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August 16, 2004 5:43 PM

EBay Filter: Auction Sniping - good or evil? [MI]

Many auctions on EBay have no bids until just seconds before the end of the auction. Suddenly the auction ends and three bids have been placed. The winning bid is only slightly higher than the opening price. These bidders are using a sniping service to place very tiny bids at the very last moment.

How do you feel about the practice of sniping? Who is the most reliable sniping company to work with?

posted by Kwantsar to society & culture (39 comments total)

I hate last minute bidders. I just usually bid early enough.
posted by riffola at 5:51 PM on August 16, 2004

I don't have a problem with last minute bidders. I bid what I'm willing to pay, and if someone outbids me, no big deal. I have also jumped in on things at the last minute, and if I'm willing to pay more than someone else, what's wrong with that?

I can see that the tiny-bid sniping thing might annoy sellers, but if they set the minimum bid at the right level, they should still come out ok.
posted by ambrosia at 6:02 PM on August 16, 2004

i always auction snipe because I suspect the "max bid" function allows anyone ghost/shill bidding for the seller can aritificially push up the price to one greater than I could win the item for with a last minute bid. (i *swear* this happened to me on one auction -- it looked as though someone "felt" out my bid by guessing that I had probably "max bid" around an even number -- like, $100 -- and went ahead and bid it up to *just* under that. If you're going to make a number of bids, and they start *small* and *then* get larger and larger when you figure my max bid is higher, and then they STOP all of a sudden right before they get to a nice round number, well, i get suspicious).


Additionally, I suspect that eBay/auction selling some sort of psychological effect on users that makes them highly competitive -- you don't "buy" things at an auction, you "win" them, and damned if you're going to let another three or four bucks keep you from getting that Dukes Of Hazzard slot-car set.

seriously, though, I think that's why I prefer to snipe auctions -- nobody knows that I'm competing for the item, and so whether they are the type of folks that *actually* bid the amount they want to pay, or folks that bid *just over*, I have the upper hand: neither of these people get any time to reconsider their max bid. And wouldn't *you* want to revise how much you were willing to pay for an item if someone outbid you by just a quarter?
posted by fishfucker at 6:08 PM on August 16, 2004

It's the only way to win, isn't it? I've never known anyone to win by placing their best bid three days early and then wait-and-seeing. Never. I can only see it working if it's a stupidly high bid.

But when I snipe, I win. I don't use any sniping service though, just sit and wait. And I usually win for less than I would have been bidding three days previously.
posted by bonaldi at 6:23 PM on August 16, 2004

yeah, for me, the idea of an auction is to get the best possible price on an item, which is not necessarily the price I'm willing to pay.

hopefully, it's much lower.
posted by fishfucker at 6:28 PM on August 16, 2004

How would you fight the process? Not allow bids in the last hour? Well then people would snipe right then with an hour left. When I search for something on eBay, the auctions that end the soonest provide me two things 1) a better guage of the actual cost something is going to end up selling for, and 2) if I bid on one that ends soon, I get immediate satisfaction. What are you going to do? Disallow people from finding out about an auction within the last hour and placing a bid on it? I hate loosing auctions too, but like it or not there isn't a solution.

pwb.
posted by pwb503 at 6:34 PM on August 16, 2004

Fish, I actually caught a seller using a shill to bump up a 'Bay auction. After I called him on it he backed off for a day or two, then right at the end set up another shill bidder to see if I'd go higher. Unfortunately for him, he overreached and outbid me. Within minutes of the auction close he'd EM'd, saying since he hadn't heard from the winning bidder yet (!) I could get it for my highest bid. While it was tempting do to business with such an upright fellow, I politely declined.

