Who was it...?

jds

jds

Joined
Wednesday November 7, 2012
Location
Woburn Sands, Bucks
.....that pinched the lovely looking Austin Reed Butterscotch brush from me 2 secs before the auction ended last night. I was gutted. That was a lovely looking brush, especially the etching of the Austin Reed name.

Grumpy last night, but I do hope it was someone from this forum.

I still haven't got to grips with these Sniping Tools (if indeed that was what won the day).

Cheers

Jon
 
Sorry for your losing out! Happened to me too on occasions, last second.

Don't know if you by 'got to grips' mean that you haven't gotten used to being sniped or that you haven't made use of them yourself. In principled moral terms, I oppose the thing. Pragmatically speaking, it's there, so what can one do but start using it? I've tried gixen.com a couple of times – without winning, as the usual auction caveat remains: if your (max) bid isn't higher, you won't win. The advantage is that one won't get carried away but nevertheless have it act as if you are monitoring real-time. I wonder how it is dealt with if the sniper service manages to sneak in a bid the last 1/10 of a second before closing; if it wins even if it isn't highest.
 
Bechet said:
Moral? Immoral? Put in your max bid and forget about it unless you get an 'out bid' notice or told you've won. Immoral? Moral? It's the bidding war heroes that could usefully desist.
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True. My moral principle statement was perhaps a token of some sort of nostalgia. But then I should be longing for that good old auction room too, I suppose, instead of ebay o_O
 
halvor said:
True. My moral principle statement was perhaps a token of some sort of nostalgia. But then I should be longing for that good old auction room too, I suppose, instead of ebay o_O
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I completely agree with Carl - there is absolutely nothing wrong with setting a bid to be submitted just before the auction ends and then not having to be around at the time.

You have to remember that whatever you have logged as your maximum will still beat my last minute bid if you are prepared to pay more.
 
I can't disagree, it's more that when no-one is showing their hand until seconds before the auction ends there is no time to react. Of course I could put in a massive bid, but the auction on Sunday was static until the last 10 seconds. And two bids happened almost simultaneously. My bid was way in the lead until 2 secs to go. My problem is that I like to be able to set a price when I have an idea about the level of interest of the item.
To me the sniping method feels a little underhand, but it is only the same as bidders in a live auction not showing their hand until when every else is done (sort of).
I just need to know how to defeat it!
 
Jon, I think you stated the problem 'I like to be able to set a price when I have an idea about the level of interest of the item.' The whole point of bidding late is to hide your interest in an attempt to keep prices down and avoid those £2 incremental bidders who eventually ride the price up.

The same rules apply to any auction - decide what your maximum is - a late bid actually helps here if you don't react to warnings that your maximum is already exceeded. Another thing to bear in mind is that late bids don't always win - I've been the second best bidder on quite a few items in the last month - the tendency is to say to yourself that an extra £5 or £10 would have done it - what you don't know is what the winners maximum bid was. On those occasions I congratulate myself that at least my bid was in the right area.
 
I've not used the sniping tools myself. Not because of any moral issue but because I'm not entirely comfortable with my Ebay log-in data being anywhere but on Ebay's servers and in my head. As with anything I can't be 100% sure that Ebay won't get hacked but I'd imagine they invest a lot more time and money in security than the average sniping site.

That said, I am one of those who linger around till the last few seconds and then put my bid in. I'd imagine very few of us have gripes about these sniping sites boosting the price at the last minute if we're the ones selling!
 
antdad said:
Ah...and I thought this thread was going to be about the 300 euro Kirby closing this lunchtime. My snipe didn't even register as someone was determined to land it.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Rare-Kirby-Beard-Rasoir-Vintage-Safety-Razor-/262317729654?_trksid=p2047675.l2557&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&nma=true&si=SeuyjLLF2aYWrAnwc%2FXXdwlgqiM%3D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc
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I'd hate to be the poor bastard who put the €304,00 bid in, only to be beat out by someone with a previous high bid of .03 higher.

That's one reason when I do snipe, (and I've been using Gixen for years) I always put in an odd dollar amount and an odd change amount. Most people like whole numbers and even numbers.

Edit: it's strange to hear a bidder griping about snipes, as sniping hurts a seller's profits more. Sniping also keeps me from paying more than I think an item is worth.
 
I always use a sniping program running on my computer when going for non-BIN item on ebay. I decide upfront the maximum price I'm reasonably willing to pay upfront and then don't look at the auction until it is finished. This stops people from trying to outbid me in small increments, thus driving the price up. It also makes me emotionally detached from the auction. No danger in going a wee bit higher again and again. Mind you, the price I set the sniper at is usually quite high - beyond that I really want to pass. Whatever the outcome of the auction is, I know I haven't done anything stupid. I'm a serial sniper. :p
 
Andreas' comments made me recall what I actually do as opposed to what I think I do. The rationalisation of what you think something is worth probably works along the lines of:
1 - what would I like to get away with paying.
2 - what am I prepared to pay.
3 - what's the real stretch value.

There are items where I have put in something like option 2 and maybe a bit more - but with some time to go before the auction I can see that bidding is probably going to exceed my snipe value. At that stage I either accept that I'm unlikely to win - or re-think the object, take another look and decide whether to increase. Twice in the last fortnight I did this and just about won with revised maximums. The point is I was very pleased and now having the razors in my hand can see that the price was right.

One of the bids was for a twin set of razors in Ivory scales - when I've polished them and put them through the hones I'll post some photos.
 
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