How to Win on Ebay: Snipe 676
grammar fascist writes "A study by South Korean physicists confirms what some of us have taken for granted for a long time: a single bid at end of auction nets the most wins. From the article: 'Plugging all those data into the model and testing the outcome in terms of how the auctions turned out, the team found that the probability of submitting a winning bid on an item indeed drops with each bid. "Our analysis explicitly shows that the winning strategy is to bid at the last moment as the first attempt rather than incremental bidding from the start." The study appears in the current Physical Review E journal.'"
Old news (Score:5, Informative)
The paper has an interesting comparison between eBay and Amazon, for two distinct cases: common value and private value.
Re:And this is indeed a serious problem with EBay. (Score:4, Informative)
Bid what you want to spend... (Score:5, Informative)
People get caught up in the "game" of bidding on eBay which is how you see digital cameras that retail for $299, and sell on Amazon for $240, sell on eBay for $320 -- that's an example I've seen with my own eyes. People are stupid and so sniping is effective.
Re:eSnipe (Score:1, Informative)
There's even at least one completely free and no-registration-required sniping service: http://www.cniper.com/ [cniper.com]
But why give a third party your ebay account information and let them track your bidding habits, when you can run a sniping tool on your own machine?
Here're some sniping tools that'll run on Linux, courtesy of freshmeat:
http://freshmeat.net/search/?q=snipe§ion=proj
And here's esniper, a tool that I personally prefer:
http://esniper.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
It's very no frills and is text-only, but is absolutely reliable, easy to use, and functional enough to get the job done. I set aside a screen session for it, let it run in the background, and go do something else while it snipes for me.
Re:And this is indeed a serious problem with EBay. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:And this is indeed a serious problem with EBay. (Score:5, Informative)
I often get no bids at all up until the last 30 minutes of an auction, when 10 or 20 can suddenly come in.
Re:Winning for the sake of winning? (Score:4, Informative)
It's got nothing to do with 'beating the other guy' or 'resorting to sniping' or 'winning is the only goal' or any nonsense like that. It's just the optimal strategy for maximising the chance of winning and minimising the price paid for the item.
Re:Exactly why I don't bother with eBay ... (Score:2, Informative)
What I love are the assholes who troll fresh auctions with "Buy It Now" prices and no reserve to remove the "BIN" option from others auctions. They bid $1 simply to remove the "Buy It Now" price just to be a pain. You can track them doing it across hundreds of auctions a day. As a seller I find this unacceptable, particularly when I'm paying to use the BiN function. My BIN price should remain until bidding reaches 25% of the BIN price or $25, whichever is lower.
I stopped using Ebay as a resource to purchase or sell anything because of sniping, BIN wasting trolls and rampant fraud. In my mind the only feature they could add that might bring me back is automatic auction extension when a bid is placed.
Re:Exactly (Score:2, Informative)
THEN RAISE THE FUCKING MINIMUM BID YOU IDIOT!
I have no sympathy for a moron like you who can't recognize that simple fact.
Re:And this is indeed a serious problem with EBay. (Score:1, Informative)
What typically happens for a desirable item is that a number of bidders (maybe only 1) place their bets (on whats called commission) before the auction starts - these are like the normal ebayers. The snipers are similar to the people in the sale room on the day - they keep raising their bets incrementally trying to knock the highest commission bidder out of the sale, as well as trying to outbid other buyers. Its probably only a matter of the timescales involved that makes sniping such a pain, along with the fixed auction length.
Re:And this is indeed a serious problem with EBay. (Score:4, Informative)
That is called a Vickrey auction [wikipedia.org]. It has some theoretical advantages but for various reasons never caught quite on.
(has some theoretical diasadvantages as well, such as the possibility of stable bidder cartels iirc)
Re:And this is indeed a serious problem with EBay. (Score:1, Informative)
Re:The problem with sniping... (Score:4, Informative)
You're stating that sniping is worse for you than using eBay's proxy bidding (when you place your max bid up front and let eBay dispense the increases as necessary)? I can't think of a single possible scenario (assuming no outages, early endings, etc..) where placing a bid earlier (and thusly, announcing your intentions to all possible competitors) is better than placing a bid as late in the game as possible.