OTOH, bonaldi, while sometimes I snipe I've also won many eBay auctions using the Ambrosia technique. And I've had auction sniping services misfire on me; I'm still slightly pissed about missing a lovely 700SC Nighthawk that went for less than I would have paid for it.
posted by mojohand at 6:41 PM on August 16, 2004

I assume you're asking from a seller's perspective? If so, is there a way to cancel an in-progress auction with no bids? If that's allowed, I'd say there's your safety net.
posted by mkultra at 6:48 PM on August 16, 2004

Fishhumper, it's an established fact - well theory, anyway - of behavioral economics that in a closely contested auction the top bidder will suffer from winner's curse. That is, in an auction "the average bid will be below the fair value of the item being auctioned off, because people in general are risk averse. But the winning bid will be above the fair value, because people overestimate the difference [to them] the item will make. "
posted by mojohand at 6:50 PM on August 16, 2004

There's an easy fix for sniping; I have no idea why eBay doesn't implement it. (OTOH, it's so easy that I'm sure they've thought of it, so there must be something else I'm missing, or they're somehow making money off things running the way they are.)
Solution: end the auction no earlier than 60 seconds (or some similar, small time) after the last bid. So if somebody bids with 10 seconds left, it extends the auction to 50 seconds past the original end time. Another bid? Another extension. This is like a real world auction, where the auctioneer calls "going once, going twice," and if another bid is made, the auction keeps going a bit longer.
Aha, I just figured out why eBay doesn't do this. If you reduce the cost to sellers of sniping, then sellers have less incentive to put a non-zero minimum bid on an auction. And, since eBay charges based on minimum bid, it would reduce their take. I bet the feature could help a well-funded competitor take a chunk out of eBay's market share, though.
posted by spacewrench at 6:56 PM on August 16, 2004

I snipe. I see nothing wrong with it. In addition, I sell a lot on eBay and it's never bothered me. I really don't know why any seller wouldn't want it. If you're item's at 5 buck you're saying what, you'd rather it end at $5 than someone come in at the last second and bid $5.50?

A lot of new sellers seem to be under the impression that their items will go for mega bucks (more than they're worth) if everyone just bids early. This is nonsense. Everyone has a cap of what they're willing to pay. That's the amount I snipe with. You seem to think that the snipe bid is 25 cents (or one bid amount) higher than the pre-snipe bid, which isn't necessarily the case.

spacwrench, your solution isn't implemented because it's silly, not because it's not lucrative for eBay. The reason there's a fixed time on the auction is because people want to know when they will or will not win. It allows them to bid on other auctions (for the same item), if need be, or buy the item in a store if they need it quickly. Further, a liquid end time sucks for the seller as well because often people are selling because they need money. Never knowing when the auction will end doesn't help anyone.

pwb, if you want a good gauge for what the item will go for, looking for "almost finished" auctions isn't your best option. Instead, do a search for the item but before you run it, checked the completed items button. That will show you the actual prices of items that have already sold.

Kwanstar, I use Phantombidder.com and they're super.
posted by dobbs at 7:09 PM on August 16, 2004

spacwrench, your solution isn't implemented because it's silly, not because it's not lucrative for eBay.
Dobbs, only one of your scenarios would be affected by extending the auction end time, and that is the case of the seller needing a fixed end time. In that case (as well as any other, of course) if the auction is still going, it is because people are still bidding. And, since each bid must be greater than the last by at least the minimum increment applicable at that price range, that means the sale price is increasing. This is exactly what a seller would want to happen, so I do not believe sellers would object.

In any case, it is unlikely that the auction would continue indefinitely, or even for more than 10 or 15 minutes. In my experience, eBay often does not mail auction results for an hour or more, so anyone who is not actively watching the auction and reloading the page would not notice the difference.

Finally, someone who has made his bid for something he really needs will find out that he has been outbid as soon as he normally would, and may begin bidding on another auction. Alternatively, if such a person has bid near, but not at, his maximum price and has been sniped, he may still place a follow-up bid.

