AS no advantage over proxy bids. I despair

This might help:
http://www.auctionsniper.com/products.aspx

To be frank, you are unfortunate because you are in a limited marketplace - i.e. Few bidders.

This means that there is no substitute for gaining a better knowledge of those bidding against you and what they are willing to pay. It looks to me as if you are "out of touch" with what people are prepared to pay.

This may be for two reasons:
1. Your knowledge of current values is faulty
2. Some bidders are willing to pay unrealistic prices.

It could be either - I want a new car hood for my old car and I don't wont to pay £400 for a new one as I want to sell it shortly. So far I have been outbid every time for people willing to pay nearly £300 for one with a short lifespan (old convertible hoods exposed to the sun lose their "plasticity" as they age, so a four year old one, however good it looks has only a couple of years life left)

Now this is their ignorance not mine - a £400 hood three years old is only worth £200!
So how do you win?

In my case if its £300 on ebay, I'm much better off buying a new one at $400!

In your case appraise the market and if its an antique or rare good, there are venues other than eBay (less publicised local auctions perhaps) where you will get the good cheaper.

Look at shops sellng that good - take off 30% (their margin and taxes) - is that the prevailing eBay price? If so, it is you that is out of line with the market.

In that case, you can still win, but you have to try harder - look for mispellings, wrong categories and in places with a less active marketplace. Sorry Lexie, but my happy hunting ground for cheap old cameras is Australia! Watch for sellers that say "country X only" Write to them and ask permission to bid - that way you are going to be proably the only one from abroad bidding.

So you can see, little to do with Auction Sniper, all to do with your evaluation of the market place.

Use AS? Certainly, it prevents getting into "tit for tat" bidding against the dreaded nibblers! Also if its a rare item, you don't show your rivals that you are interested. I find I am competing with certain German & Japanese buyers with deep wallets so I stay out of the fray by using AS as long as possible. Yes, they may have made a very high proxy bid in some cases, but in many, they relax their guard because they don't see others being interested.

Paul

OFF TOPIC WARNING!

quote:

Originally posted by Camera:
I want a new car hood for my old car and I don't wont to pay £400 for a new one as I want to sell it shortly. So far I have been outbid every time for people willing to pay nearly £300 . . .

Now this is their ignorance not mine

Let me see if I’ve got this - they have their hood, you don’t; they can sell their car, you can’t.

quote:

Originally posted by Camera:
It looks to me as if you are "out of touch" with what people are prepared to pay.

Sounds like someone is.

quote:

Originally posted by Rick:
This might help:
http://www.auctionsniper.com/products.aspx

Thanks Rick, but I did read that page when I first signed on and there is nothing there that speaks to any advantage of AS over using proxy bids on ebay. Nor is there any advice for competing against proxy bids that don't get placed until the last second when I snipe.

quote:

Originally posted by Camera:
To be frank, you are unfortunate because you are in a limited marketplace - i.e. Few bidders.

This means that there is no substitute for gaining a better knowledge of those bidding against you and what they are willing to pay. It looks to me as if you are "out of touch" with what people are prepared to pay.

This may be for two reasons:
1. Your knowledge of current values is faulty
2. Some bidders are willing to pay unrealistic prices.

It could be either - I want a new car hood for my old car and I don't wont to pay £400 for a new one as I want to sell it shortly. So far I have been outbid every time for people willing to pay nearly £300 for one with a short lifespan (old convertible hoods exposed to the sun lose their "plasticity" as they age, so a four year old one, however good it looks has only a couple of years life left)

Now this is their ignorance not mine - a £400 hood three years old is only worth £200!
So how do you win?

In my case if its £300 on ebay, I'm much better off buying a new one at $400!

In your case appraise the market and if its an antique or rare good, there are venues other than eBay (less publicised local auctions perhaps) where you will get the good cheaper.

Look at shops sellng that good - take off 30% (their margin and taxes) - is that the prevailing eBay price? If so, it is you that is out of line with the market.

