my 6 second advance "snipes" are sitting ducks

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Can someone please fix this immediately?

AS measures ebay’s response time and pads the lead time accordingly. Obviously they don’t always get it spot on, but the theory is it’s better to bid early than late. So, it’s a judgment call. Those that agree with it, stay with AS; those that don’t are “outa here”. You could always file a complaint using this:
http://support.auctionsniper.com/


(HEADS UP) In the off chance a user with the ID of “region2” should tell you that it’s impossible to react to a snipe within 6 seconds, you might want to consider that region2 also thinks it’s impossible to react to a snipe within 50 seconds. Hopefully, he’s the only one on this planet that thinks like that.

back in 1998 I had one computer refreshing every second and sniped manually in the last one to 2 seconds on a second computer. I would not have a chance to change my bid to outbid someone unless there were at least 3-4 seconds lead time. It was easy, and fun, and nobady could reference my bid to outbid me. they could outbid me of cours, but not after seeing my bid. that's all that mattered to me. I knew that max that I would pay and I wanted to bid that amount, but not early enough to encite a counterbid.

For the last several years, auctionsniper has consistently placed bids at 3 seconds as requested. Now, auctionsniper places bids at 6 seconds, which is among the longest snipe times in the industry.

if auctionsniper's system is doing this as the result of monitoring ebay response times, then auctionsniper's system is clearly misjudging the response times, and badly so. if the purpose of the system is to measure response times, then the adjusted lead time should compensate for the lag time, but no more than necessary, which would result in consistent 3 second snipes. That is not happening. Something is wrong.

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which is among the longest snipe times in the industry.

Maybe yes; maybe no. I’m not aware of any reputable research that has been published on the subject.

Along with the earlier snipes, I would encourage one to analyze the frequency of snipes being placed too late. Unless one actually experiences that with a competitive sniping service, or the service has a forum, which makes for more exposure of snipes being placed too late, then it might be difficult to do an accurate comparison. But, if the consistent placement of 3-second snipes versus 6-second ones is more important to the user than avoiding the snipe being too late, AS might not be the best service provider for that user.

Rick, I doubt that there has been any research on this topic, other than it being easy to test almost any other service and watch as 3 second snipes go through time after time.

My question -- and I have yet to receive an answer that makes sense to me --- is:

If the auctionsniper system is constantly testing ebay response times and compensating for those response times, that compensation should result in the bid being placed at the correct time, not at 6 seconds, correct? if a user has set a snipe time of 3 seconds, and if the auctionsniper system tests the ebay response time in real time and identifies a lag of 3 seconds, the auctionsniper system should place the bid at 6 seconds, which results in ebay entering the bid at 3 seconds, which is exactly what the user requested. Instead, auctionsniper appears to be routinely entering bids early no matter what time of day or night it is, no matter what the ebay response time is, which results in an overcompensation of 3 seconds, which is eons in ebay sniper time. Before I started using auctionsniper several years ago I used other services and applications that would test ebay response time just second prior to the bid and then would place the bid with appropriate compensation to result in a bid at the time set by the user. I switched to auctionsniper because i liked the browser plugin. If auctiosniper's answer is that auctionsniper cannot accurately determine ebay response time for each bid and thus will add 3 seconds to the user's bid, then many users will be looking at other services. I could understand an occasional early bid, or a +/- 1 second average performance, but consistent +3 second performance is nuts and is not what your users expect. Apologies for the typos in my earlier message. not proofreading these.

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other than it being easy to test almost any other service and watch as 3 second snipes go through time after time.

I think it would require more effort than that to determine an “industry standard”.

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If the auctionsniper system is constantly testing ebay response times and compensating for those response times, that compensation should result in the bid being placed at the correct time, not at 6 seconds, correct?

No. Think about what it would take to test the response time, and how to go about it. The “test” (whatever it is) would have to be done enough in advance of the end of the auction to allow enough time to actually do the test and to adjust the lead time as a result of the test. If ebay sometimes (maybe rarely) has a 20 second response time to place a bid (or maybe 10 seconds), then to be safe the test would have to be done 43 seconds before the end (20 seconds to test, + 20 seconds potential adjustment, + 3 seconds to satisfy the user’s desired lead-time). Well, 20 seconds later and the response time could be 3 seconds, or 8 seconds, or 1 second, or who knows. If the intent is to avoid not-in-times, then all this, and all kinds of other things that only someone that actually programs this would think about, has to take place. It’s a no-brainer (or a less-brainer) to take the end time and place the snipe minus the specified lead time and hope ebay and everything else is doing what is optimal. Since all this response time is very fluid, I’m surprised AS gets it within 3 seconds. Perhaps they always pad their test results with an extra 3 seconds just to accommodate Murphy.

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then many users will be looking at other services.

Maybe yes; maybe no. You do have a tendency to make statements that you can’t verify. The only thing you can be sure of (usually) is what you’ll do.

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but consistent +3 second performance is nuts and is not what your users expect.

Again, maybe yes; maybe no. I think that if that were the case, there would be more users on the forum beating on this issue as you have for several years.



This is a judgment call. If you think the extra 3 seconds makes you vulnerable to another sniper “reacting” (their usage of a sniping service is not “reacting”) to your snipe, then you have to either decide that AS isn’t the right service for you, or every couple of years or so getting on the forum and rehashing this. I suppose the third option is to continue to use AS knowing that your snipes might/probably be placed 3 seconds early without the rehashing? Of course, if you like to periodically debate this, then I’m your guy.

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Originally posted by Rick:
or every couple of years or so getting on the forum and rehashing this.

Kildes,
If this is what you decided to do, be sure to put a reminder in your calendar for sometime in May 2011.

Interesting!....

Traffic on this board is so skimpy, Rick is now quoting and responding to himself!

Give it some time - soon I'll start to disagree with myself. Then I'll get upset with me and put me on my Ignore List.

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Originally posted by Rick:
Give it some time - soon I'll start to disagree with myself.

I disagree!

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Originally posted by Rick:

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Originally posted by Rick:
or every couple of years or so getting on the forum and rehashing this.

Kildes,
If this is what you decided to do, be sure to put a reminder in your calendar for sometime in May 2011.

Rick I think that you quoted yourself there. Looking at all of my snipes over the last month, auctionsniper consistently places the bid at exactly 6 seconds when I have a 3 second lead time. whether day or night, and regardless of the level of ebay traffic or response time. Appears to be a hard coded 3" buffer, not any sort of automated determination. Regardless, the 3 second bids are placed at 6 seconds regardless of other variables. About an industry standard, I agree that there is none. However, you can go to any other snipe service and use your initial free snipes, and you'll see your bid placed within 1 second of your specified snipe time. Not an industry standard. just a fact. Instead of promoting itself as capable of delivering 3 second snipes (which would require an automated determination of the required buffer time prior to each bid), and instead of allowing users to enter a snipe time of 3, AS should just be upfront with users and state that the minimum snipe time is 6 seconds, and should prohibit users from entering anything less than that in the snipe time field. At the present time, that's just wishful thinking.

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Originally posted by Kildes:
AS should just be upfront with users and state that the minimum snipe time is 6 seconds

(Deja Vu): “Maybe yes; maybe no. You do have a tendency to make statements that you can’t verify.”

So much for the 2-year schedule.