Dear Ebay:
Coinstartled
Posts: 10,135 ✭✭✭✭✭
Time to extend the bidding on active auctions and neutralize the snipes.
Heritage does it well on their weekly auction as does DLRC. I am sure that you have access to the needed technology.
15 seconds is plenty. Give the seller a better shot at a fair price.
(I'll duck and cover now) 
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Comments
There are a lot of auctions that use sliding end times. Every bid extends it X seconds. I'm not sure why ebay hasn't ever introduced it as an option. I get complaints all the time from buyers who say my auctions ended too close together for them to snipe. LOL.
Turbolister would upload batches with each item within seconds of the previous. The alternative is to upload them one at a time. My response is always that, "in a 7 day auction, there should be plenty of time to enter a bid"
I would be in favor. Of course, I'm far more a seller than a buyer. And I also don't bother to even try to snipe. I enter my best offer and let it ride. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose. So be it. I wonder if anyone really benefits from sniping. You are still bidding against secret max bids and you have other snipers. And you do have the problem of not getting your bid entered at all sometimes.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, evn when irrefutably accurate.
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Tell them there is software for that.
What is sniping?
Ebay has tight increments. A bidder has a high bid of $820 and gets outbid by an $830 bid for example. Many case he might enter a last bid, but alas..no time remains.
Logic says that he should have had his max bid in anyways. Logic and auctions though don't always correlate.
Bidding on an item on ebay literally seconds before the auction ends. This prevents anyone from outbidding you while also ensuring that you don't bump the price up too much.
Also a long range shot that takes out the enemy -
@Leroy other bidders are not enemy just other buyers. Geez.
Best place to buy !
Bronze Associate member
I snipe everything - manually too. Bidding with a max too early allows the shills and indecisive to feel me up. Putting in my highest at 2sec prevents this. I will sometimes put in a low initial bid if an item has no bidders to prevent seller from easy termination of auction but you’ll get my best at t-minus 2 secs.
I have done that in the past but some times I put a real high bid in cause I dont want to loose only to find out I paid WAY MORE THAN I WANTED TO. Even though I put the bid in and I paid! To me its all relative if you dont put in a high enough bid there is NO MORE TIME left.
A week or ten days is not enough?
bob
Works fine for me, snipe last few seconds...
If you really want the item throw a grenade at it.
POST NUBILA PHOEBUS / AFTER CLOUDS, SUN
Love for Music / Collector of Dreck
Previous to the internet era a live auction ended when a last bid was cast and no others challenged with a higher bid. Not allowing a follow up bid to a snipe I believe hurts the sellers on Ebay. Don't expect this to be a popular idea with the snipe bidders...but if too many coins get ripped, the pool of available quality stuff at open auction will continue to diminish.
What about a situation as this, my bid was not 0.01 but a considerable amount more.
If sellers want the max, increase the starting bid.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/2001-P-PCGS-Sample-New-York-Quarter-/122846371702?_trksid=p2047675.l2557&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&nma=true&si=EN9squL29UkrKTrJNE8un%2B6hbEc%3D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc
POST NUBILA PHOEBUS / AFTER CLOUDS, SUN
Love for Music / Collector of Dreck
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Or as in his case...pad the shipping.
I think someone got outbid on by a snipe bid and isn't too happy about it when they probably had plenty of time to bid it up to what the item sold for, maybe a little more but someone wanted it more so paid a little more at the very end. I don't see anything wrong with snipe bids, you want it bad enough, bid high enough and sometimes you have to bid a little more than what the item has been selling for to get it because it might be selling for more lately. You want something bad enough, you will pay high enough for it. I have been dealing on eBay since they began and when I started bidding on there, the bids were getting bid up by shill bidders all the time for things and still are so I started to snipe bid and still do within the last 3 seconds of the end of the auctions and a lot of times it works out for me and a lot of times it doesn't, the times it doesn't, I just didn't want it bad enough and someone wanted it more than I did and outbid me at the last second. It's also a small thrill to see that you got it when the auction ends and a little upsetting sometimes when something nice got snagged by someone else, but again, that's my fault because I didn't want it bad enough I guess and pay a little more for it. Yeah, there are times that I get upset about it but it's my own fault that I got outbid and that is because I wouldn't overpay for the item but I see everything pretty much gets about the prices that items have been selling for on other auctions that have closed. I refuse to get into a bidding war with someone because there will always be another one to come along on eBay. I think it's a shame that eBay has become the way it has because it pretty much isn't much of an auction house like it used to be and you see the way over inflated prices that people are asking for their items. I pretty much stay away from the set prices because they are always way overpriced just about every time, it's not my or others peoples fault that a lot of people overpaid for their items and now can't sell them, I wonder how a lot of sellers on there ever sell anything because their prices are so over inflated.
