Lead Time and Proxies

bradwatt: WELCOME to the forum!

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Is it right to say that an ebay proxy bid (if it is higher than your max snipe bid, and conforms to the minimum bid requirement) will always win the auction?

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Yes, Always.

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wouldn't proxy bidding be the best way to participate in the auction up to your maximum bid, instead of sniping

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No. The fact is most (or at least many) don't bid their max. They wait to get outbid before comming back and bidding again. By sniping at the last possible moment, they don't have the chance to respond to your snipe. Even if they do bid their max, you gain nothing by an early proxy bid at eBay as long as you enter your true, real, ablosute max snipe amount.

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you have the possibility of winning the auction with a lower proxy bid compared to your snipe?

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Not sure what you mean here. Placing a snipe (except for the timing) is just like bidding at eBay. The snipe AS places for you IS a proxy bid, it's just placed at the last possible moment.

HI and WELCOME.

The highest bidder will win. That is the way of any auction. The reasons for using AS as your max bid are many. I will try to give you some.

If you change your mind because you found a better item (or you just got one as a gift), you can cancel your you bid up to 2 minutes ahead.

If you put your max as on Ebay, what will happen is the prices will keep going up as people try to win the item (nibbling the price up.) So your max bid is not going to be a secret for long.

You can use the bid group folder system to keep bidding on the same gizmo at your price. Sooner or later you will win one of those gizmos at your price witihout having to take the chance of winning more than one of them.

There is the fun of this forum and the great people on it.

I am sure that many will have more comments and reasons.

BEST OF LUCK snipping.





"Shop" and My Snipes

Thanks for the feedback.

"if you are going to win the auction, (ie. you have the highest max bid), you have the possibility of winning the auction with a lower proxy bid compared to your snipe?"

Here I was using "proxy bid" meaning Ebay's proxy bid system (and will continue to do so below).
To further clarify:
To generalize, people buy on Ebay for 2 reasons:
1) To get a bargain
2) To buy something that is difficult to get (rare)
These two reasons actually are the same once you factor in supply and demand.
So if people are using Ebay to obtain a bargain, their utility (enjoyment) of that bargain, is larger, the lower price they pay for it. If they are using Ebay to obtain something rare, cost is less of a factor, but still, the lower the price the higher the utility.

By sniping the item, they lock in either their lowest definition of "bargain" for the item or their maximum valuation of the "rare" item.
This would make sniping a better proposition for rare goods than bargain goods (subject to the buyers definition of value).
But, if a higher proxy bid is always going to beat a snipe bid, then purchasing "rare" goods, using snipes, is surely flawed, as you will always pay too much (if you win) compared to what you would have paid if you had won through proxy bidding.
This is magnified if purchasing goods due to their "bargain" nature. Again, if won, proxy bidding would produce a lower cost, and therefore
a greater bargain.

Of course, here I am assuming that your greatest competitor is using Ebay's proxy bidding, but if the item is a real bargain, or very rare, why wouldn't they?
I can see that if there are no bids, or maybe one bid, on an item, that sniping is probably the best method to obtain the item at the lowest cost, assuming that no one else has the same idea (with a higher bid!)


Am I right, or is there a hole in my logic?

Cheers!

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Am I right, or is there a hole in my logic?

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There IS a hole.

I think you misunderstand how AS works. If you enter a snipe for $100, that's what AS bids. It is accepted by eBay as a proxy bid. The only difference between bidding early on eBay and through AS is the timing.

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But, if a higher proxy bid is always going to beat a snipe bid

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Yes, but a higher snipe bid will always win over a lower proxy bid. You can't assume my snipe is going to be lower than your max.

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you will always pay too much (if you win) compared to what you would have paid if you had won through proxy bidding.

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Why? Both are proxy bids. A snipe is just placed in the last seconds of the auction.

AS is not magic. Highest bid wins. Using AS allows you to bid and minimize the chance of someone else countering your bid. (which happens quite often in early bidding) That's the only advantage. The disadvantage is you only get one shot, so your max snipe should be your REAL max.

You seem to be missing two minor but significant points here.

One is that a bid through AS *IS* a proxy bid. AS logs in to your ebay account in the last few seconds of the auction and places a proxy bid for you, just as you would if you did it manually. eBay can't tell the difference.

The second point is that when your bid goes in to ebay, whether it's a snipe placed through AS or a bid placed directly on ebay, it's instantly compared to the current high-bid. There is no time delay -- ebay automatically and instantly calculates all of the increments and raises the two bids, one against the other, until one of them runs out. When AS places your bid, ebay accepts and calculates it in exactly the same manner it does if you place the same bid directly on ebay.

So if the current high bid is $25, but that bidder has a hidden proxy bid of $40, and you place a bid through AS of $50, you will win for $41.

The advantage of bidding in the last few seconds of the auction is that the other bidder will (hopefully) be taken by surprise, and not have time to come back and enter another bid. The disadvantage is that if your snipe-proxy is less than his existing proxy, you won't have time to enter another one. That's why we say make sure you enter the highest amount you're willing to pay.

You may still get a bargain (and of course we all hope we do) because the current winner might not have been expecting your bid. But the point is to WIN.

There are two phrases that get repeated over and over on these forums, and both of them seem to apply to your questions. One is "Remember it's not the LAST bid that wins, it's the HIGHEST". The other is "Nibblers bid for a bargain and hope for a win -- Snipers bid for a win and hope for a bargain".

Hope this helps.