In short, this scheme would reduce the current incentive to snipe, but I believe it will not be implemented because it reduces the seller's incentive to set a higher start and/or reserve price.
posted by spacewrench at 7:35 PM on August 16, 2004

the biggest problem I see with sniping is when you set up a snipe on an item and the seller pulls the item 5 minutes before the auction closes because the price isn't right. That's why I don't snipe because with the stuff I buy (comics), this happens way too often. I just bid what I'm willing to pay and then walk away. If I win, great.
posted by Stynxno at 7:38 PM on August 16, 2004

good or evil?

Evil, but necessary. It's like playing prisoner's dilemma when you know someone is going to defect.

Personally, I find my best strategy is two-tiered. I put in a middlin' bid on the item early, and then snipe towards the end.
posted by weston at 8:09 PM on August 16, 2004

Auction sniping simply is.

I really fail to understand people who complain about sniping. The rules are known and set at the outset. One is allowed to set his maximum price as part of the bidding process.
posted by rudyfink at 8:23 PM on August 16, 2004

Sniping is absolutely a good thing. Placing a normal bid on eBay is an invitation for idiots to come along and run the price up beyond the value of the item. You're somewhat more likely to win an item for a reasonable price if you don't leave your bid hanging out there to attract the drooling horde of overbidding morons, the kind of people who re-up their bid because they hate to lose.

There are a lot of these asshats on eBay and sniping is the bidder's only real defense against them. It may be golly-gee nice for sellers, but normal, honest bidders will often be screwed by overpaying shitheels. I switched to sniping after consistently losing good, honest high bids using the normal bidding system.
posted by majick at 8:25 PM on August 16, 2004

Must be alot of goobers out there who don't have the art of shilling down yet. I can't tell you how many times some fool tried to goose up the final bid on me and wound up keeping the merchandise. The tip off is when the same thing is relisted almost immediately (duh!), though I have had vendors contact me on the side claiming the winner "withdrew" and they were willing to sell it to me.
posted by RavinDave at 8:33 PM on August 16, 2004

It's the only way to win, isn't it? I've never known anyone to win by placing their best bid three days early and then wait-and-seeing. Never.

I bought an item on eBay that way. I thought about what it was worth to me, adjusted for shipping, etc. and placed my bid. I had the top bid, and I got the item for something like 30% of what it would have cost elsewhere.

I can only see it working if it's a stupidly high bid.

Err, no.

Placing a normal bid on eBay is an invitation for idiots to come along and run the price up beyond the value of the item. You're somewhat more likely to win an item for a reasonable price if you don't leave your bid hanging out there to attract the drooling horde of overbidding morons

Which will have no impact on you or your wallet if you bid what it's actually worth to you at the start. Nobody can make you pay more than it's worth to you, ever. End of story.

There are a lot of these asshats on eBay and sniping is the bidder's only real defense against them.

Or, you know, bidding what an item is worth to you.

while sometimes I snipe I've also won many eBay auctions using the Ambrosia technique.

Nobody "wins" an auction. They buy something, or they do not buy something. I really can't fathom how the concept of "winning" applies if I'm still paying for it. If you tell me you "won" a fabulous new TV, I wanna hear about how Bob Eubanks pinched your wife's ass, not how you're out a chunk of change but still think you "won" something.
posted by NortonDC at 8:47 PM on August 16, 2004

I snipe because I collect a very obscure specific thing. Other people know my bidder ID, so they tend to find hidden things that I worked long and hard to find by looking up my ID. By sniping, my bid remains hidden until the last minute.
posted by quibx at 9:09 PM on August 16, 2004

"I've never known anyone to win by placing their best bid three days early and then wait-and-seeing. Never."

I do it all the time and with bids at about half my max. Then again, I am usually buying things like CDs, books or magazine lots that are always available. If someone outbids me, fine; I just bid on the next instance of the same item. Eventually I win.
posted by mischief at 9:31 PM on August 16, 2004

"Or, you know, bidding what an item is worth to you."

I do exactly this. I just happen to do so through a sniper service, because I'm more likely to actually get the item rather than have to wait several more days for the auction of the next one to close. My time is not zero cost as a participant in eBay auctions, and the use of sniping minimizes my time investment by a large factor, often several days.

