cyclone3d wrote:

brostenen wrote:

Gixen.com? Seem's kind of and a bit ethical shady. Do eBay aprove?

Yeah.. their system goes through the eBay app back end.

And why do you think it is shady? Do you have time to always watch, much less remember to watch your bids in the last 10 seconds of the auction?

I dont know.... Reminds me of bots in games, that are scooping up stuff for the player. You know, a bit like those that are playing world of warcraft for you on this level. I dont think that people who are actually sitting with a keyboard and a mouse, like those sort of systems. I could be wrong though.

Thanks for the Gixen recommendation. I'll check it out. I had previously tried to use an "ebid snipe" app on android and it literally did nothing -- never placed my bid.

brostenen wrote:

cyclone3d wrote:

brostenen wrote:

Gixen.com? Seem's kind of and a bit ethical shady. Do eBay aprove?

Yeah.. their system goes through the eBay app back end.

And why do you think it is shady? Do you have time to always watch, much less remember to watch your bids in the last 10 seconds of the auction?

I dont know.... Reminds me of bots in games, that are scooping up stuff for the player. You know, a bit like those that are playing world of warcraft for you on this level. I dont think that people who are actually sitting with a keyboard and a mouse, like those sort of systems. I could be wrong though.

It definitely isn't fair to people who aren't using the same kind of service.

Even if ebay technically supports it, I doubt they approve.

They approve whatever brings them money and all winning bids bring money 😉

All in all it's no different then using eBay default system. Just put your max bid and let the eBay manage it. If your bid is high enough no sniper will win.

still sour about getting outbid after placing a bid with 4 seconds left on that PIII Dell with a VooDoo in it. It went for under $70 shipped last year

mothergoose729 wrote:

It definitely isn't fair to people who aren't using the same kind of service. Even if ebay technically supports it, I doubt they approve.

If they didn't approve, or maybe rather if they specifically disapproved, they wouldn't allow it through the API. I agree with others here. What's the difference between farming out your last-minute bid to an app vs. doing it yourself? I do it manually and I win just about every time. The only times I don't win is when someone else put in a max bid larger than mine ... which is exactly the same result as how it would end if I had used an app. As a non-app-user, I don't see the problem. *shrug*

SirNickity wrote:

mothergoose729 wrote:

It definitely isn't fair to people who aren't using the same kind of service. Even if ebay technically supports it, I doubt they approve.

If they didn't approve, or maybe rather if they specifically disapproved, they wouldn't allow it through the API. I agree with others here. What's the difference between farming out your last-minute bid to an app vs. doing it yourself? I do it manually and I win just about every time. The only times I don't win is when someone else put in a max bid larger than mine ... which is exactly the same result as how it would end if I had used an app. As a non-app-user, I don't see the problem. *shrug*

Yeah, the whole thing is this weird game that I prefer not to play. I'll pay 20$ more or whatever not to think about it.

There are good reasons not to put in your bid until last second though, which is why everybody does it. When you add in a service like glixen, it all starts to get a bit out of hand and it probably means that auction sell for less than they would have. I don't know what ebay's position is on it, just seems like not what they had in mind when they build in an API backend for the site.

Not really my fight, just commenting on it.

Sure, yeah. It's probably not what they had in mind when they created the auction system, but ... and this is just my personal observation of business in general ... the businesses that stay successful for the long term are the ones that don't try to impose their view of how the service should be used without a really good reason to intervene. The savvy ones develop a platform, release it into the wild, then just watch and see what the trends develop into.

Kind of like when Apple released the iPad and everyone was like: What is this thing supposed to be used for? And Apple's response was basically: We dunno -- try it and decide for yourself. Was it supposed to be a gaming platform, or a way to find dates? Did they envision it being used a replacement for a cash register at smaller shops and restaurants? Probably not, but it would've been pretty dumb for them to try and undermine Square when they were clearly gaining momentum.

That's how I see it anyway. If Ebay users prefer to bid at the end of an auction, OK.. So the auction period serves as more of an advertisement for the last 30 seconds. Hey, if that's what works for you guys... 😀 I see the API as more of a way to make sure this thing that people obviously want, can be done securely, rather than ignoring it (or fighting it) and letting potentially malicious entities collect login information from users.

The most offensive thing is the official eBay mobile app. Thanks for pushing a notification to my phone telling me an item is now discounted that sold out 24 hours ago.

I'll snipe if I know I'm going to be around at the end of the auction, otherwise I just put my maximum bid in and ignore it till its over.

Placing a high bid early on is mostly useful to scare people off who might have thought about participate but it only works if you have a competitor with a similar bid so that a high bid is actually visible to everyone. On the other hand it is very likely to just lead into a bid war in the end between those who already participated. It is a very subjective matter which scenario is more desirable.

Ebay is tricky -- if you "watch" an item or frequently visit it, Ebay keeps track and pushes it higher in search results. When I find something, I bookmark it and set a reminder on my phone for it. (calendar event) This way, it keeps the item under the radar so fewer people see it. This usually only works if something is mislabeled (poorly titled) or is kind of unpopular. It won't work if it is something properly titled and rare/coveted because tons of people have clicked on it and pushed it higher in search results.

If there are no bids or less than 3 bids still with a low price, I'll throw my max bid on it within the last 3 seconds. I usually win 90% of auctions this way. I find that bidding in this way from my phone is most accurate, due to GPS and carrier time sync. Bidding from the computer with Windows-based time isn't accurate enough (clock drift), and you can be a few seconds off and submit the bid too late. If you wanted to get really crazy, you could probably run a Symmetricom GPS time server on your network with the Greyware DomainTime windows app for clocksync, but that's just going overboard. 🤣

If something has a "Make Offer" on it, I look at who is selling. If it is a top seller that just moves a ton of inventory, I make a half price offer. It is 50/50 whether they accept it or make a counter-offer. I find that sellers with 3000+ feedback usually accept a half-price offer. If not, a counter-offer is usually 75% of the list price.

