Lead times disappointing :(

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This instance is CLEAR PROOF of an auction lost due to the variable lead time policy.

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It's not a policy. It's what we do to ensure bids get placed. We want nothing more than to get a bid in exactly when requested. However, due to many variables on the internet and eBay our bidding system compensates. It's goal is to get your bid in at that time.

If you'll notice this auction ended exactly on the hour. 7pm on a Sunday night. Do you know how many auctions end at exactly that time. A ton. Due to eBays 10 cent fee to let sellers schedule listings. What that means is eBays site gets overloaded with bidders bidding, sellers checking to see the bids, bidders check bids & refreshing the page, etc. Many times the site becomes impossible to get a bid in in the seconds before then. If we bid at 2 seconds before, your snipe, almost for sure would not have even made it.

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Hopefully, a new feature will be implemented which allows us to control the lead times completely.

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That wont be happening. The only thing that would do is make tons of people not have their bids placed. Then you'd see about 100x more complaints here than about bids placed early.

Doing a completed item search on svr-2000 shows an average price of about $165. It would seem to me that if you set up a bid group and put in bids of $165 you would certainly win one for much cheaper than even your max bid on this unit.

Heck, I'd be tempted to sell you my 136 hour SVR-2000 unit for what you bid! Just got a Tivo series 2 Tivo myself, which is soon to be upgraded from 80 hours to 320 hours! So I have one to sell soon. I'm trying to find someone in the office to buy it so I can avoid the eBay fees, and the hassles of shipping something that large.

What I'd suggest is setting up a bid group, sitting back and getting one at a really great price you'll be happy with. Lots of those Tivos go up and they're only going to get cheaper I think. In the next 3-4 weeks Tivo is goign to be putting out some new updates which you need a Tivo Series 2 for, and I think a lot of people will be upgrading and selling ther Series 1 units.

I should be greatful that I won something by 1 second... on this item http://cgi6.ebay.com.au/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=2623565114 but I put the lead time for 3 second. Normally it bids around 3-5 second... 1 second is just too close to death.... o well... hope E-bay upgrade their server... one day, they are milking money in everyday so they should get more and better servers when they do their outagings... Any comments by the support team?

Hi Sara,

Thanks for your quick reply.

However, I find no loss in having this feature for those that want to control the snipe time. It could be activated with a checkbox selection that disclaims any performance guarantee.

Basically, I want to be able to ensure that a bid DOES NOT get placed more ten or so seconds from the end. Having my bid placed 28 SECONDS prior to ending is just not what I consider sniping.

Going back to other posts where others have complained about your 'slogan'... How anyone can even hope to snipe within the last few seconds with any degree of control with this service is beyond me here.

Again, I would like that lead control feature or some type of limiting control for a sniping service (like Do Not Snipe More Than xx number of seconds prior).

Regarding this Sony TiVo auction, this unit was complete, very clean, with original box and foam, included free shipping (under private arrangement), a non-smoking unit, unit never opened or modified, seller had perfect record with 73 rating (with the majority as seller), etc. All in all, it was close to a new unit as could be. That's why I was fond of this unit.

I guess unless I find a better service, manual sniping is the only way to go for items that are important.

Again, other than the lead time issues and some slowness with the site during busy periods, the look and feel of the AuctionSniper.com site is wonderful. Keep up the good work.

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Thank you for the offer of your TiVo. Maybe we could get in touch later and arrange a buy if your TiVo unit is ready to move.

And thank you again for your support.

Sincerely yours,
tjway

That kind of a check box option seems like a great solution, Sara. It could be a perfect compromise: dealing pretty well with the occasional complaints you receive about AS placing bids too early, as well as letting the current system continue to work well for those of us who are more concerned that each of our bids be definitely placed before the end of an auction. Could it work for AS as well?

another box would clutter the interface, and be unclear to new users as to why it's needed.

in addition most people would just check it, then get totally pissed when their snipe got to eBay late. Through no fault of ours.

Believe me. Most snipes of less than 5 seconds do not make it on time in auctions where our system bids early. Checking that box would just end up with us missing upwards of 200 snipes a day and we'd have another 200 people in here complaining each night.

Sara, so am I lucky AS has not missed my snipes yet? hehe. Still un/happy about the 1 second win, too close, far too close... Looks like AS and E-bay need to upgrade servers ...

But if ebay is Goliath (which it is), wouldn't the issue be with ebay? 50,000,000+ (50 MILLIONS) users on ebay. That's unheard of. Does anyone actually expect ebay to be perfect with that kind demand, all the time? Do you think if AS upgrades their servers, that it will have an impact on ebay. DO YOU?

wybb - I think we've had our first argument.

Just wondering... then flame e-bay... They milk the cow until it is dry. ON average, a seller has to give up approx 8% for a normal auction. And they don't upgrade their server... very sad.... o well, then what do you recommend for lead times then Rick/Sara?

wybb,

That's a tough question. Steve has convinced me to use 8 second lead times, and more if it's a "must have" item. Several people use under 5 seconds, and seem pretty happy. But a lot of complaints come from snipers that use 5 seconds or less.

ebay's response time can be pretty bad on Sunday's, especially in the PM (AS does try to compensate for that). Here, Steve recommends 30 seconds. He hasn't convince me on that one, but he has got me up to 15 seconds. The last 5 or 6 Sunday's have been pretty good. Before that, almost every Sunday, you'd see several "This sucks" posts from those that used low lead times.

There's been a bunch of posts on this. A lot of people have left a lot of good ideas. I'd hate to bias you with my opinion. If you use the "search" at the top of this page and search on "seconds", or "lead time", or even "This sucks", you'll get a wide view of opinions.

The two most important questions that a sniper has to answer is: 1) The amount I'm willing to pay? 2) The lead time I'm willing to allow? The 1st one is based on what you value the item; purely personal. The 2nd one is based on experience with sniping. That's why I'd recommend you take the time to go through those other posts. Then you can decide for yourself.

I agree that the lead time should be whatever you're comfortable with, so long as you're prepared to live with the consequences: missing a snipe if you don't allow enough time during a busy period on eBay; tipping your hand prematurely by sniping sooner than you had to. Maybe 30 seconds on a Sunday PM is too much -- Rick notes that the last few Sundays have been less hectic. After all, we have all but the last two minutes of the auction in which to adjust our snipe times, don't we?

Possibly the best way to judge is to go on eBay 10-15 minutes before the end of an auction we have a snipe scheduled on and see just how fast, or how slowly, eBay is reacting to commands. If it takes two minutes to bring up the next screen on a search pattern, for instance, it's probably a sign that more time should be added to a snipe. But one of the reasons a lot of people use AS is that they don't have the time to do things like that.