And that's not even considering the fact that the majority of snipers use automated sniping sites (www.esnipe.com and www.auctionsniper.com for example), that allow you to set up your bid ahead of time, JUST LIKE EBAY, except you're not locked into it. You can go back and review it, edit it or cancel it up to 5 minutes before the end of the auction. You can't do that with eBay proxy bidding. Once you've placed your eBay proxy bid, you're locked in (except for retracting your bid which is a no-no).
Better yet, the two aforementioned sniping sites allow you to group a collection of bids together in 'bid groups' so that you can try sniping multiple similar auctions and once one of them wins, the other bids will automatically be cancelled.
Here's [moyen.org] an excellent resource for sniping information which will be of benefit to anyone looking for logical arguments and reasons for sniping and not illogical, flawed reasons not to.
Re:And this is indeed a serious problem with EBay. (Score:3, Informative)
My sister actually has been part of a team doing academic research on auction results. They took a number of different auction models (11 or so, I think) and ran computer models and did real-world studies to see how much each auction type generated in revenue. The result was surprising, at least to me: all types of auction made approximately the same amount of money. That doesn't necessarily mean anything about how the auction types affected the bidders, but I think it might be less than you'd imagine.
Re:And this is indeed a serious problem with EBay. (Score:3, Informative)
Ultimately, sniping works, because not everybody uses Ebay `in the optimal way'. If everybody did what you suggested, then you're right -- sniping would not help. But not everybody does this!
Ultimately, even those people who understand how proxy bidding works often don't bid the maximum they're willing to pay. Well, they might think they are, but as soon as somebody outbids them, they realize that they are willing to pay more, and they enter in another bid. Often this continues several times, and you find people spending far more for things that they could just go down to Wal-Mart and buy brand new.
If you are willing to spend $100 on something, it benefits you to make that $100 bid in the last ten seconds, because by doing so you deny somebody else the realization that they were just outbid and the time to enter in a new bid. By doing so, you generally get it for less money (or increase the odds that you're the highest bidder, take your pick.)
Sniping works. Granted, it works because not everybody uses Ebay `in the optimal way', but either way, it works. (And by `works' I mean is that it often (usually?) gets you the item at a lower price than bidding the same amount early in the auction would have.)
The only signifigant downside to sniping is that you can miss your bid entirely by forgetting to make the bid, or making it too slowly, or being unable to do so due to network issues or something, but by using a program or service to snipe for you these risks are minimized. (An insignifigant downside to sniping is that if two people bid the same amount, the first bid wins, but in practice this generally only means that you'll pay another dollar or so for something. It also helps if you set your maximum bid to a bit over some even value. For example, don't bid $100. Instead, bid $101.24, which will beat $100, $101 and $101.23. Most other people will just bid $100 ...)
Re:And this is indeed a serious problem with EBay. (Score:3, Informative)
No, sniping works when somebody else is playing the 'keep bidding more than the current bid to stay the winning bidder' game. If you increase the current bid, they'll just bid a bit higher. But if you don't, they won't. So you don't, until the very end when they can't play their game anymore.
The first time the value of sniping really clicked for me was when I went truck shopping on eBay. I kept bidding a reasonable value for the trucks and kept being outbid by somebody every time. 75% of the time the same truck appeared right back on ebay a few days later because the bozos who kept outbidding me weren't really serious. Well, then I decided to snipe a truck and bam, I got the first one I sniped, no problem, and at a price that was actually lower than I was willing to pay.
So, to sum up, sniping only works if somebody else bidding is retarded. And that's a pretty good bet for eBay.
Re:Exactly (Score:3, Informative)
I know of someone who sells a lot on eBay, really it is a part time bussines. She pics up items at garage sales and trift shops to resell on eBay. But you know what? She makes the photos and writeups look "just bad enough" that it does not appear to be a bussines sale. Even adds comments like "this does not fit me" It is not misrepresentation if it is true. I suspect many sellers have figured this out.
Re:And this is indeed a serious problem with EBay. (Score:2, Informative)
For this reason, in addition to other reasons cited in this big discussion, I almost always use a sniping program to make my bids for me.