In that case, you can still win, but you have to try harder - look for mispellings, wrong categories and in places with a less active marketplace. Sorry Lexie, but my happy hunting ground for cheap old cameras is Australia! Watch for sellers that say "country X only" Write to them and ask permission to bid - that way you are going to be proably the only one from abroad bidding.

So you can see, little to do with Auction Sniper, all to do with your evaluation of the market place.

Use AS? Certainly, it prevents getting into "tit for tat" bidding against the dreaded nibblers! Also if its a rare item, you don't show your rivals that you are interested. I find I am competing with certain German & Japanese buyers with deep wallets so I stay out of the fray by using AS as long as possible. Yes, they may have made a very high proxy bid in some cases, but in many, they relax their guard because they don't see others being interested.

Paul

Paul, I want to thank you for your thoughtful reply to my lament. You seem to be one of the few contributors to this...community(??) who knows what he is talking about and is willing to share it (instead of smart remarks) with the rest of us rookies. I certainly appreciate your advice about getting more informed about the market rates for these sets. I think my main problem in this area is that it is obvious the folks offering these sets know nothing about chess. They buy these sets at estate sales for next to nothing and then offer them on ebay where a lot of suckers are willing to pay grossly inflated prices for them. Often the buyers are ignorant (of chess) toy collectors who buy the sets for no reason except the fact that the set is old and its box is in good shape or that it is made of Bakelite. Then there is me: someone who loves chess and wants the sets for their aesthetic appeal and how well they play on the board. But I am on a limited budget and unwilling to pay such large prices when I know what the seller paid for them originally. So, I guess my main trouble here is that I am a poor academician with a stubborn streak.

Actually, as you suggested, my few major successes have come either from finding important items whose descriptions lack any of the buzz words that would draw the Big Spenders or from being willing to buy sets that are some how flawed (at least to a toy collector). Needless to say, these purchases have been...satisfying. I have also begun to explore the local market. Yesterday I placed an ad in the local Shopper newspaper saying I would be willing to buy old chess sets.

But what I need to do is research this area more. If necessary, accept the high prices if that's the market (and if I want the item bad enough). And pick my battles. One of the good things about the sets I find interesting is that they were all mass-produced. If I miss one, there is always another one out there just waiting to be found in someone's closet.

BTW, I have been a Tolkein fan since the 60's. Long ago I selected your signature quote as my personal motto. I paid a calligrapher to make a copy of it, I framed it, and it is still hanging on the wall of my office as I write this.

Thanx again

Perludum

quote:

find interesting is that they were all mass-produced. If I miss one, there is always another one out there just waiting to be found in someone's closet.

Perludum, there you have it encapsulated! These are not hand made one offs or distinctive products, they are to be found and I am certain if you exercise a wee bit of "cunning" you will find them!

I collect Kastrup Holmegaard Canada glassware for my sins.


We had some for our wedding present and I was trying simply to replace the two or three broken ones. Little did I know that there were about fifteen different sizes (we just had three!)

The answer was not in the States - they regularly go for $80 or $90 a set of six.

I have managed to buy them in Australia much cheaper. Why - I buy the twos & threes that come up. Still have a lot of odd glasses, but slowly but surely the sets are coming together. I regard 8 - 12 as a set, but will buy one of a design, because just round the corner is another.

I have also bought boxes for cameras, then aquired the camera. So why don't you look for part sets? A missing Rook or Queen must really devalue them. In the end you will find the missing piece. It will mean a lot of part sets, but in the end you will have a complete one.

Anway my best tip is "Australia only" auctions!

Paul

I have finally acquired aIsle of Lewis chess set many years after reading the story of how they came to be found.

A snipe is a last minute bid, generally placed in the last minute or, most commonly, in the closing seconds of an auction. This can be done manually, with you sitting in front of your computer, bidding at the last second, or it can be done via software, such as Auction Sniper. The point is to get a high bid in, giving others little time to respond with a counterbid.

