quote:That’s true, but you also increase your chance of someone else doing the same thing to you – increasing their maximum bid. If you are willing to increase your max bid when someone outbids your proxy bid, why not snipe that increased amount and reduce the chances of starting a bidding war, or the dreaded attack of the Nibblers?
Trying not to waste the forum's time, I searched "nibblers" on the forum, and have been browsing posts. There's a whole philosophy of strategy (with sometimes some strong moral opinions) involving nibbling, double bidding, sniping, and so forth--is there a reference other than the AS FAQ, which I've read, that can clue me in? It seems that the "nibblers" are following the strategy appropriate to a live auction with bids from the audience only (like some farm sales) and the "snipers" are espousing the strategy mandated as a response for a call for tenders?
My original puzzlement still is stalled on a point of logic:
First puzzlement: E-bay's site says that says that using the proxy means that it keeps bidding by increments as other bidders put in their bids until the proxy max is reached. If my AS snipe wasn't entered until an hour after the winning post, how could my snipe have triggered that incremental proxy bid? E-bay supposedly bids on the proxy in response to real time bidding and they shouldn't have seen my AS snipe until it was placed. The chances that another eBay proxy bidder chose exactly the same oddball amount as I did is pretty slim?
Second puzzlement is a seeming contradiction between how I understand AS' explanation of "Bid too low" and what happened in this auction. If the winner's proxy bid was $33.57 at 5pm, how come AS sniped $32.57 at 6pm? While the notice on MySnipes said "Bid too low" which is supposed to indicate according to the explanation link that "Your snipe could not be placed because your maximum bid was below the current minimum bid," eBay history shows that the snipe was actually placed with eBay.
How do others respond to the "Bid too low" message on the MySnipe board when they see it before the max is locked in?
Apologies if this information is available in obvious places that I have missed. I am not complaining, just trying to understand how all of these things tie together.
Thank you.