Using the eBay bid system is probably quite fine if you're purchasing items that are extremely common (thus attracting few or no bids per auction and needing little time investment to locate and bid -- see mischief above) or extremely rare (and attracting a high bidder count where timing of bids is not a factor). It's items of middling scarcity, with bids hanging on them for several days, which tend to attract and be sold to overbidders. These are the items I find myself interested in, bidding on, and purchasing.

"Nobody 'wins' an auction."

That is the commonly used term for the high bid: it is referred to as the "winning bid." You may dislike the term, and that's fine, but popular usage has already weighed in on the matter.
posted by majick at 9:43 PM on August 16, 2004

spacewrench, I simply don't agree. Here's the scenario as I picture it, maybe you see something different.

An auction I'm interested in ends at precisely midnight. I have the highest bid. I go there at two minutes to midnight to see if I'm still winning or if I have to drop another bid. At 5 seconds to midnight, a sniper bids and I'm losing. eBay extends the auction by one minute.

I have to keep reloading the screen to see if the auction's been extended. (Yes, eBay will email me if I'm outbid but my email program doesn't check for mail constantly, it checks every X minutes.)

I refresh the screen and see the bid's gone up and I have to decide within 50 seconds whether I want to bid higher. I do, and this process continues until I'm frustrated out of my wits.

I'd rather just lose the auction to the sniper and be done with it.

Also, keep in mind that by no means does sniping guarantee a win. If I bid $50 on an item and it sits at $3 until 10 seconds before close and someone snipes, they still have to bid more than my $50 in order to win. And, if $50 is the maximum I want to pay anyway, what's it to me? If someone's willing to pay more than me, I'll lose whether they bid 10 seconds before close or 10 seconds after I place my $50 bid.

Also, you're solution only works (if you think it works) given the current state of snipe sites which are created given the current state of eBay. I have no doubt that were eBay to implement your suggestion, snipe sites would simply change the way they function: instead of dropping in their bid at a fixed time, they'd drop it in X minutes before auction close, meaning you could move the time as much as you want and it'd drop in incremented bids. (In fact, phatombidder used to have an incremental bid system to outsnipe other snipers!)

In short, this scheme would reduce the current incentive to snipe,

But you still haven't explained what's wrong with sniping.

Also, your analogy to a real auction house doesn't work because in that scenario, everyone always knows everyone else's "current" highest bid.

I think a lot of people's problems with sniping is because they compare eBay to a regular auction house but think: if you were at normal auction house would your first bid be the maximum you'd want to pay? Of course not. You'd lose.

eBay is the equivalent of a silent auction. You have until X time to enter your max bid. As long as you get your bid in before that time, the highest bidder wins. You don't get bonus points for being the first to bid unless it's a tie, which the chances of are pretty slim.

When I am interested in an item and it ends in 5 days and I see 10 people have already bid on it, I always shake my head. Wtf are they thinking? All they're doing is increasing the amount of $ they will have to spend to win the item if a single other person plans on bidding. I don't understand the logic in the slightest.

on preview: holy crap, can I babble or what?
posted by dobbs at 9:48 PM on August 16, 2004

I do exactly this. I just happen to do so through a sniper service, because I'm more likely to actually get the item rather than have to wait several more days for the auction of the next one to close. My time is not zero cost as a participant in eBay auctions, and the use of sniping minimizes my time investment by a large factor, often several days.

The snipping service doesn't make auctions close any earlier. They do not, and can not, speed up the process. Your smallest time investment is to just initially bid what it is worth to you.
posted by NortonDC at 9:53 PM on August 16, 2004

When I am interested in an item and it ends in 5 days and I see 10 people have already bid on it, I always shake my head. Wtf are they thinking?

They are thinking "This is worth this much to me."

All they're doing is increasing the amount of $ they will have to spend to win the item if a single other person plans on bidding. I don't understand the logic in the slightest.