If someone else makes a higher bid earlier in the auction, that person will win, because he bid the highest. That is how auctions work. The point here is that you have no way of knowing what his high bid (proxy bid) really is; you only know that he bid at least enough to be on top. For example, if bidder A bids $42 and bidder B bids $75, while the auction is still going on, you will see bidder B listed as the high bidder at $43, which is one bid increment over the next-highest bid of $42. You know that B bid more than A, but you do not know how much. If the auction ends like that, B will win for the same $43 price and you will never know what his max really was.

Let us say that bidder C comes along and bids $61. Bidder B will still win, but he will be listed as winning for $62, since much more of his proxy bid was used up to keep him as top bidder, by placing him one increment (in this case, a dollar) above the second-highest bidder, C.

Why snipe? Because many people do not bid their max. Trying to get a good price, they tend to bid just enough to become or stay the high bidder. They do not bid what they are REALLY willing to pay until someone else comes along and outbids them; only then will they bid higher. Sometimes this cycle goes back and forth, with two or more bidders (called "nibblers") continually outbidding each other, in an expensive game of one up-manship. But these same nibblers tend to leave their bids alone if no one else outbids them.

That is where snipers come in. Bidder X may have bid $25 on an item, but will go higher if someone outbids him. He may go up to $100 if he feels he has to, in order to win, but leaves his bid at $25, thinking he is somehow getting a better deal. He overlooks the fact that if he bids the $100, he will not pay that amount, unless other bidders push the auction price up that high. So along comes bidder Y, a sniper, who bids $50 in the last seconds and wins for $26! There is no time for bidder X to come back and raise his bid. He is upset, because he knows that he would have been willing to go higher. Additionally, he does not know that bidder Y's max was $50--all he sees is that he lost the auction for one dollar. You see, there is a strong emotional component to bidding, and we snipers try to avoid that as much as possible, because it is not a positive aspect of the bidding process. It is the emotional component that causes people to bid much higher than they had planned.

Does sniping work every time? No. There is no magical was to guarantee a win. But eBay is replete with bidders who nibble and do not observe or analyze their own bidding behaviors, and that is why we snipers tend to win. Heck, many of these bidders do not even HAVE a maximum amount in mind, which is why they continue to bid and rebid; they get caught up in the drama and excitement of the auction as it progresses. Many of these are new eBayers, though you would be shocked at how many veterans act the same way. Consequently, we have a very high success rate--mine approaches 98%, with all of my losses going to higher bidders who were willing to pay more than I was.

The key is to decide the ABSOLUTE max you will pay, set your snipe through AS, and leave it at that. They will take care of the rest. Do not obsess about getting the very last bid in--at three seconds, instead of eight--just decide what the "I will pay this and not a penny more" amount is and stay with it. It is more important that your bid get in at the end, than it is to risk your bid not reaching eBay in time by trying to do one, two or three-second snipes. (If someone else bids that late in the auction--less than fifteen seconds remaining--he is another sniper and was probably going to bid at that point, regardless of whether or not you had bid, so do not get unnerved by that.) This is why it is important to bid your absolute maximum. Most of the time you will find that your max does not get reached and you will get your win at a good price. When you do lose, it will not be because you did not bid your max; you will simply have been outbid—whether by another sniper or by someone who bid much earlier in the auction—but you will know that someone else was willing to pay more.

Most of us tend to use a 5-10 lead time. We also bid unusual amounts, such as $25.83 instead of $25.00 even, as occasionally we end up winning auctions where others bid even dollar amounts or just one cent over the dollar, which is also a fairly common occurrence.

Good luck to all!

