AS enters bid at 11 secs when set to snipe @ 3 secs

Looking back through the archive on this forum I can see that Sara has said that auctions ending exactly at 7pm, 7:15, 7:30 on the nose must be placed early by AS due to the high volume of auctions ending on the hour and at exact quarter/half hours. This is not the case with the auction in question, which ended at 5:05:47 PM.

Sara, you've said that AS bases its snipe times on data collected regarding ebay traffic.

Question - exactly how does AS select which auction snipe times must be extended and by how much? If I am bidding on an auction ending at 7:00pm exactly, will AS extend the snipe time more than an auction ending at 7:08:23pm? Please describe the mechanism by which AS extends the snipe times entered by users.

Thanks
Jeff

It ended on Sunday evening, and that's prime time for ebay. It's recommended to use 15 to 20 seconds. So, although early, that's better than late. A 3 second snipe on Sunday evening is asking for trouble.

This was posted by Sniper Sara B. (AS support) on 4/28/03 at 12:07 AM in response to a similiar question:
It means snipes immeditately before yours took eBay at least an extra 5 seconds to process because eBay was running slowly.
It's meant to keep users from losing snipes because they were late. Which would happen if we didnt do this and eBay kept running slowly.

We cant control eBays speed and they slow up and down all the time. It is most dramatic on Sunday when they are most busy. It is better to do this than to miss snipes completely.

And it's very unlikely that the winning snipe was a manual counter snipe.

If we placed it at 11 seconds than that means the ones right before your took at least that long for eBay to accept them. So a 3 second snipe would have been missed had their slowness continued. Which it usually does.

While you might be glad to miss one here and there most others wouldnt be.

Have you considered that the reason most of your 3 second snipes are working is because we're adjusting them as needed and thus they are not being missed?

Sure, sometimes we'll compensate and eBay will speed back up and your snipe comes in early. 11 seconds instead of 3 in this case. But there would probably be an equal or greater number where if we didnt compenstate your sniper would be missed.

Leave the sniping to us and we're going to get you in at the closest possible time to the one you entered, in the safeest possible way to ensure your snipe isnt late.

Thank you

Sara- pleae describe the mechanism by which AS adjusts snipe times in real time. Give me the step by step as to how the system reads ebay response time and adjusts snipe time from second to second.

Thanks
Jeff

Jeff;

Don't mean to step on anyone's toes here, and sorry in advance if I did.

Hope the following helps. You can ask Sara for more details, but based on her previous response, I don't think she's going to tell you, but it won't be the first time I'm wrong:

Posted by Sniper Sara B. on March 11, 2003 03:54 PM:
There are many unique situations that cause snipes to be late unless sent to eBay much earlier. I dont want to go into them all because they are somewhat of trade secrets. Plus I dont even know them all, just a few that when the programmers tell me make perfect sense

I think "trade secrets" is the operative phrase for your question.

Other snipe systems simply send through test communications to ebay's server just prior to a snipe and then measure the ebay response time. Its not rocket science.

While it is true that on the few occasions that I have missed a snipe I have not been happy, giving my competitors a 10 second period to outbid my snipe is far worse, as this causes losses with far more frequency than an occasional missed snipe. In asking how AS adjusts the snipe time I don't need to see the AS programming code. Just a description of what AS does prior to bidding. Not necessary to reveal trade secrets in the course of describing the bid sequence.

The AS marketing slogan is:
"Bid at the last second, automatically"

There is no mention in the AS documentation of any adjustments made to the snipe time by AS.

What I do find are statements like this:


"Place your bid exactly when you want … seconds before the auction closes."

I'm afraid I agree with Kildes. I prefer to remain in control of the bidding times.

I was at another bidding service before switching to AS. They didn't even allow bids less than 10 seconds before close.

Here's a question you guys might want to think about for a while before answering: if eBay is running slow and AS adjusts the timing of your snipe accordingly, what makes you think that eBay will be any faster for manual re-bidders/snipers? A lag by eBay affects all bidders equally.

Steve -- to reply to your question --

Sara indicates that AS employs proprietary, secret technlogy utilizing data collected on ebay response time to determine the exact time that AS needs to place a bid so as to ensure that it will be accepted by Ebay at the snipe time specified by the user.

If the system were effective, we would not see early bids placed. We'd see our snipes placed at the times specified, with perhaps we'd see a 1 or 2 second margin. However, it is apparent that this secret technology is ineffective. For whatever reason, during peak traffic, the system does not accurately calculate ebay's response time, and enters bids as much as 10-20 seconds prior to the end of the auction, regardless of the snipe time specified by the user.

