Quite unique IIfx on ebay..

[trag]

My eBay technique is to bid the maximum I'm willing to pay as soon as I decide I'm willing to bid. And I come to a firm conclusion on my maximum. If I place the bid, and am immediately outbid, I give up.

That's why I use Ezsniper. I paste in the item number and my max bid, set and forget. The Ezsniper service puts in a bid for me in the last few seconds of the auction and either I win or I don't. I don't have to be home, I don't even have to leave my computer on. The snipe does cost something like 1% of the final value fee but only if I win. I've been using it since 2005 with good results and unless ebay makes what I would consider a sensible move to combat sniping by extending the auction when late bids come in, I'll continue to use that method.

This is what I do as well, with a different service.

The rational thing to do at any auction is to pick the maximum that you're willing to pay for an item and stick to it. However, you must reckon with other people who are not rational.

If you bid your maximum early, then the irrational bidders will come along and bid $.50 more than the current price, until they outbid you. Whereas, if you wait to place your bid until the last moment, they never have a chance to do that. When you snipe, you are only competing against the other folks who have placed a rational maximum bid, and not the irrational +$.50 'ers.

The +$.50'ers never get a chance, if everyone snipes at the end.

 

[volvo242gt]

This is what I do as well, with a different service.

The rational thing to do at any auction is to pick the maximum that you're willing to pay for an item and stick to it. However, you must reckon with other people who are not rational.

If you bid your maximum early, then the irrational bidders will come along and bid $.50 more than the current price, until they outbid you. Whereas, if you wait to place your bid until the last moment, they never have a chance to do that. When you snipe, you are only competing against the other folks who have placed a rational maximum bid, and not the irrational +$.50 'ers.

The +$.50'ers never get a chance, if everyone snipes at the end.

Finally tried AuctionSniper out. Yes, it worked to my advantage. Got a few pieces of Nikon gear for much less than I normally would've paid for it (35/2 Nikkor for $33+ship, nice late model Nikon F body for $76+ship, and a 300/4.5 EDIF Nikkor for $53+tax). So, yeah, I'm a convert. There are still items that I will bid the normal way, but those are now items that there won't be much competition on. More desirable items, I will use a sniping service. Either the one I started using, or another.

-J

 

[Quadraman]

Sniping has always annoyed me, never made sense why ebay hasn't included a feature to extend the auction by a few minutes each time a bid comes in within the last few minutes.
I figured if you can't beat em, join em though, and I've been using a sniping service for years. The way the game is set up, that's by far the best way to win. I agree with everything else here, bidding wars early on just drive up the price. Only time I bid early is to put in a lowball to discourage others from doing the same, or if I could take it or leave it, sometimes I do win.

But sniping services don't give you the heart pounding adrenaline rush of actually being online and placing your bid inside the last 3 seconds for the win. }

 

[uniserver]

heart pounding adrenaline rush

I think some folks get addicted to it, then end up with way more junk then what they should have

Personally I hate it. - manly because it makes me sick… and IF its something that i care that much if i win or not, means that probably it will involve some kind of rental from uhaul and a trip across the country

 

[Unknown_K]

I never snipe. I don't always win what I bid on but when I do it is usually below the normal going rate.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

< Soapbox mode >

I posted this link earlier in the thread, but made the mistake of using the tag instead of so I'll give it another go.:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auction_sniping

. . . a novice antiques buyer may prefer to bid in auctions which already have bids placed by more experienced antiques buyers, on the grounds that the items which the experienced buyers are interested in are more likely to be valuable. In this case, more informed buyers may delay bidding until the last minutes of the auction to avoid creating competition for their bids, leading to a lower winning bid. Because of the practice of sniping, the highest bid 10 minutes before the end of a contested auction is often not at all representative of the eventual selling price.
Analysis of actual winning bids on eBay (Yang and Kahng, 2006[4]) suggests that winning bidders are more likely to have placed a single bid late in the auction, rather than placing multiple incremental bids as the auction progresses.

The beginning of that section explains that "Economic analysis of sniping (Roth and Ockenfels, 2000[3]) suggests that sniping is a rational gain-maximizing (i.e., price-minimizing) strategy for bidders in auctions" It's a great read, explaining much about objections to sniping and auction types overall.

In casual synopsis: it boils down to sniping being a mechanism that turns an irrational bidding war scenario into a sealed bid auction. I like it because it keeps me from bidding any more than I'd really like to spend on an item and, yes, the thrill of the snipe outweighs any disappointment at losing the auction for me.

I only wish we could see how much the winner was actually willing to spend in eBay auctions. Throwing out what appear to be irrationally high bids that may result form the winning bidder with a need for that one piece to complete a collection, would be a far better indication of an items worth statistically than an analysis of the data available.

Let's face it, we're pretty much all "thrifty" collectors here and we do each other the generous favor of listing goodies in the Trading Post, but those "eBay prices" are very likely a more true reflection of an item's worth than our preconceived notions and wishful thinking.

< /Soapbox mode >

I've always loved Sy Syms' slogan: "An educated consumer is our best customer."

. . . whatever.

 

[jsarchibald]

Some might disagree with me, but I wait until 5 seconds out, have my top bid plus $5 entered, and give it a crack. I've gotten some absolute bargains over the years, and also been outbid too. At those times, I might have entered another bid, but it also keeps me paying more than my rational self wants to pay.

 

[CC_333]

heart pounding adrenaline rush

I think some folks get addicted to it, then end up with way more junk then what they should have

Personally I hate it. - manly because it makes me sick… and IF its something that i care that much if i win or not, means that probably it will involve some kind of rental from uhaul and a trip across the country

Very wise words! I don't like the feeling I get at the final seconds much either, though I can see how some (many?) can feel pleasure from it.
I have similar feelings, though I've come to terms with the fact that some items I might want (at a price that I'm willing to pay) are oftentimes in auction format, so I've given in and bid on a couple of things.

My preference is still BIN if at all possible, though.

I try to be mindful of how much I have vs. how much I want because I don't want to be a hoarder (I've seen some of the worst of them, and it's no fun at all), but even then, I sometimes get impulsive and end up with extra junk (like a big box full of 867 MHz 12" PowerBook G4s in which all the logic boards are mostly nonfunctional).

With all this talk of buying stuff, I should try selling some stuff on eBay... maybe I could get a few dollars from some of my "junk".

c