Analyze This! # 3249136029

Hey Speedy!

This situation was a TRUE snipe! The sucessful bidder did not bid AT ALL on the item until literally the last few seconds!

Here is a rough reconstruction of what happened in the last few days on that item#3249136029 (hope this works!):
..............................Current....High
Date/Time....Bidder....MxBid...HiBid.....Bidr
=============================================
10/28.......RO(you!)...230.01..~225.01....RO
10/29.........JA........255....~232.......JA
10/31.........CJ........237....~238.......JA
53minsB4end!..RO........250....~251.......JA
52minsB4end!..RO........265....~256.......RO

(At this point with about 50 minutes until the end of the auction, you were sitting pretty as the high bidder UNTIL a bidder(CA) comes out of nowhere!! ):

3secsB4end!?..CA........???....$270.......CA

Again, the time of bid is not so important as the AMOUNT of the bid. (However, I personally am QUITE IMPRESSED with a successful bid placed a mere 3 seconds B4 the end of the auction!!) We have no idea what CA's MAX bid was, but we DO know it was at least $270 which exceeded your $265 MAX bid. Literally, there can be MULTIPLE snipers bidding on the same item within the last minutes or seconds of an auction, and when all the dust finally settles, it will be the bidder with the HIGHEST MAXIMUM BID that finally walks away with the item.

(What if?) Now if you had planned to AuctionSnipe the item in the last minute or so (instead of the last hour like you did), the high bid would've belonged to JA at ~$238-240. That would've left you & CA lurking, planning on sniping the item in the last minute. With the high bid at $238 at that point, CA MIGHT not have placed a max.bid (say maybe $255?) as high as you(at $265), but then again, he MIGHT have (say maybe $300)! If that were the case, you would have lost regardless . The point of sniping is to avoid letting competitor bidders know you are in the game AND to avoid revealing any information about what your max.bid is until HOPEFULLY there is not enough time left in the auction for a competitive bidder to re-bid to exceed it .

If I've made some errors in my asumptions, deductions, and analysis, hopefully others with more experience will chime in!

Good luck!

Rocky,

Don't take this the wrong way but when I look at a bid history like that.. (full history going back days)when I see someone doing what you did and I think "you big dummy."

The odds are had you sniped you would have won it at that price or even much less.

When you give people 50 minutes to convince themselves they will always rationalize a few more dollars. It is human nature.

Had you popped a high dollar amount at the end, odd are good that not only would you have won but you would have saved quite a few dollars.

By constantly raising you shot yourself in the foot.

After years of watching I've never seen an action with 10 plus bids that did not get any bids in the last few minutes at least.

Unless both you and another guy are both willing to spend WAY more than the market will bare, it just never happens.

Lesson learned huh?

Hi Air!

In all fairness to Speedy, I think Speedy is a Newbie both to Ebay AND AuctionSniping. What better way to learn how effective sniping can be than BEING SNIPED! That lesson will be remembered a whole lot longer than anything we write!

Also, one thing I didn't address or account for in my analysis -- reserve bid. If the max.bid that is set in a snipe does not exceed the reserve, you STILL won't win!

Snipe on!

Jabbergah

Hello, Thanks for the feedback.This first frustrating lost item was the one that sent me here.I did'nt know nothing about sniping and I defineatly know something went terribly wrong. I guess it just boils dowm to the sad fact that I'm a white-trash queen with expensive taste.LOL Iv'e lost 3 out of 4 items I bid on,2 by proxy.If someone is willing to pay more,you're kinda screwed.I guess it's time I either robbed a bank or lowered my ideals(LOL)...or just sat back and waited.They say good things come to those who wait,right?...Patience my ass#*~!!!GGRRLOL speedy or should I say not so swift

I once checked a series of auctions and concluded that the worst time to bid was between 1 hour and 1 minute before auction end. Bids placed during that time were unlikely to win. The most likely times for winning bids were 30 seconds or less before auction end , or over a day before auction end . A minute is long enough to think you can bid a bit more, but you need a few hours to remember how little money is left in your bank account!

HEY!, I just noticed I am no longer a junior!

Congrats!!!!

Hello, After the one stupid move I made with my first 2 auctions I have been studying peoples bidding styles and m.o.s' and it appears to me that you have to come in early witha medium high bid which can sometimes scare people off and save your high maximum for a snipe bid or a manual placed under the last minute. Air was absolutely right when he said, ''When you give people enough time to convince themselves they will always rationalize one more dollar''. According to what I've observed he is right on the money. A lesson learned and good words of advice. Thanks Air Speedy

and vigorously, at that. I maintain, and I think most snipers here would also, that by bidding during the auction, you are publicly showing interest and you increase the chance that someone else will see your interest in the item and bid higher, whether as a proxy bid during the auction or a snipe at the last second.

Far better to have others think they will "win" the item with little or no competition. They tend to bid less that way and are not prepared to come back with a higher bid. And that boldface text is the key to sniping--minimizing the chance that someone will come back with a counterbid.

I agree completely with Chatter! He is right on the money!!

I doubly agree with chatter and Mrs. M. Just set your MAX bid on AS. Then, just wait it out. If you get it for your price, great. If not, well at least you did not over spend. Another one of the gizmos will be along later. You might want to check on the open net what the retail value is. Also what that same item has sold for in the past on ebay. Then you know for sure what you want to bid. When you keep bidding up on ebay you are adding to the price. Just bid on AS and then wait it out. I know it's hard, but I finally learned and boy have I been a happy bidder since. It may hurt your feelings to lose a few. But, if you know for sure the value and set your price based on knowledge. You can not go wrong. In the long run you will be way ahead.

I agree with Chatter too. When I was selling handmade crafts on ebay a couple of years ago, I would pray that my item would get at least one bid within the first few hours. That would guarantee that I'd have nibblers throughout the duration of the auction, which of course would bring the price up. I think the more bids an item has, the more buyers are curious and want to look at it to see what makes it so popular. We snipers look at the item, put it on our watch list and add it to our snipe list. We set our snipe for the end and sit back and wait. If it goes higher than our max., there's usually another auction with the same item not too far behind that one.

Just to confirm. Just set your max bid on AS. Don't keep causing the ebay price to go up. Just sit back and pounce at the last seconds.


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quote:

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originally written by speedy
it appears to me that you have to come in early with a medium high bid which can sometimes scare people off and save your high maximum for a snipe bid or a manual placed under the last minute.

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Not sure how you want to place a 'medium high bid' as your bid will always only go up by one increment above the previous high bid. If you mean a medium high proxy, you will find yourself quite likely in the annoying position of someone testing how high your proxy is, nibbling up your bid. Only if you are afraid that due to no bids having been placed the vendor might pull the auction prior to the end, make an initial ebay bid to 'lock-in' the auction. Otherwise rely on AS and don't even think about any prior bids

Book is so right. Best of luck...


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