I use a snipe engine for several reasons.
1. I am not always near a computer when an auction is ending, or am busy with a customer at that time, or -- I JUST PLAIN LOST TRACK OF TIME OR FORGOT!! darn$@&^%(*&!^%darn
2. If I place a proxy bid there are always some nibblers that may not want the item but get some perverse joy out of costing ME more or "helping" the seller get more money for it. AS takes care of that in a really good way. AS also keeps me from getting into the auction "I can't let someone beat ME" mentality and I end up being stupid.
3. I use group bids much of the time, usually ending up winning what I want so cheap even I can't believe it, even tho most of the items go for much more than I want to pay.
4. No one can push up the bid to find out my max and then retract. It does not happen often, but it has happened to me.
5. So, in my opinion, AS beats proxy bidding hands down. Saves me money, gets most of my bids in (I set 9 seconds on a weekend and my snipe was to late - my fault, not AS problem) and on some items no one has any idea that I am watching the item or that I even care.
Sooooo AS ids the way to Goooooo

A most sensible post, Mr. Graham, and welcome!

I snipe for two reasons. One is to take advantage of people's tendency to not figure out what their real high bid would be until someone puts in competitive bid. Since I could do the same thing if I had time to sit at my computer every time I want to bid on something, this seems competitive but not unfair.

What actually drove me to AuctionSniper, though, was being bothered by how often I won the item, but at my very top bid. I know it seems paranoid to think that somehow sellers were able to figure out my high bid and put in phony bids to make the sale at my high bid price. Some cases seemed obviously to involve phony bids (shills), although proving that is something else. Maybe I was only the victim of one of those random strings of events that look meaningful. I particularly noticed this problem when I would make bids at some odd number (like $101.37) and that turned out to be the winning price. Anyway, since I started using AuctionSnipe, ... no problemo. (Maybe I should see a psychiatrist and get some meds.)

quote:

Originally posted by HappySniper:
I know it seems paranoid to think that somehow sellers were able to figure out my high bid and put in phony bids to make the sale at my high bid price.

I think that with ebay’s increments, and if one is willing to nibble a proxy bid one increment at a time, there’s about a 50% chance of disclosing the full proxy bid without becoming the high bidder. That’s an “I think” – it might be wise to wait for conclusive proof of that theory from one of the Einsteins.

quote:

Originally posted by HappySniper:
(Maybe I should see a psychiatrist and get some meds.)

I’m not paranoid, but I do worry that the psychiatrist will try to poison me.

I've always sniped and for all the reasons AS talks about. When I lose it's always because either I screwed up timing-wise or someone else was willing to pay more. Sniping works. It helps minimize bidding frenzies and excitment that can lead to emotional over bidding by certain types of people. AS isnot going to work miracles; it's just going to put in your well thought out, pre determined max you're willing to pay at a late enough moment to not contribute to emotional reactions on the part of other bidders. If soemone else is willing to pay and has entered a higher max than you then he'll win anyway; there's no getting around that. I belive in sniping and I like AS because it snipes for me when I'm at work or otherwise away from the computer and can't do it myself.

quote:

Originally posted by Rick:

quote:

Originally posted by HappySniper:
I know it seems paranoid to think that somehow sellers were able to figure out my high bid and put in phony bids to make the sale at my high bid price.

I think that with ebay’s increments, and if one is willing to nibble a proxy bid one increment at a time, there’s about a 50% chance of disclosing the full proxy bid without becoming the high bidder. That’s an “I think” – it might be wise to wait for conclusive proof of that theory from one of the Einsteins.

quote:

Originally posted by HappySniper:
(Maybe I should see a psychiatrist and get some meds.)

I’m not paranoid, but I do worry that the psychiatrist will try to poison me.

What some unscrupulous sellers have been known to do is to have a third party reveal your max by deliberately over bidding 'til they're on top and then cancelling their bid afterwards. Then a forth party can deliberately bid just below your now known max thereby taking you for top dollar. This is one more good reason to snipe.
(Oh, and by the way; psychiatrists & their drugs do nothing but make society worse. They have NO workable answers.)

quote:

Originally posted by HappySniper:
What some unscrupulous sellers have been known to do is to have a third party reveal your max by deliberately over bidding 'til they're on top and then cancelling their bid afterwards. Then a forth party can deliberately bid just below your now known max thereby taking you for top dollar.

