Why not this..... ???

Guest

Okay. I know you can pay for additional snipes. I also know you can earn them by refering people.

So why not this...

Advertising 'Auction Sniper' in your auctions in exchange for free snipes. I've tossed around the idea of advertising 'Auction Sniper' in my auctions. I've been trying to consider the pros and cons of doing so. One 'con' might be scaring away bidders who don't want to snipe and who would assume a sniper will get the item. Another con might be that people tend to pick more 'reasonable' max bids when their not in the heat of a bidding war and therefore the chances of getting an outrageous price for an item might be decreased.

On the other hand... I think it would increase the number of bids overall.

Anyone have any ideas regarding this subject?

2/13/032:02 PM

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Rick (Guest)

I'll probably get a bunch of flack on this, but I'm of the opinion, that overall, sniping causes auctions to close at lower ending prices.

1) Why do we pay a fee to have automated snipes, unless we think we're more apt to get the item at a lower price?

2) Snipers say they snipe to avoid bidding wars. Bidding wars tend to raise the selling price. That's why we want to avoid them. Yes, I've had a few, just a few, auctions close at a higher than expected price because another sniper and myself placed high snipes. But, I think I would have increased my bid had I known of the other sniper, especially if it's someone I've "lost" to in the past. I know I should decide what I'm willing to pay, but before I started sniping, I'd get caught up in the heat of the moment. Sniping has helped me get over that. That's good for me, but not necessarily good for the seller.

3) I started sniping because of bid retractions. I'm in a small ebay niche and I was usually the highest bidder in the auctions that I placed a bid. By placing proxy bids, I got the feeling I was being stalked or that bid retractions were from shills. Anyone can bid anything they want and retract their bids as many times as they want, and ebay seems to ignore it unless someone complains, and then they only issue a warning. All you need do is claim your juvenile child placed an unauthorized bid.

2/13/032:41 PM

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HawkEye (Guest)

We seem to be thinking the same way...

"By placing proxy bids, I got the feeling I was being stalked or that bid retractions were from shills. " - Rick

Excellent point. No one likes to be the first to "show their hand".

I'm both a buyer and seller and when I'm selling I get a lot of requests to re-list an item because people wanted to wait til closer to the end to commit but ended up missing auction end. I suspect auto sniping software would increase the number of bids from different people but discourage bidding wars (decrease number of bids from same person). This would then result in overall lower auction prices UNLESS more than one person set their max's quite high.

2/14/038:23 AM