If two people are bidding up to one person's limit, that limit is the same whether it's hit 2 minutes before the close or two days before the close. When the person participates does not change what it's maximum value is to any participant.
posted by NortonDC at 9:59 PM on August 16, 2004

If you're a seller who's peeved at selling stuff just above your minimum price, set a bloody reserve! That's what they're for!
posted by wackybrit at 10:21 PM on August 16, 2004

I won the first eBay auction I ever bid on...but only because no one else put in a bid.

I then proceeded to lose the next 5 auctions I bid on because I got sniped each time.

On eBay, you rapidly learn that sniping is an (perhaps *the*) effective way to win items in which you're interested. The majority of people who complain about snipers tend to fall into two categories: sellers and people who lost to snipers.

There is no moral issue when it comes to sniping, it's a strategy, pure and simple. It's entirely within the rules and it's certainly not a guarantee of winning (I've certainly lost my fair share of auctions, both to other snipers and to people who put in early bids). As well, it's a total fucking rush ;)

I scoff at you folks who use sniper software, scoff I say! You detract from the purity of the snipe...the countdown, the multiple page refreshes, the final click of the submit bid button...ahhhhhhhhhhh
posted by filmgoerjuan at 11:36 PM on August 16, 2004

yes filmgoerjuan! The finest sport available over http! No finer shopping experience exists.

Unless you just want to, you know, buy something.
posted by namespan at 12:02 AM on August 17, 2004

You detract from the purity of the snipe..

But we win more auctions. (aka We have cameras.)
posted by dobbs at 12:14 AM on August 17, 2004

Great answers everyone. There's a whole spectrum of stuff here from ethics to how-to. I'd call this thread out as a *great* example for ask over in the gray, but someone might misinterpret that. :)
posted by Kwantsar at 1:19 AM on August 17, 2004

Auction "winner": someone who by definition pays more than anyone else is willing to pay. A deeply flawed method of acquring stuff.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 5:50 AM on August 17, 2004

I'd been a sniper since just about the beginning, though I have won more than my share of the bid-and-walk-away stuff too.

Of course, I did it by hand. I would merely open up a bunch of windows, prepared five or so bids at strange intervals of dollars and cents up to my maximum, and then just fired them off as need be in the last twelve seconds, refreshing madly.

At least, that's what I did until I fell back into the dialup world, where once again I bid and wait. And I still win things.
posted by codger at 6:39 AM on August 17, 2004

Bidding is allowed any time before the auction closes. Sellers know this and buyers know this. Everybody who's been around on eBay has lost to a sniper (as well as to "conventional" bidders). But I think that a lot of the anger with sniping is simply based on disappointment. Suppose an item is going for $5, and you're willing to pay $35. You enter that as your maximum bid, but because you're the first bidder your bid just goes in as $5.50 or whatever. Two days later you check back and you're still the high bidder. Yay! Then at the last second a sniper comes in with their bid. If the sniper wins, you're disappointed that you lost an auction that looked like it would be a great bargain for you (well below what you were willing to pay). If the sniper loses (by bidding only $30 maximum, for instance) and you win, you're disappointed that you had to pay $30 instead of the $5.50 you'd gotten your hopes up for.

Sniping without the use of a sniping service is indeed more work than just entering your bid in the first place (depending, I suppose, on when the auction ends). Sniping with the use of a sniping service is only marginally more work. You enter your maximum bid as usual, it's just that no one else gets time to reconsider their maximums after your bid goes in.

Right now sniping is still advantageous for the sniper. Other bidders may still win if their maximum bids are higher, but if they aren't then those other bidders lose the second chance they get against other early bidders. If everyone sniped then there'd be no particular advantage in sniping, but everyone does not snipe.

I snipe in auctions where I'm hoping for a bargain. I still bid what I'm willing to pay, but I'm more successful in paying less than I'd be willing to pay, and that's one of the things I come to eBay for.

