On Sun, 07 Mar 2004 16:28:59 +0900, James Annan
<
[email protected]> wrote:
>No, they can only see the _current_ top bid, and they will
>only find out your limit by exceeding it. Assuming your
>bid really was your limit, once they have gone past it,
>you don't care. There's a possibility of you gaining by
>bidding late, but you can only achieve this gain at the
>expense of another late-bidder, and unless the other
>bidders are more stupid than you, it's just as likely that
>you will be the loser (losing in this case means seeing
>the product sold to someone else for a lower price than
>you were prepared to bid).
If you can't see the benefit of sniping then it's not me
who's the stupid one.
Your logic here is badly flawed, it assumes everyone else
bidding against you has got their head screwed on, but of
course the truth is the world's full of halfwits.
Sniping costs me nothing. I don't spend any longer placing
my single bid than you do. It is as simple and
straightforward as your method. It does not disadvantage me
in any way.
You've mentioned a couple of times the risks of missing out
by being a fraction too late but this risk really is very
small. Pay attention and there's no reason why you can't
place a final bid within 20 seconds of auction end virtually
everytime. Either personally if you happen to be at home or
by using sniping software.
So, I lose nothing by sniping but there are myriad
circumstances in which I will benefit over your method.
Consider one example:
You're browsing ebay and spot a SuperWidget which is just
what you've been after. It's worth 30 quid to you so you
place your early maximum bid straight away, this leaves you
in the high bidder position at, say, 10 pounds. You then
leave the auction to its own devices for the final few days.
What if there is only one other serious bidder for this
SuperWidget, Fred, and he is prepared to pay 25 pounds for
it? Along he comes, and places a bid of 12 quid, no, ebay
tells him that's not enough, so he bumps it up to 15
quid.... nope, still not enough and so he bids again. He
keeps doing this until he reaches the £25 he's prepared to
pay and finds it's not enough to dislodge you from the high
bidder spot. He's now had enough and off he wanders.
Auction end rolls around and you win the item for £26.
Now consider the sniping method in the same auction:
I see the SuperWidget when browsing and add it to my Ebay
watch list. A few days later along comes Fred and finds the
auction, he places his bid of £10 pounds which, as I
haven't placed an offer yet, is enough to secure him high
bidder spot. He's happy at that so off he toddles, planning
on checking back to see how things are going. Auction end
rolls around and Fred is still in the hot seat, but, with
20 seconds to go my bid of £30.76 is placed. I take high
bidder spot at a price of 11 quid and Fred, even if he's
sitting at his pc watching, has bugger all time left to do
anything about it.
I win the item for £11.
Granted, this example is over simplified, but I'm just
trying to illustrate the point. Sniping will win you
auctions, or save you money, in auctions where your bidding
rivals do not use (or understand) the ebay proxy system.
--
"Bob"
'The people have spoken, the bastards'
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