[Cupid]

Usually eBay is instantaneous at detecting that a new bid is not high enough to outbid a higher bid placed earlier, however if that is what the bid history is telling you then I guess it could be true.

If you would like somone to have a look and give an opinion please let us know the auction number.

[Guest]

It appeared that I had the highest bid by in the last couple of seconds of the auction. 30 seconds later a higher bid came through that won the auction according to the bidding history. WTF? :( Then I looked at the "Automatic Bidding" history. Same scenario but the high bid was an "Automatic" bid.

Am I right in assuming that an Automatic Bid is an artifact of a higher bid amount placed in the "Bid Amount" field at some earlier point and that it took the eBay server that much time to catch up?

[Cupid]

[pillio]

but the bid that is placed 8 seconds to the end is recorded and the next possible bid at 5seconds before finish would then be 151 or so. So the bidding that comes first does set the bid increment for the later bid. Correct?

[Cupid]

From experience it is unlikely that anyone will retaliate within 10 seconds, if they do they really had to be willing to do so before your bid was placed anyway.

It is easier for a bidder to place bids in the last few seconds with the one click bidding system, so long as they have already placed a bid on the item.. but as discussed before I regard that as a waste of their time... if they were prepared to sit there with their finger on the button at the end of the auction they should just have set a higher maximum bid and placed it late, as I do, using Gixen.

Your scenario really needs expanding at bit more, if there are no other bids in the region of 150 then the 8 second snipe will not actually raise the auction price to their maximum and hence the 5 second snipe will still win because it is higher. It is important to remember that the bid increment applies to the current auction price, not the the other bidders maximum, they are not necessarily the same thing.

[juangrande]

1. In order to be accepted by eBay, your bid must be at least a bid increment higher that the current bid (which is one bid increment more than the 2nd highest bid).

For example, if Joe bid $125 and I bid $150 at, say 8 seconds before the auction ends, then the current bid would be $127.50 (Joe's $125 + $2.50 bid increment). Then, when you bid $150.02 at 5 seconds before the auction ends, then eBay would accept your bid (since it is greater than a bid increment more than the current bid of $127.50) and you would win for $150.02.

2. It takes several seconds to complete the normal bidding process, so 10 seconds is late enough in most cases. Snipers are not reacting to bids, there are simply placing a late bid, just like you are. However, eBay has a "feature" called 1-click bidding (see "1 click bidding" in eBay's bidding overview page) that does allow someone to place a bid that is one bid increment more than the current bid with a simple click of the mouse. If someone is sitting in front of their computer using 1-click bidding, they could conceivably place a bid every 1 to 2 seconds. Since 1-click bidding only allows bid increments, it doesn't matter much unless your bid is close to the previous bid. Furthermore, very few people actually use 1-click bidding (and you shouldn't either - it's a disaster). The default of 6 seconds works well for me.

[gitartom]

Hello Mario and everyone...

Has this been discussed?

I presume 5 seconds is about the latest you'd want to enter a snipe. However, if someone else snipes a bid 8 seconds before the end, your bid needs to be not only higher, but some predetermined amount higher - right? Let's say you enter a bid of $150.02 5 seconds before the end. If someone else enters $150 8 seconds before the end, your bid isn't high enough to qualify If you entered the same bid 10 seconds before the end, it would have won.

How much time is enough time for a manual bidder to respond with a new bid? It seems like it's not necessary to wait until there's only 5 seconds.

What does everyone else think? What have you learned from experience.

[mario]

[cyril59]

Hi
but anyway, what if 2 buyers use gixen and place the same snipe amount on the same item, both asking gixen to place it 8 seconds before the end of the auction
The single difference is that buyer #1 programmed his snipe on monday and buyer #2 programmed his snipe on tuesday
Let's imagine there is no other bidder on the auction
There must necessarily be one winner : who ? Will it be the first who programmed his snipe ?
Maybe this was discussed before ?

[nochkin]

Agreed.
The main reason why eBay tolerates sniping is because they bring more attention to eBay and get more activity and popularity.

Placing a highest bid only will bother not just eBay, but the other user who would think that his/her bid failed and someone won it at a lower price.

All bids will go through until the listing is ended.

[juangrande]

All Gixen (or esnipe, or any other sniping service) does is place the bids their users enter. While it is true that submitting only the highest bid on a particular item would bring the price down for the winning bidder, this is not only unethical, it is illegal. Remember, the whole point of an auction is to bring the market price to a seller and the laws governing auctions are designed to support this. EBay would sue and shut down any sniping services that would undermine auctions by only submitting the highest bid among all scheduled bids.

[bpgordy]

Not sure if this has been discussed before but what occurs if multiple users put in a snipe request on a single auction number? Does gixen put both bids in?

Would it be better if gixen only placed the higher snipe? This way the auction isnt bid up by #2 who isn't capable of winning anyway?

Thanks BPGordy