I may have misattributed that quote, but that is an excellent reason for sniping.

To me the BEST reason is that active early bidding is a telltale indicator that there's a LOT of interest in an item. The perception of value is often what determines prices paid. And if there's lots of demand for an item, its perceived value increases. The presence of many bids is like a billboard that says: "Everybody wants this widget!" So the maximum amount people are willing to pay tends to increase, because a) they're more likely to perceive the item as being popular and therefore valuable, and b) they figure that a bigger crowd increases the likelihood of there being someone out there with deep pockets and strong desire. Especially in the thinly traded market where I trade, even one additional bid adds to that perception.

The opposite is true of few bids showing: Nobody want's this thing, so perceived values - and maximum bids - remain low.

By sniping, I avoid bringing public attention to my interest in an item. On the whole, I think less early bidding activity keeps down prices paid. That's why I snipe.

Of course, when everybody snipes, this advantage will be lost, because nobody will bid early.

Tom

The value of AS was confirmed for me the other day, when I inadvertently put in an eBay bid a day or so before the end of an auction, instead of an AS bid, on an item I was interested in. The amount was my high bid, so I didn't change it.

Sure enough, 18 seconds before the end of the auction, another bidder placed a bid that was £1 below my high bid. So, I was still high bidder, but just two seconds before the end of the auction, the same bidder placed a bid that was (at least) £1 higher than my high bid, and promptly won the auction.

The point is, if my eBay proxy bid had not been stupidly sitting there, doing nothing, the other bidder would have most likely simply bid once, at his (then) top price, which was (we know) £1 lower than my high bid. But if I had sniped, as I had planned, my AS high bid would have been placed a few seconds before the end of the auction, and the eventual winner would not have been able to increase his bid in response. Oh, well.

Ciao,

nobayuk
London, UK

Well, you obviously haven't thought it through. Bob puts in a proxy EB bid at $25 when the item is at $1
bid stands at $1
You put EB proxy at $20
Bid jumps to $21, to Bob
You bid $30
Bid jumps to $26, to you.
Bob bids $35
Bid jumps to $31, to Bob.
You bid $40
Bid jumps to $36, to you.
You are actively bidding so you are actively driving the price up. You may still win, but you get caught up in bidding and will bid much more than you otherwise might. The item sells to you for $36, rather than to Bob at $25 if you'd used AS at $20.

With AS, you make a decision on max bid and walk away. If you are upset when you lose the item at $1 over your bid, you think, I should have bid $2 more. But you have no idea if the other person's proxy was $1 or $100 more. With AS, other bidders can't bid up to find your max, with EB proxy they just keep bidding til they pass it, and so you raise it to stay in the game.
Your choice: Make that AS decision and accept that you may lose, or put in a proxy knowing that someone out there may outbid you just for competition's sake, and if you do get it you'll pay more. Your call.

Thanks, I've been waiting more than four years for you to drop by and share with us your pearls of wisdom...

(And who is "Bob"?)

It all depends on the present market situation and how you do the bid?

quote:

Originally posted by nobayuk:
Thanks, I've been waiting more than four years for you to drop by and share with us your pearls of wisdom...

(And who is "Bob"?)

I don't know who Bob is, but I took advantage of the resurrection of this ancient thread to fix a spelling error in the old version of my bidding primer.

quote:

Originally posted by Chatter:
... but I took advantage of the resurrection of this ancient thread to fix a spelling error in the old version of my bidding primer.

Finally! You have no idea how long I’ve agonized over that.

quote:

I don't know who Bob is, but I took advantage of the resurrection of this ancient thread to fix a spelling error in the old version of my bidding primer.

Well, it's about time!

In all seriousness, your primer remains as the most worthwhile reading on this site for anyone new to sniping. You are to be commended for taking the time to create such a fine summary of the whys and wherefores of sniping.

Hey Chatter, your compliment-trolling “post” worked!