Then of course 5% of the time, I'll find an amazing "Buy It Now" deal on something that a person recently listed that has no idea what a price for something is -- like my Upgradeware Slot-T (new in box) that I scored from overseas for $20 -- the previous week one sold for ~$500, and a month later one sold for over $1000.

wiretap wrote:

If there are no bids or less than 3 bids still with a low price, I'll throw my max bid on it within the last 3 seconds. I usually win 90% of auctions this way. I find that bidding in this way from my phone is most accurate, due to GPS and carrier time sync. Bidding from the computer with Windows-based time isn't accurate enough (clock drift), and you can be a few seconds off and submit the bid too late. If you wanted to get really crazy, you could probably run a Symmetricom GPS time server on your network with the Greyware DomainTime windows app for clocksync, but that's just going overboard. 🤣

Or you can use the aforementioned Gixen (or a similar service) to do the sniping for you, completely avoiding the hassle and nuisance, and also bypassing most of the risk of a missed bid.

dr_st wrote:

wiretap wrote:

If there are no bids or less than 3 bids still with a low price, I'll throw my max bid on it within the last 3 seconds. I usually win 90% of auctions this way. I find that bidding in this way from my phone is most accurate, due to GPS and carrier time sync. Bidding from the computer with Windows-based time isn't accurate enough (clock drift), and you can be a few seconds off and submit the bid too late. If you wanted to get really crazy, you could probably run a Symmetricom GPS time server on your network with the Greyware DomainTime windows app for clocksync, but that's just going overboard. 🤣

Or you can use the aforementioned Gixen (or a similar service) to do the sniping for you, completely avoiding the hassle and nuisance, and also bypassing most of the risk of a missed bid.

Tried it before.. on 2 out of 5 items, it never even bid for me.

wiretap wrote:

Tried it before.. on 2 out of 5 items, it never even bid for me.

Wow, these are surprisingly bad stats, considering I've used Gixen for over 10 auctions, in the past few years and haven't had a single bidding failure. The only scenarios where it wouldn't bid (in my experience) were when eBay would have rejected the bid anyway (e.g., current bid is already above my maximum or location-based restrictions).

Were you setting up some complicated group bid scenario or were these individual items?

These are the stats that Mario (Gixen operator) posted this March:

In total, 232.026 were placed on eBay by Gixen main server in that time period. 142,339 were won. 66,287 were outbid (immediate […]
Show full quote

In total, 232.026 were placed on eBay by Gixen main server in that time period.
142,339 were won.
66,287 were outbid (immediately by eBay proxy using existing maximum bids of other users).
17,383 were outsniped (outbid after snipe is placed).
3,365 failed because of eBay account error or restrictions set by the seller (shipping or other).
2,540 were canceled (group bids).
112 were late or network error occurred (group bids).

These statistics are only for the main server. No snipes were late from both servers for mirror subscribers.

I don't know what happened.. it just never even bid. I setup the bids just like the others that won. I gave up on it seeing that it was unreliable for me. I only bid on maybe 5-10 items per week, so keeping track of that few of auctions is no problem for me to do on my own.

imo...

How auctions work...

Rule 1: Highest bidder wins.
Rule 2: Two people with the same bid, earliest bidder wins...

Given these two statements, and the fact that ebay automatically bids up to your highest bid for you... can someone please explain the benefit of sniping? I only see problems...

1) That you run the risk of not winning by either bidding the same as another bidder (who bid earlier/before you), or not as much as another sniper (in which case sniping doesn't make any difference).
2) You are at the mercy of your sniping system placing a bid for you at all, and before another sniping system.
3) You hand over your credentials to a third party, so better have full faith in their security systems, or always ensure that you have to enter a password before payment (if using paypal)... in which case the only thing you risk is your ebay reputation if your details were ever to go astray and someone decides to bid on loads of things without your knowledge. Non paying complaints.

If someone bids more, they want it more, sniping won't help (see rule 1). If someone bids the same, ealiest bidder wins, sniping won't help (see rule 2).... so whats the point in it?

It the very rare situation that all other bidders on an item don't understand how auctions work... it will help. Other than that, it only benefits people that have no self-constraint in the first place by forcing you to not pay more than you want to... but this is something you can do yourself without sniping using ebay automatic bidding (and in fact it is more beneficial to bid earlier.. see Rule 2 above)?

Bid what you are willing to pay, if you bid the same as the highest bidder, and think, I'll just put another $/£ on that (which can only be done when not sniping)... you didn't put your highest bid in the first place, and run the risk of regretting paying more than you wanted too.

Nothing has changed in the psychology of auctions really, apart from the fact that a psychological game ebay played in the first place to get more money from bidders who don't understand how auctions work (by having an auction over a period of time, rather than at a given time) has been reversed. Simples 😀

You are right that it would have no benefit if everyone were rational, but since not everyone is rational (in fact most people are not rational, in fact, even you and me are not rational), and not everyone snipes, snipers have the advantage.

But I decided to delete most of my post; the fewer people learn the benefits of sniping, the better my chances are. 😜

The reason to snipe bid is because a lot of people selling on ebay bid on their own items. So you wait till there is 5 seconds left and bid so they cant run you up.

Shagittarius wrote:

The reason to snipe bid is because a lot of people selling on ebay bid on their own items. So you wait till there is 5 seconds left and bid so they cant run you up.

Had that happen to me on two occasions with early bidding.. then once I won, the sale was canceled and it was relisted. I called Ebay, and they determined that multiple bids were coming from the same IP. They banned the accounts. 😒