eBay and sniping

BAJJERFAN

What if eBay was to have their own sniping software right there on their home page. It would be available to ANYONE with an eBay account. Would that prevent you from listing an item? Would it keep bidders from bidding? Would it be BAD for eBay? or GOOD for eBay?
Your thoughts please. I spect it might be unfavorable cuz if it was good they would probly already be doing it as I can't believe the idea hasn't crossed their minds.

Merc

If they did that, nobody would bid early. It would be all snipping at the end. That would be one crazy auction. Plus it would scare away sellers. There is no way ebay would do that.

Keyrock

I would list the item for the price I wanted or place a reserve on it. Forget the 0.99 start if no bids are coming in until the last second. Best way to negate a low snipe is to reserve it. Typically when I list a coin with a reserve, I state the reserve price in the items description, and usually have a BIN for a few buck more above the reserve. Most of my ebay stuff is created when I upgrade and generally I just want to break even.

Then again I just may say forget ebay and keep the coin until a coin show comes around.

Shamika

Actually, that's not a bad idea. I still prefer the manual snipe however.

Theop

I still feel that ebay should implement a true auction.

Whenever a bid is received within the last 5 minutes, the auction ending time is reset to 5 minutes. (i.e. an auction will not close until there are no new bids for 5 minutes).

This is how is works at an auction house (going.. going... sold!) and would serve to increase bidding by letting the "snipers" compete at the end. Then there would truly be no reason not to just go ahead and place your max bid.

Sellers and ebay would probably both benefit from higher final sell prices.

RYK

Sniping is rude, whether it is facilitated by ebay or not.

BAJJERFAN

Then I'm the rudest dude I know.

dthigpen

It would change everything into a 10 second auction. Sure you could view lots for 7 days before hand, but the auction would only actually last 10 seconds.

cosmicdebris

I'd have no problem at all with it as a bidder. As seller it would scare the crap out of me.

Dog97

<<<What if eBay was to have their own sniping software... Would that prevent you from listing an item?>>>
Wouldn't prevent me from listing. As long as my hit counter had high numbers I'd know that a lot of potential buyers were locked & loaded on my auction. As long as they bidded I wouldn't care when they bidded as long as they bidded before the auction ended.
I refuse to give my ID & password to a third world sniping site but I would use eBay's.
In the last 2 weeks as a buyer I had 52 eBay transactions. That's a lot for me. It would have been more but I forgot to come back and bid on a bunch them and if I could have entered a snipe for later right there on the page I prolly would have had 152 transactions to pay for.

Millertime

<< <i>I still feel that ebay should implement a true auction.

Whenever a bid is received within the last 5 minutes, the auction ending time is reset to 5 minutes. (i.e. an auction will not close until there are no new bids for 5 minutes).

This is how is works at an auction house (going.. going... sold!) and would serve to increase bidding by letting the "snipers" compete at the end. Then there would truly be no reason not to just go ahead and place your max bid.

Sellers and ebay would probably both benefit from higher final sell prices. >>




Didn't eBay used to do that? I could be thinking of UBID though. Anyways I won a couple of auctions like that and they kept going, and going and going. It was kind of annoying. Everytime someone placed a bid in the last five minutes I'd cuss them out. If you set a max price and stick with it it doesn't matter when you bid, you're either going to win or lose.

flaminio

<< <i>Whenever a bid is received within the last 5 minutes, the auction ending time is reset to 5 minutes. (i.e. an auction will not close until there are no new bids for 5 minutes). >>

This is a bad idea, and would only upset "regular" bidders even more, once sniping software programmers updated their services to compensate.

Dave99B

No problem here. Sniping software is available everywhere. Whether it's on the eBay homepage or not is irrelevant.

As a seller, I love snipers. As a buyer, they annoy me at times (although I do it myself!).

Dave

BAJJERFAN

The thing is if eBay had their own they could block everyone else's snipeware and monopolize the snipe market too!!

clackamas

It is not when you bid it is how much. I love snipers, they get in wars all the time and it only makes me more money. I don't care when you bid, as long as your the highest.

K6AZ

<< <i>Sniping is rude, whether it is facilitated by ebay or not. >>

IwantNonCCs

Reserves are rude.
High start prices are rude.

I am ok with no sniping, auctions don't close until 5 minutes after
last bid. But all lots should start at .99 and have no reserve.

THAT IS A TRUE AUCTION.

You can bid up your own item, but you have to pay the juice like everyone else.

BAJJERFAN

Does anyone think that eBay cares whether they run a true auction or not?

flaminio

<< <i>Does anyone think that eBay cares whether they run a true auction or not? >>

eBay cares about making as much money as possible, and little else. If they thought they could make an extra nickel by banning sniping, they'd do it in a heartbeat. The fact that they don't indicates that eBay makes more money by allowing sniping than by prohibiting it.

RYK

eBay cares about making as much money as possible, and little else. If they thought they could make an extra nickel by banning sniping, they'd do it in a heartbeat.

I agree. Ebay is rude.

fishcooker

Sure - put it right next to the "Seller cancel at the last second" button. Who cares about "real" auctions when sellers can wimp out on a whim. Talk about cry babies!

airplanenut

Honestly, it's a terrible idea... ebay needs people to bid up auctions... especially ones that don't know what they're doing. Plenty of ebayers just bid the next bid because it's there. If there were no real minimum, a lot of people wouldn't know what to bid... and would bid less than they otherwise would...

Jeremy

BAJJERFAN

Well I'm sure they could set it up so the the snipe would only be effective for the last 2 days of a 7 day auction or whatever suits their fancy. They might charge 50 cents or $1 a snipe. Why should it be any different than it is now just because eBay is offering the sniper services instead of esnipe or whomever. Anybody who is serious about buying on eBay learns to snipe real quick; or should learn.

flaminio

<< <i>Sniping is rude, whether it is facilitated by ebay or not. >>

For those who don't like sniping, you can always go hang at Overstock.com's auctions. They have a No Sniping policy. The picture in the link is classic -- reminds me of more than a few forum members!