Re:And this is indeed a serious problem with EBay. (Score:3, Informative)
Bidders expect a "deal" - max bid != true max bid (Score:3, Informative)
ebay needs to change their rules to get rid of sniping so as to get higher true bids and better final pricing for their sellers (unless ebay has already modeled the system and concluded that the total net income would go down due to less happy bidders/snipers).
OT: another thing that I am amazed that ebay puts up with are those ridiculous $0.01 auctions where the real value/cost of the product is shifted to the "shipping and handling" costs (and sometimes even the mandatory "insurance fees"), such that ebay itself is scammed out of its fair cut and the buyers are left vulnerable (and often misled). Vulnerable because "shipping and handling" and "insurance" are never refunded: "oh you never got the item, well ok, here is your money back: $0.01"...
I love the $10 mandatory insurance for the item that costs $0.01. (not!)
Re:And this is indeed a serious problem with EBay. (Score:3, Informative)
Auction Sniping the ONLY way to purchase on eBay! (Score:2, Informative)
In the early phase, I did it all manually. Set an alarm on the computer 10 -15 minutes before the end of the auction, and then sat at the computer and entered my bid at the last possible moment.
There were a few drawbacks to this approach.
1) I was on a dailup connection, which was slow to send transactions, so I had to send my bid in well in advance of the time that someone could submit their last bid if they were on a broadband connection. The only thing worse than hauling yourself out of bed at 3am to bid on an item is to lose the bid because someone else has a faster connection to the internet than you do.
2) I had to phycially 'be there' to bid on each and every item I was interested in.
3) It was difficult to track similar objects and compare the current bid prices to make sure I was bidding on the correct item, i.e., the one I was most likely to win at the best possible price.
I looked around for sniping programs, tried out a few, and finally settled on my current sniping program. Here's why:
I.) I only pay a fee for the items I actually win. Currently this fee is 2% of the winning bid price. Since I am an agressive bargain hunter, the 2% fee is more than reasonable, since my wining bid prices are frequently low enough to upset a seller now and again.
II.) I can bid on a particular type of item 100 times or more, at no cost to me, until I get one at the bargain price I am searching for.
III.) Bid grouping.(The BIGGIE)
a) Let's say I've decided I want a gold plated whatchamacallit. In the next week, there are 14 of them coming up for bid. I've done my research, and I've discovered that these sell for about $42 on eBay, and about $8 shipping for a total of $50 delivered. I've also noted that a few folks have managed to get them for as little as $35, and one chap got lucky and got one for $27.
b) I check and find that I can purchase one of these items from an alternate source, local or online, for about $75-80.
c) Since I want the best possible deal I can get, I decide that I am willing to pay $27 + $8 shipping, for a total delivered price of $35. This is a huge goal, to get one of these for less than half of what they normally sell for, but, I am patient, and I never fall in love with any particular item. Price is always the central issue.
d) I seach the current listings for items, and now I am ready to start loading my bids into the sniper program. Since the goal is to get the item delivered to my door for $35, all bids are adjusted according to shipping costs. If a seller, like so many do, charges significantly higher shipping costs (in order to 'pad' the final selling price, and cheat eBay out of the appropriate seller fees) then the shipping fees that will be deducted from my $35 total cost goal will be higher than the shipping fees deducted from the bid that will be placed on the item listed by a seller who is charging a modest $6.50 for shipping.
e) After loading the sniper with all of the listings, and adjusting the bids so that the final cost to me is no more than $35, I tell the sniper program I want it to bid on each item as it becomes available until I win 1 (or 2, or 3, or however many I want at this price).
f) I go back to my daily life and let the sniper do the work. I will get email notifications that this item or that has gone beyond my bid price. These emails are ignored. I only want the item at the price previously determined. If someone else wants to pay more, god bless them, I'll wait.
g) Eventually one of two things will happen. I will win the item at the price I have set, or, I may have to add more items to the sniping group and keep on trying. After reloading the sniping group a couple of times without a win, if I really want the item, I may have to reset my concept of what I can reasonably expect