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.'"
People are strange and irrational (Score:5, Interesting)
Not the first good idea to be defeated by irrationalism, and not the last.
Another strategy to add to this (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, if you want to bid $20 for something, bid $20.02 instead so if somebody else puts a bid of $20 on it, you still win.
Re:And this is indeed a serious problem with EBay. (Score:3, Interesting)
Yahoo! Japan already does something similar... I think its 15 minutes. Makes things much more fair for the seller.
Re:And this is indeed a serious problem with EBay. (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, there you have it...like most things in life, you gotta figure out what you want and how badly.
If there is something I really want, I've set my alarm to wake up just to bid on the item...and crash back again after it is over.
I see nothing wrong with sniping. If you have set your bid to the absolute maximum you are willing to pay, and not a cent more...if no one snipes it at that $$ amount...you will still win. If someone outbids your bid at the last second...well, in your mind you should say.."They paid too much for that..."
This works pretty closely to a live auction. People can keep bidding till the hammer drops. Sure, it keeps going while bids keep coming in, but, that is the little difference between eBay and a live auction. At least with eBay you CAN win and don't HAVE to be there live.
Re:And this is indeed a serious problem with EBay. (Score:4, Interesting)
eSnipe (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I've always wondered this... (Score:3, Interesting)
A friend of the seller's might bid early to drive the price up.
Someone who sells similar items might bid early to get the price up (and thereby drive buyersto their own product).
Someone who won't have internet access when the auction ends.
Someone who prefers to get a bid in and set their maximum bid (the fire-and-forget method).
Someone who wants to scare away other bidders (not that this works on EBay often, but I did pick up some Hubbard bookends for a low fraction of my resale by immediately bidding 'high'... the seller didn't specify the maker, and it was an extremely rare casting) -- the key to this is low exposure for the item, like any 'steal' on EBay.
Re:And this is indeed a serious problem with EBay. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:And this is indeed a serious problem with EBay. (Score:5, Interesting)
But the problem with this is that you never win the item. If you still just bid the one amount you're willing to pay, but you do it with a snipe, you're much more likely to actually get the auction item. Using a snipe program like jbidwatcher, it's just as easy to snipe as it is not to, so why wouldn't you?
Re:Old news (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~ec2040/Handou
It's a summarizing read of the original paper, with good statistical proof and some thoughtful questions.
Re:And this is indeed a serious problem with EBay. (Score:2, Interesting)
Interestingly, as a bidder I usually don't bother sniping. It requires that I wastefully schedule my day so I can be around in the last few minutes of an auction for something I want, and it's not worth my time. Instead, I look at the range of sale prices for equivalent items and bid at the low end of the range on all the items currently for sale. Usually things I buy on ebay are things I kind of want sometime soonish, so I don't care if I lose 20 auctions over a 3-week span before winning one. The best case is that I get a lowball auction sometime soon. Worst case is that I get nothing, but that rarely happens. Middle case is that I win several auctions, at which point I pick the best item to keep and resell the others. The usually-higher sale price covers ebay's fees, so the extras I sometimes pick up don't cost me anything.
Mining the data for this type of bidder behavior in order to compare its effectiveness versus sniping would probably be difficult, and I see no evidence in the linked article that the researchers studied it. But from my limited perspective, it seems like a great strategy.
Re:And this is indeed a serious problem with EBay. (Score:4, Interesting)
I admit I'm a sniper. I bid on ebay in either one of two ways.
Either I set my auto-bid at the maximum amount I think that item is worth and let it go (and if I get sniped, oh well).
Or, I set the auction on watch and then bid the max I want to pay for it within the last 20 seconds or so.
This way I never pay more than what I want, and sometimes get a pretty good deal. I see nothing wrong with it at all. I don't need any special software or tools to win, I just stay attentive and watch my items. Anyone else can outsnipe me at the same time. It's happened several times. I don't get bent out of shape over it. I just look for another one.
