Reply to "Why doesn't ebay offer sniping?"

quote:

Originally posted by Fact-giver:
Ok, it's not a sniping system. It's as effective as, if not more effective than, a sniping program for eBay's purposes: Allowing people to say how much they are willing to pay, then walk away from their computer.

I think you fail to grasp the essential point. In a sense, the two options (placing a bid early and relying on proxy bidding, versus "sniping" either automatically or manually at the last minute) can tend to arrive at a similar result--but ONLY in a world where there are no nibblers (as well as no people checking up on other ebayers' bids, and other assumptions, but set them aside). Yet there ARE nibblers, an endless supply of them. Given this, it is simply foolish to place a bid earlier as opposed to later, regardless of the proxy bidding feature. Your conclusions only make sense in an idealized world where all or most ebayers can be assumed to have pre-conceived, fixed valuations and preferences and act based purely on them. They don't.

Basically I don't think you have a clear idea of what you are talking about. You are commenting on "sniping" without even understanding WHY PEOPLE WOULD USE a service like Auctionsniper. You might have assumed there is some rational reason for using thIs AS service, which is cheap but not costless.