Win margin question

You can win by one cent/pence - read up on Proxy Bidding under ebay's help. Winning by one cent is dishonest? Not at all - it how ebay works!

R2

quote:

Originally posted by GregT:
Can I increase this margin amount if I feel that beating out the previous bidder by only one cent is dishonest?

You know, it is really interesting to come across this ethic. I think it's in tune with the same thought processes that lead some people to frown on sniping. I can sympathize with this to a degree. Early on in my ebaying when I lost items to snipers I felt, vaguely, they had cheated somehow, and at the same time I felt like I was being manly and bold or something like that in placing bids early. It all reminds me, in a way, of an anecdote from a biography of President Harry Truman: "Harry, try as he might, had no heart for trade. As he would later explain to Bessie Wallace, 'When I buy a cow for $30 and then sell her to someone for $50, it always seems to me that I am really robbing that person of $20.'" Not quite sure why I'm reminded of this, but anyway I am.

That's a very interesting quote.

I take it you can't adjust the amount by which one wins. Is there a medium I can use to suggest addition of this feature to the Auction Sniper administration?

quote:

Originally posted by GregT:
Is there a medium I can use to suggest addition of this feature to the Auction Sniper administration?

suggestions@auctionsniper.com

Or

http://support.auctionsniper.com/



“Medium” – interesting choice of words.

This is an eBay issue and not an AS one - AS just bids as if it was you, eBay deals with the bid in the same way whether it was AS or you doing the bidding. Thus, if you want a change to ease your conscience then send an email to Ebay HQ. Or just pay your seller a few pence/cents more! Sorted!!!

R2

As this is an important enough issue for you, I don't understand why you don't just bid round amounts, like $52.00 instead of $52.27. I'm sure that this way you will almost never win by only one cent or a few cents--or if you do beat someone who bid like $49.99, that someone can hardly fault you for it. Of course, bidding in round amounts leaves you susceptible to losing out to odd bids, like a $52.02, but the only way of (nearly) ensuring you won't lose to odd bids is to do odd bids yourself--in other words, you'd then be trying to outbid the other odd bidders by a few cents again.

quote:

Originally posted by petronius:
As this is an important enough issue for you, I don't understand why you don't just bid round amounts, like $52.00 instead of $52.27.

Yours is a good point, but if I were to manually bid instead of bidding via a sniping service, I'd be losing out on the more important element - that of timeliness.

quote:

Originally posted by GregT:
By how much is it set to win an auction? Is it one cent? Can I increase this margin amount . . .?

quote:

Originally posted by GregT:
I take it you can't adjust the amount by which one wins.

I must be reading something that’s not there, or missing something that is, but if I understand the main issue of this thread, to “adjust the amount by which one wins” would require that AS know the high bidder’s FULL bid amount. If that’s what’s behind this thread, then neither AS, nor anyone, can provide that info, other then bidding an amount that will expose the high bid then retracting it. If that’s not what this thread is about, then click “Hide Post” on this post.

quote:

Originally posted by Rick:
neither AS, nor anyone, can provide that info, other then bidding an amount that will expose the high bid then retracting it.

What do you mean by this? Doesn't the operation of AS rely on the foreknowledge of the highest bid, to be able to bid higher than it? Or does it use some other sort of "blind bid"? If it does not know the amount of the highest bid, how does it know not to exceed the maximum amount you've specified in AS?

^^ Whoah dude, I'm afraid you are way off. AS does not rely on any foreknowledge or any special knowledge at all. What AS does is simply this: It signs onto ebay as you, it places precisely the maximum bid you yourself specified. End of story. It's no different than you asking your pal Bernie to sign on as you and place the exact bid you tell him to place at the time you tell him to place it. Or look at it like this, all AS is is a dumb ignorant robot that doesn't do a dang thing other than log onto ebay as you and place the maximum bid you told it to at (approximately) the time you told it to place it. Of COURSE it does not "exceed the maximum amount you've specified", all it does it place precisely that maximum bid you specified. No foreknowledge, no algorithm, no analysis. (OK, AS does check in advance to see if the current bid on the item has already passed your maximum bid, and if so it alerts you, but it's up to you to change your maximum bid if you want; and AS does check to see if you win an item, which is how bidgroups works; but that's as (un)sophisticated as it gets.)

So, for example, if the maximum amount you specified for AS happens to be less than the current bid (or less than the minimum bid increment) at the point in time when you told AS to place your bid, then AS can't do a dang thing about it--it cannot place the bid, all it does is send you a message, oh sorry dude we couldn't place your bid.

If this is not clear, you'll probably find it helpful to look up "proxy bidding" on ebay's help pages. AS does place "blind", unthinking bids in the exact same way you would (and checks up on the current bid--the leading bid that is there on ebay for anyone to see--, just as you might), all the rest is purely a function of ebay's proxy bidding and minimum bid increment rules and the seller's reserve if he has any.

And let me just add, on the question of winning by a cent or a few cents, it doesn't make any difference I can see whether you snipe manually or snipe automatically (AS) or don't snipe at all but place a bid at any old time. The issue, such as it is, is purely what amount you input (or arrange for AS to input for you) as your maximum bid amount. Timing shouldn't matter at all--except only that if you bid early this might give you time to retract a bid if you find you are up on the 2nd place bidder by a cent or a few cents--BUT retracting is not kosher in any event and, also, at that point it is equally likely that that second place bidder would not be the leading bidder when it gets to the waning minutes of the item. I've gone on much too long on this .... so I might as well add, as an anecdote of no clear relevance, that this somehow reminds me of that old gameshow The Price is Right (in the US) where 4 or 5 people would in turn try to estmate as closely as possible (without exceeding) the actual retail price for an appliance, like a GE refrigerator or Hoover vacuum cleaner or some such thing (ah, the bygone days of US manufacturing) and often one person would guess like 450 and the next person would say 451, ensuring that if the real price was anywhere over 450 up to infinity, he would beat out the first person--unless the third person estimated like 452, which was also known to happen. You always wondered how the first person could contain himself or herself from smacking that second person.

quote:

proxy

quote:

Originally posted by GregT:
Doesn't the operation of AS rely on the foreknowledge of the highest bid, to be able to bid higher than it?

Greg,

Don’t get the “current” bid mixed up with “maximum” bid. An ebay auction usually shows only the high bidder’s “current” bid amount (1 ebay increment above the 2nd highest bidder), but their “maximum” bid is hidden (would be a drag if that weren’t the case). Best you follow the others advice about reading up on ebay’s proxy bidding. Also, why not try placing a snipe on something not all that important and see how it functions – the first 3 snipes are free.


Pleasant sniping