Re:And this is indeed a serious problem with EBay. (Score:5, Interesting)
But think about a real auction: If the auctioneer says "going once...twice..." the item doesn't just go to the person who threw up their paddle at the last moment. It gets extended for another five seconds or so. Now, maybe the same dynamics don't work in the web world, but at least it puts perspective into it.
What if eBay also had another auction type in addition to normal and Buy It Now ones: silent auctions. It tells you when it ends, the seller may optionally give a reccomended amount, and you get to put in your bid, without knowing what anyone else put down. Now you'd be more compelled to put your maximum bid down.
Re:And this is indeed a serious problem with EBay. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:And this is indeed a serious problem with EBay. (Score:3, Interesting)
One other thing to consider is that some people may not feel comfortable putting in their true highest bid when they snipe, if they don't think they need to. So the last time I was in a snipe-war, I did double-sniping, with a reasonable bid at 10 or seconds so left, then my true maximum bid at 5 seconds or so left, already prepared in another browser tab waiting for a click on the "bid" button. I lost the auction, but that was because there were two snipers, one willing to pay way more than my absolute maximum.
At least I had the satisfaction that it didn't sell for less than I would have paid for it.
Re:And this is indeed a serious problem with EBay. (Score:3, Interesting)
If there's an item that you're willing to pay up to $10 for, you would probably still take it for $10.05. If it's one that's worth $10.05, you'd probably still consider it a pretty good deal for $10.10. That's where proxy bidding fails, because in the end, unless you enter a massively overpriced proxy bid, you're just going to be sniped by some other guy by 5 cents.
Re: Sounds like a good idea, but... (Score:1, Interesting)
>
> Proxy bidding is supposed to allow easy auctions with fairness. The problem is the sniping phenomenon.
> And there is an easy fix: A bid will extend the auction by ~10 minutes if received in the last 10 minutes.
> Voila, no more sniping.
From I've got a great new idea... [cox.net] on the sniper myth debunking website:
Apart from extending the bidding time a number of other proposed solutions to the sniping "problem" are evaluated on that site, along with a debunking of some myths about sniping [cox.net]. A very informative site, imo.
Re:Exactly (Score:4, Interesting)
Possibly true. But not everyone bids your way. That's the problem.
"I don't believe they have an inflationary effect. That effect is illusion. The "real price" is not the "current winning bid", it's "the highest someone will pay for it". Sniping has no effect whatsoever on the real number."
Do you believe in the existence of incremental bidders? Have you seen someone bid in ebay and then get outbid then bid again? Have you seen someone put in lots and lots of little bids until his latest one just outstrips the maximum bid.
If you change your statement to: The winning bid on ebay is the highest that someone will pay for it, *if they put their maximum bid in on time*, then I'll agree with you.
Then I'll agree with you. The thing is, that the incremental bidders obviously aren't always placing their maximum bids. Sniping is just a way of making sure that they're less likely to.
"There are enough irrational bidders to push every item 5-10% over what I'd bid for them, because to them winning itself has value and it doesn't to me; I just want the item."
Sniping's job is to cut some of those guys out of the game, because the irrational bidders (the ones who will bid just-a-bit-more-than-the-other-guy) don't have a chance to irrationally bid.
Funnilly enough, I stopped ebaying ages ago too...
Sniper fees (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem with sniping... (Score:3, Interesting)
In the big supply-demand chain, if you are bidding on high demand / low supply items then you'll get raked across the coals with last-minute sniping. But if you want tickets to tonight's Aerosmith, then that's what you're facing.
I'm into Magic cards (i.e. collectibles), where the bidding is often very different. For the most part e-bay doesn't have oodles of truly unique collectibles, just a few. If I'm looking for specific batch of Magic cards, I just set e-bay to e-mail me every couple of days when new auctions come up. When I find an auction I place my max bid and then I forget it. There's enough throughput on e-bay that I can just bid on the next one.
With a 50% variation on some similar auctions and various ending times (to foil snipers?), I don't have to watch over my bid. If I'm not getting my item for $X then I can raise my future bids or just keep trying. Again, these items are always coming up for auction, so this is ideal for the set it and leave it approach. Every once in a while, you'll even get a dead fish, where you're the only "real" bidder and you hit that 50% cheaper mark. I've bottom-fed a good part of my collection in this fashion.
