quote:
Originally posted by Fredfederlein:
OK - Looking at other posts in the forum here it looks like ebay's
Proxy Bidding function will trump even a 3 Second AS bid in all or
almost all cases. This must explain why I have lost most of my recent
bidding attempts on EBay.
Sniping sends in your maximum bid at a time
when it's too late for anyone whom you topped
to come back and "raise you" a little bit;
it makes you a "surprise raider" instead of blaring trumpets
as you advance, and many a battle has been won by surprise,
even if the enemy had some reserves they could have brought in,
but you took them by surprise and won anyway.
People can't commit all of their troops to all places at the same time;
thus by holding your fire until the last minute,
you can make last-minute decisions which others can't,
having committed themselves too early,
and this agility can be obtained _only_ by using agents,
such as AuctionSniper, external to eBay, or by
"attending in person" at the last minute, to do your own sniping.
If your maximum doesn't top others in any one given auction,
however, the same as if you assault an already-fortified position,
then of course you still don't prevail, but when you assault
by surprise another postion that hasn't been fortified
up to your own strength, there you win.
Sniping also allows you to change your mind
and withdraw, right up to the last moments,
whereas the moment you _secretly_ admit to eBay that you might be willing
to pay up to $1000 for a diamond, say, then you can't lower that ceiling,
even if your currently published bid is only $1.
If the next day you see a better gem, and say "I wish I had
waited, and could switch my money to bid on that one,"
eBay won't let you, although they _should_ allow anyone
to lower their _maximum_ (secret amount) down to their
_current_ bid (revealed to others), on any item, at any time.
The two things which create and motivate the entire "sniping"
business around eBay are that (a) auctions end at a given exact time,
instead of allowing bid raises (by minimum increments) until bidding
pauses for some short time afterwards, while the auctioneer says,
in effect, "Anyone else? Last chance at $475... Going... going... Sold!"
And that (b) as said above, your _secret_ maximum can't be lowered
after you submit it, even if _actual_ current bidding is still way lower.
Technically, each eBay "auction" starts with "open bidding" and ends
with "sealed bidding," which are two formats that have exactly opposite
proper rules and conduct, thus ruining the original independent perfection
of each original pure format. Only eBay's "Live" auctions
are conducted properly, by real auctioneers -- it could
be automated exactly the same way, but just isn't.
It makes no sense to start real open bidding auctions before just
a few minutes before they will naturally come to an end, however,
which is another thing that is obvious in all "live" auctions,
yet mysteriously unrecognized by many ebayers.
It makes complete sense to conduct "closed bidding" auctions
over a week's time, but the only way to do that properly, using eBay,
is for _everyone_ to schedule a "snipe" with a few seconds' lead time
(if some prefer to "show some cards" early, then let them be foolish);
if you study this a long time, you'll come to see all this,
and wonder why eBay never pre-empted snipers by offering a truly
"blind, closed" format itself, in its entire history.
I happen to believe that eBay got this way because it was started
in an amateurish way, without deep appreciation of the subtleties
of different correctly run auction formats, on the part both of its
founders and its clients, and over time the mistakes became
so entrenched that re-doing the right way became politically infeasible,
just like certain unfortunate aspects of modern society
which have become dug in and resist revision.
But now that it is this way, automated (or personal) auction sniping
is the best and most intelligent strategy for buyers, despite the fact
that it takes so long for many of them to deeply understand it,
just as it takes so many decades to fully appreciate and mature
in the total values of life and living.
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