Any bid entered more than 5 seconds prior to auction closing is not a snipe. Its a bid. It allows other competing bidders to enter last second bids. We snipers are smarter than that. We enter our max amount as a snipe, and rely on the system to deliver that snipe "at the last second, automatically." But other bidders who don't understand the system are watching the high bid amount at the end of tha auction and will bid to beat the high bid.

When AS works as advertised, the snipe is delivered in the last few seconds and the dorks with the stopwatches lose out - they don't have time to react to our snipes.

When AS does not work as advertised and delivers early bids instead of last second snipes, we lose.

AS receives a fee whenever an bid results in a win, regardless of the performance of the system in delivering snipes per user specifications. I have no problem with AS making adjustments to the bid time, provided that my snipes hit ebay accurately, at the last second. Delivering snipes early is the easy way out. Improving the system so as to accurately deliver snipes might be the more difficult path, but it is the RIGHT path.

Perhaps AS should credit any fees on snipes that reach ebay more than 2 seconds ahead of the specified snipe time, win or lose. Now THAT would provide an incentive for AS to fix the bugs and get the snipes delivered accurately.

Jeff

I'm happy with the attempt As is making to see that the bids are indeed placed. I dont see it as aproblem with AS "delivering" the bids but rather a problem with trying to time, split second time, an electronic communication with another server on a huge web.

If ebay does indeed have a slow down at certain peak times then the manual bidders will all have the problem and the AS bids will get in with the submission pushed back a few seconds.

For what it is worth, back in '97 I started saying that ebay needed to go to a 2 or 3 minute "stay of compleation excution". To me it is hands down the fairest treatment for the sellers......and after all it is the sellers that are paying ebays fees.

I understand your complaint about the snipe being placed too early at 11 seconds, every second matters. My snipe was placed with one minute and forty seconds to go. So of course I was out bid. I posted in this forum (See snipe placed way too early)hoping to hear from AS but no response. Any suggestions on getting a response from AS, I feel that I should get some free snipes for this problem.
bisbill

Pardon me for saying it, bisbill, but if you were outbid by someone else then either you didn't bid your maximum amount with your snipe or someone else was willing to pay more for the item than you were. If you didn't bid your max, which is incorporating the proxy bidder mentality into the art of sniping, then you have to accept some of the blame no matter when your bid was placed. If your bid was the most you were willing to pay, well, you were simply outbid. Another item will come along at your price sooner or later.

Turning to your bid being placed a hundred seconds or more before auction close, I am not aware of any case in which AS's attempt to compensate for eBay slowness has extended that far. This is not to say it didn't happen; I just think there must have been additional factors as well. If not, then I certainly agree with you that you should be compensated with one or more free snipes. Would you consider providing the item number so it can be checked out?

I agree with Steve.

Boy, did you miss a lot of fun.

getting bolDER

Steve as I mentioned in my post I have my own post concerning my issue. 3532137645 is the item number. The other bidder was a nibbler and if my bid would have been placed with 5 seconds to go I would have won. I have been on eBay since 1997 and if I am bidding manually I would not have bid until the last minute usually less than 30 seconds. And there would not have been enough time for one bidder to place four bids which is what happened.

The purpose of AS is to get an item at a lower price. Outbid is not the right term here, error on AS is really correct.

I am well aware of bidding my maximum but to see one bidder place four bids until he wins defeats the whole purpose of AS. I might as well have placed my bid in three days earlier.

I still believe AS should give me a free snipe or three.

[This message was edited by bisbill on July 06, 2003 at 09:39 AM.]

Bisbill, I checked it out and I agree that too much time was allowed. How much did you say your lag time was? Could you have entered "100" instead of "10" in the snipe setup? One hundred seconds just seems to be too...too even to be an AS error.

My other point is, why are you disappointed at losing the auction if your snipe bid was your maximum? Whether someone outbid you by nibbling or all in one fell swoop, the fact remains that sandman91b was willing to pay more than your bid amount for that book.

By the way, I admire your courage. I know just enough about electricity to get into trouble.

No i left it at the default of five seconds. My point is that if my snipe went as planned I would have easily won. The whole purpose of AS is to snipe the auction. A few seconds matters which is what the point of the original post was. A minute and forty seconds is an error. Auctions are always filled with "What ifs" but the facts show I would have won this auction if my snipe would have been properly placed. The nibbler was taking at least 13 seconds to bid and was the high bidder when my bid was placed.

Oh, I agree...you would have won if your snipe had been placed more timely. I suggest that you visit http://support.auctionsniper.com/ and request some sort of explanation and/or compensation for the apparent error. (I say "apparent" because there may be some logical explanation which has escaped me. That happens all the time.) In the meanwhile, I'm sure that you'll get another chance to bid on an identical book sooner or later.

In fact, I just looked and eBay #3533534800 is the exact same thing, starting at $12.95. So are #3534516320 and #3534952832 at $9.99 apiece. Good hunting!