In this case, the snipers just get their cards earlier (in exchange for paying more). And I stand the best chances of getting my goods for the price I'm willing to pay.
Re:And this is indeed a serious problem with EBay. (Score:3, Interesting)
The chances of it going right up to 12 and stopping are pretty unlikely. If you get it for less, you'll feel good about yourself. If you lose by 10 cents, then you're happy you didn't end up paying 12, since you weren't comfortable with that anyway. If you get it dead on 12, then it's a small loss - but it's the least-likely result. There's generally a narrow range between "worth it" and "uncomfortable paying this".
I'd rather have my max picked out ahead of time than bother with sniping. It's not a game, it's not hunting - it's a purchase.
Kiwi's know how (Score:2, Interesting)
Works great for sellers, no sniping, you always have time to rebid, pushes the final sales figure up too.
Re:And this is indeed a serious problem with EBay. (Score:3, Interesting)
This is a sealed first-price auction, basically. Everyone submits secret bids, with the highest bid winning. I suspect eBay doesn't offer this model because it's not exciting for compulsive buyers. The sense of urgency created by the live competition and time constraint of a modified-English auction like eBay's are probably seen as crucial elements to attracting and retaining regular buyers.
-Isaac
Depends on the auction (Score:3, Interesting)
Or you're into stuff that not a lot of people are. I've snapped a few items where there were few other bidders, and sometimes the item would have a fairly substantial store/street price. Due to lack of popularity, the stores charge more (less sales=more wasted shelf-space stocking), and there are less people to outbid you.
The mis-spelled items concept is rather good, as is the idea of searching by category or generic term rather than name. There are some dumb buyers out there, but a lot of sellers who can't spell (not first-language english, not familiar with the particular product brand, etc). Search the category you want, and maybe enter "video card" rather than "GeForce 7200" and you might find that "GeeForce" or "G-Force" video card with a mispelled title. Of course, in that case you want to be on the watch for knock-off brands, otherwise you might end up with a Sorny or Magnetbox
Re:And this is indeed a serious problem with EBay. (Score:2, Interesting)
Once, one of them even pissed me off. So I made sure that she paid her 'top dollar bid' for the particular item I wanted for awhile, before 'winning' the copy that I actually purchased. I did this by simply bidding her proxy up on a number of instances to just below what I knew she would pay.
It's a big worldwide marketplace, not just a place where people swap Pez dispensers anymore.
The first bid gets it rolling (Score:2, Interesting)
In my case, I bid on 4 different cards that had zero bids after 1 of 3 days. Within hours of my bids, each item would get a second bid, beating out what I wanted to pay. Only one of my bids, on the crappiest model, survived until the last day when it was also outbid.
It was especially bad that I bid on a rare-in-America Gainward Gold Seal nVidia, without a box, and with a picture that didn't even look like a graphics card. Nobody would have known what it even was, and definitely wouldn't have known that it was a top end card. After I bid, the bidding suddenly went crazy. Had I waited, it might have gone unnoticed, and at least received fewer bidders, if not lower bids. Instead the card went for several hundred dollars and over 10 bids.
Re:And this is indeed a serious problem with EBay. (Score:4, Interesting)
Standard English auctions, Dutch auctions, first price sealed bid auctions, second price sealed bid auctions all end up at pretty much the same price - they just get there by a different route. But English auctions (as well as second price sealed bid auctions) generally have the advantage of truthful revelation of valuation by the bidders.
Re:And this is indeed a serious problem with EBay. (Score:2, Interesting)
Instead of giving an exact time for the auction's end, give a fuzzy time (This auction will end in 3 days). Then, on the last day, never give an exact time (This auction will end between 1:30pm and 2:00pm), where 1:30 would have been the time you had initially posted the item for sale. You get a few free minutes of publicity on your item, and nobody knows when the auction ends, which would change sniping into a matter of pure luck.