That’s a good point, and looking over many (not ALL) of the threads about early snipes, they WERE from users that specified the lower lead times.quote:Originally posted by Jabbergah:
It seems AS's auto-lead-time-adjusting feature adversely affects mainly users who set lead times to the little numbers, like 7 seconds or less. I set my leads in the low to mid teens and NEVER recall having my snipe times adjusted to the extremes reported by by the <5 second snipers.
Then again, there’s a possibility that someone that would specify a 15-second lead time wouldn’t be upset, or concerned, about an additional 10 or 15 seconds, whereas someone that specified 3 seconds might be more motivated to start a thread about the extra 10 or 15 seconds. And, for the sniper that specified 15 seconds, a 15-second snipe would be spot on, yet for the sniper that specified 3 seconds, a 15-second snipe could be “unnerving”. The user’s expectations might have some, or a big, influence.
Also, I suspect prices (and rarity) have an impact. It’s possible there would be less competition for a $9 item then for a $900 item, and for the more expensive items it might justify a manual sniper to monitor the end of the auctions more closely, which could encourage a retaliatory snipe. On a $9 item, a competing (retaliatory) sniper might raise the price $1 while on the $900 item another sniper might raise the price $100. A hundred here and a hundred there – it starts to add up. A bidding war is a bidding war (and nibblers are nibblers), whether it’s a war (or nibbling) during the last few days of the auction or the last few seconds.
Probably too many variables on the various ebay auctions to come to any consistent conclusions.