On preview: stupidsexyFlanders, an auction winner pays more than the other people who are participating in the auction have bid in the auction. Anyone who assumes that all bids are the largest amounts people are willing to pay is kidding themselves. That's one of the reasons why sniping works.
posted by Songdog at 7:21 AM on August 17, 2004

What Songdog is saying is that sniping only works against other snipers. It only works against people who fail to actually build at the maximum personal value of an item with the expectation of adjusting their bid higher later, i.e. sniping.

Sniping is useless against those that merely bid the maximum personal value of the item, who Songdog acknowledges are also the people that expend the least amount of time bidding.

So being a sniper is the only way to "lose" to sniping.
posted by NortonDC at 7:41 AM on August 17, 2004

"The snipping service doesn't make auctions close any earlier. They do not, and can not, speed up the process."

Norton, I apologize for having been unclear.

The sniping service increases the probability that I will win a given auction and therefore not be required to wait two to three days for a subsequent auction to close. It's that subsequent interval that I use a service to avoid.

If all bidders were quite so rational as you are, it wouldn't be necessary and in fact would be as much a waste of time as you claim it is today. However, in my experience, placing a bid during the main auction period causes overbidding morons to appear.
posted by majick at 8:09 AM on August 17, 2004

But we win more auctions. (aka We have cameras.)

I'd argue this point as a sniper who is on hand can usually fudge the timing of the snipe (i.e. snipe at 8 seconds, with a backup snipe ready for the very last few seconds, should it be necessary). Automatic sniping software seems like more of a delayed bid thing to me — and prone to the same tendency to overbid "just to be safe".

Although I can't really speak to its merits or lack thereof, having never soiled my hands with the despicable stuff ;)
posted by filmgoerjuan at 9:26 AM on August 17, 2004

Hmph. I think it's obnoxious.
posted by Vidiot at 9:52 AM on August 17, 2004

If you're a seller who's peeved at selling stuff just above your minimum price, set a bloody reserve!

Ah, but setting a reserve can mean more listing fees (if the item doesn't sell), which is the bane of every seller's existence. I agree with the idea, though, that you shouldn't set a minimum price that you'll be unhappy with.

Technically, I'm pleased to have anything at all sell, snipe or otherwise. However, I mostly sell collectible items with a perceived value rather than a literal value, so my instinct is that early bids are going to help show interest and boost prices much more than a one second snipe.
posted by jess at 7:34 PM on August 17, 2004

I agree with jess's instinct, which is why as a buyer I believe sniping, when it wins, tends to win at a lower price.

And NortonDC, what I'm saying is that sniping is a pragmatic response to the reality of eBay. Everybody doesn't follow your theoretical bidding ideal. I rather suspect that the majority don't.
posted by Songdog at 5:29 AM on August 18, 2004

followup:

I used phantombidder.com thanks to dobbs, and won an auction that I was all about, which -- if you look at the bidding -- definitely suffered from "emotional bidding" -- i figured I saved about $40 doing it, because past auctions (which some of the same bidders on this one have been involved in) went up to $140, whereas I was able to grab it for 110 or so.

I'm nearly postive that if i put my bid in early, someone would have tried to "feel out" my upper end, as there was a guy bidding who always pushed the bid about four cents over the last bidder.

I set six seconds as my bid "threshold" (the "agent" starts 2 minutes before the auction ends, and at that point your bid is locked in) and it came out perfectly on time.

I'm rather satisfied with the service and I would recommend it, particularly if there's only one auction you're interested in, because it's free for two weeks (no credit card needed).

I was a little anxious about them getting my username/password right, but apparently, they have a daemon run every 24 hours checking to make sure you login -- so if you open an account with them at least 24 hours before the auction you're interested in and you don't get an email, don't fuss around with your user settings (as I did, because I was paranoid I mistyped something) because they're correct.

in short, I can fully recommend phantombidder.com, and thanks dobbs (i'll think of you when I cruise around on my vintage bike).
posted by fishfucker at 7:14 PM on September 2, 2004