I Did'nt Win the Item.....WAAAAAAHHHH!!!

Hi Speedy,
Can you give us the auction number for the snipe you lost so we can have a look and see what happened??

That will help in our replies as you seem to have a pretty good handle on lead times

Welcome to the forum and we hope to see more of you

Lexie

We all get outbid sometimes, but that's just life on eBay.
I usually leave an 8 second lead time, unless the auction ends on the hour, half hour, or quarter hour. A lot of auctions end then, so you'll need a longer lead time since the circuits tend to slow down with all the last minute bids going in at those times. I usually use 20 seconds, but someone else may come along and advise another lead time. Sunday nights are the craziest of all, and I usually leave something like 35 seconds, maybe a little more if it ends on the hour, quarter hour, or half hour.
Chances are good that AS will snipe it for you at a little different lead time than what you requested. That's because their equipment can tell if eBay's circuits are backing up and taking longer or if everything's going smoothly. It's doing you a favor and helping to make sure your snipe gets placed.
And if you do get outbid, remember that there are always more items out there, and even a lot of the rarer things eventually show up on eBay again.
Just snipe with the maximum you're willing to pay. That way if you are outbid, you won't regret not having bid more to try to win the item.

Hi Guys! Thanks for your quick reply and help.The auction I lost last night was#2568618705.I am set up tonite for an auction that ends at07hr02m25s with only 1 other registered bidder through e-bay.What's a good lead time for this?Thanks Large!!! Best Wishes...lil' miss speedymcfee

Hi Speedy! I'm no expert, but when it comes to these auctions, you need to snipe with a bid amount that is the MAXIMUM you are willing to part with for the item. Just think, "If I was outbid by $1, would I be willing to bid another $2 to get the item?" If so, keep bumping up your bid amount to the point that the answer to that question is, "NO!" You basically want your reaction to a lost auction to be, "Wow! I'd never pay THAT much for that item!" rather than, "Oh nuts! I would've paid that amount & more for that item!"

In the case of the item for which you listed the item number, the winning bidder place his LAST bid about 35 seconds before the end of the auction (it probably was placed manually). Your sniped bid was placed about 10 seconds before the end of the auction. (BTW, that's not a bad lead time. Personally, I set lead times from 9 to 15 seconds.) You were outbid "by proxy" by the bidder that placed his bid BEFORE you. What this means, his maximum bid was higher than yours. E-Bay automatically incrementally increases the bid amount up to an amount that exceeds the next-to-the-highest maximum bid as long as the amount is less than the maximum bid. Maybe he wanted the item much worse than you! For all we know, maybe his bid was $10000 , which means he would've outbid you by proxy no matter what your bid was up to and including $10000 unless your maximum bid amount was $10001!

I hope this makes sense. The short answer is just to bid the highest amount that that you can afford/are willing to pay for an item. That way you'll have fewer regrets when you are outbid .

Good luck! - Jabbergah

Hi Again Speedy,
Hopefully Rick or Chatter will have a look at your bid history and help out. I am still a little green at analysing bid history.

I usually just use the default lead time of 5 secs on most things, but being from Australia - we dont seem to have the problem with Sunday nites that you guys do

Lexie

Well said Jabbergah

With responses like that we will hope to see much more of you around here

Lexie

Wow! Thanks, Lexie!

I appreciate your appreciation!

- Jabbergah

I use 5 seconds for everything and I don't know I've ever missed. I personally would never dream of 20 seconds but that is just me.

I think I went 8 seconds on something I really did not want to miss. At 20 seconds you give the "creepers" time to bid again.

I seem to remember years ago one of the AS people put up a stat that something like 98% of all snipes at 5 seconds made it. Maybe if they have that data they could share.

dunno maybe other people's milage varies.

Hi Air!

I used to routinely use a 5 - 8 second lead time and once or twice had a "Could not place snipe" result which I assumed to mean there was not enough time during a high traffic moment. Since then, I've usually used 9-15 seconds lead time and haven't had a repeat on missed bids.

Snipe on!

jabbergah