Would the changes you recommend end the snipes?
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Been on Ebay way too long for that, both as a very active bidder as well as seller. Most everything that I buy is for resale so has a pre established max bid price. I have gone beyond that, but only very rarely.
Clearly though, many people do not like to get outbid and will react with a higher figure, even if it exceeds their initial maximum. Ebay though puts the kibosh on much of that by allowing end of auction snipes with no opportunity for the under bidder to hop back in.
One of the reasons why the once exclusively auction site is prominently populated by fixed price coins. That is where I do most of my Ebay business now and that is cool.
Another thing the way I think about it is, those snipe bidders helped the seller and not hurt them because just think if it got to the end and 1, 2 or 3 other people didn't try to snipe at the end and it just stayed at where the last bid was at, those snipe bids bumped the price up for the seller or the item was already at the price that no one else felt comfortable paying for the item. The items are pretty much selling for going prices and if they aren't, the person made a mistake at what time and day they put the items on auction or put it in the wrong section.
Anything I buy on Ebay is for me and I wont re sell cause I collect not sell. Thats my sickness I keep buying!
You would be able to snipe, but the bid would expend the auction for say 15 seconds so that a live bidder could respond and counter bid.
I have no idea what Ebay is going to do with auctions, but for sure they see their future growth in "buy it now" opportunities, not in auctions. So that being said, i doubt if they would be eager to do anything too new regarding auctions at this point.
Actually it wouldn't surprise me at all, if behind closed doors, they've discussed ways to get rid of the auction format altogether. But I don't think they are going to do that in the near future, even though they would probably like to be more like Amazon in certain ways.
I'm sorry Coinstartled, I didn't mean to come off sounding like an ass, that wasn't my intentions at all and hope you can except my apology if that is the way it felt. I do understand what you are saying and I do at times wish there were times that the auction would have continued on because I really would have liked to had the item and might have upped my bid some but that is where sometimes a person will get into a bidding war with someone else and way overpay for an item just because they felt they just had to have it. The way I look at it is that eBay is always going to be there or a site like it and there will be another item that you got outbid on will come along again that is either just as nice, maybe even a little nicer and maybe a little cheaper but things pretty much sell for what they should sell for. Sometimes a little higher, sometimes a little lower but that is the chance the seller takes whenever they put something on a true auction and if they can't afford to lose money on it, then they either put a reserve or set price.
Counterargument: As a seller, I am bound by a few requirements. First, I have to end all my items within a fairly tight window of a few hours (I only end items on Sundays, and the timing has to be such that it gets maximum bidding at the end, I have to be able to invoice everyone when the auction end, and I need to get everything going out Monday prepared before I go to sleep on Sunday). As a result, I space my listings by a minute, and it's not uncommon that items ending near each other are related (ie, multiple dates of the same type).
In my setup now, they end a minute apart, and any bidder working manually can easily go from one item to the next. If certain items start ending a little bit later because of snipes, now my items which were purposefully spaced out are ending on top of each other. A sniper may get item #1 by waiting it out, but miss out on item #2 because #1 got extended too long.