Steve that was what I wanted a chance to tell AS. Thanks for the link info.

Hi bisbill....You can rely on Steve's thoughts on that subject.....but anyhow, just for the heck of it I put in "home wiring books" on eBay's search...Up comes 137 items.....two of which are ending in 9-10 hrs today...on Scary Sunday !!! Item # 3533384520 & 3533406843....If A.S. goofed, they will compensate you.....just go back and find/snipe another wiring book...Steve... good to see ya

I have been watching another copy. Already have sniper set. I was just surprised that this happened. First time in twenty snipes.

Steve - at issue is the ability of AS to deliver accurate snipes that are accepted by Ebay at the snipe time indicated by the person paying AS to so do. Many ebay bidders who manually snipe do not understand the system and do not bid their maximum, but instead react to bids by placing higher bids. When the AS system does not accurately gauge the ebay lag time and sends bids to ebay too early, ebay recieves my bid too early, and others have time to view and respond to my bid with a higher bid. A bid that they would have never made had the AS system correctly calculated the time at which my bid would need to be sent to ebay so as to result in a last second bid acceptance. So this is not a matter of bidding the most you are willing to pay.

Kildes,

I had exactly the same problem, my snipe was sent 9 seconds before the end, instead of 4 seconds (see http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3033505777&category=11713&rd=1 ). After reading this post, I may have another explanation : you and I might have been "outsniped", this means that the winner also used AS, but with a higher amount. In the FAQ (http://www.auctionsniper.com/faq.aspx#63), AS claims that if 2 people snipe for the same object, they send both snipes at the same time. My guess is that if ebay is slow, AS sends the snipe that has the higher amount on time and the others (who will be outbidded anyway) a few seconds in advance. Could someone from AS confirm that ? if yes, AS should state it clearly in the FAQ.

Even if our bids had been put on time (4 seconds), they would have been "outsniped" by the other, so there's no regret to have.

One more thing : there is litle chance that the winner could have seen our snipe and send a higher manuel bid, because the maximum amount is never sniped until someone make a higher bid. Lets take my snipe : at 17:10:05 sagebrushi put a bid for $76 at 18:02:11, my snipe is sent and the auctions probably goes up to 77$ (not shown there). Then jr120 make a bid at 79$, thinking he is the highest (he doesn't know that my snipe goes up to $150). Finally the snipe of mas2564 is sent, with a higher amount than mine and he wins.

In your case, I think that when your snipe was sent, the auctions went up to $31.04 (one dollar more that the previous bidder). If aeromoonpye had beed a "manual" bidder, he would have bid $32.04 or something like that (like jr120 for me) and would have been immediately outbidded by you. This was not the case because aeromoonpye sent a snipe with an amount higher that $75 and won the bid.

AS can help you win an auction where people, like jrv120 in my case, manually increase their bids a few dollars each time. But if 2 people use AS for the same object, the higher amount always wins.

[This message was edited by callmejack on July 09, 2003 at 12:03 AM.]

In the case of the "100-second snipe" I agreed that it appeared to be an anomaly. However, you don't seem to be aware that AS varies the preset time for a snipe when its monitoring of eBay bid reaction time indicates that the preset time is likely to be insufficient for eBay to register the snipe bid before auction close. This has been the source of much commentary, a lot of it adverse, over the pros and cons of adjusting a snipe in hopes that it will be accepted in time by eBay versus just submitting the snipe as preset and letting the chips fall where they may. It's a no-win situation for AS, which doesn't make any money if a snipe isn't submitted in time. If AS sends in the snipe with, say, 4 seconds left and it's a busy time at eBay, the sniper is likely to turn up in this Forum breathing fire and demanding to know why his snipe didn't go through. On the other hand, if AS adjusts the timing of the snipe and is successful in getting it through to eBay before auction close, the same sniper is likely to turn up in this Forum breathing fire and demanding to know why his timing was ignored or adjusted.

On balance, I think AS's course of adjusting the timing of a snipe -- within reason, not by a hundred seconds -- is preferable. In any case, it is not correct to say, as callmejack does, that "My guess is that if ebay is slow, AS sends the snipe that has the higher amount on time and the others (who will be outbidded anyway) a few seconds in advance. Could someone from AS confirm that?" I am not "from AS," I'm just a sniper like you folks, but I know that AS is all about submitting snipes, to the exclusion of considerations like "one snipe is higher than the other so that one goes in first." AS does not weigh one snipe against another, or compare to see whether more than one AS subscriber is bidding on the same item. They don't make the servers that could handle that kind of load.

The suggestion has been made that AS could offer its subscriber-snipers the option of indicating whether they want their preset time altered or not. I don't know whether AS could do that, or if they're planning to make that option available at some future time if they can.