getting a bargain. I have actually gotten one or 2, but most of the time I get sniped and out bid. As long as I'm aware of this factor, I'm fine.

 

Sniping is just a sad paranoid's waste of time. Set your max bid and go do your stuff.

 

That "sad paranoid waste of time" seems to be beating out all of your crappy low ball bids.

 

Oh, and I'm sorry your feelings get hurt and it makes you sad when you get sniped. Many services offer free trials, why don't you try it out and come back and tell us how it goes for you?