I think extending the listings runs the risk of snipers forgetting/missing items ending soon after. It works better in the auction houses where successive items can get pushed off so the spacing remains constant. If eBay did come out with a way to push all my listings, though, that could be another can of worms. On a big listing day where I have 200 items ending, if half get extended by 30 seconds, and everything gets pushed back as a result, all of a sudden I can't start my invoicing/shipping for another 100 minutes--pushing 2 hours--after I originally planned to. My night is shot, and I'm not listing that kind of quantity, or I have to plan to end my items much earlier than desired to prevent this scenario.
No offense taken and your comments are appreciated.
I have adopted to the market and as mentioned have moved most coins to fixed price. Big benefit of that is you are set up for the Ebay Bucks promotions when they hit.
Stevek is probably correct that Ebay auctions will be on the way out. Too bad as they can provide some action that a fixed price listing cannot.
I think it would be really sad if eBay ended true auctions not only for the buyers but for the sellers as well. It will then just be an overpriced store if that happened because most people ask way too much for what they are selling usually when it's not on a true auction, not all but a majority of them do. I really need to learn to code and make a site like eBay used to be when they first started and not become greedy and any problems with buyers and sellers, they would get three complaints and hit that and they are permanently removed from the site. Complaints about people because they are usually dishonest about their items or are shady people and didn't send the items that they had on auction usually. It really is a shame that today people just can't be very honest people.
Dear eBay,
Do not listen to Counstartled.
Sincerely,
Clarkbar
You must not be a seller.
No airplanenut, I do a lot of selling on there and a lot of buying, and as a seller, never had a complaint because I am very honest about what I sell.
I can give you dozens of examples where buyers complain and I point to the description that says exactly what they complain about. Buyers complain about shipping costs that are listed right there. I've had multiple buyers flat out lie and ship back the wrong/damaged item. Every week a few buyers don't pay.
To think that the only thing wrong with eBay is the sellers is ludicrous.
I have bought a lot of coins on eBay and I have placed snipe bids on all of them. I have also bought a lot of coins on Heritage and Legend auctions where the bidding was more interactive. I really do not see any difference as they are just different venues that bidders know and adapt to.
And reflecting back on this, I think that I have more of a tendency to overbid on an eBay auction than a Heritage or Legend auction. The eBay format induces much higher bids than does a progressive auction. But you do not get progressive and a time 0 ending with an auction format.
As a buyer, I get good results both ways. As a seller I would like the ebay seller premium much better than the big auction houses.
OINK
I don't see anything wrong with snipe bids, you want it bad enough, bid high enough and sometimes you have to bid a little more than what the item has been selling for to get it because it might be selling for more lately.
You want something bad enough, you will pay high enough for it.
I have been dealing on eBay since they began and when I started bidding on there, the bids were getting bid up by shill bidders all the time for things and still are so I started to snipe bid and still do within the last 3 seconds of the end of the auctions and a lot of times it works out for me and a lot of times it doesn't, the times it doesn't, I just didn't want it bad enough and someone wanted it more than I did and outbid me at the last second.
It's also a small thrill to see that you got it when the auction ends and a little upsetting sometimes when something nice got snagged by someone else, but again, that's my fault because I didn't want it bad enough I guess and pay a little more for it.
Yeah, there are times that I get upset about it but it's my own fault that I got outbid and that is because I wouldn't overpay for the item but I see everything pretty much gets about the prices that items have been selling for on other auctions that have closed.
I refuse to get into a bidding war with someone because there will always be another one to come along on eBay. I think it's a shame that eBay has become the way it has because it pretty much isn't much of an auction house like it used to be and you see the way over inflated prices that people are asking for their items.
I pretty much stay away from the set prices because they are always way overpriced just about every time, it's not my or others peoples fault that a lot of people overpaid for their items and now can't sell them, I wonder how a lot of sellers on there ever sell anything because their prices are so over inflated.
You have some good points. Folks would understand them better with formatting. Paragraphs are your friend.
Lance.
Run a true auction, like Gunbroker with a 15 minute rule.
If someone bids in the last 15 minutes the clock resets to 15 minutes.
That's sets a true value for the bidders.
Airplanenut, maybe you need to reread what I said. I didn't just say it was Sellers, I said Buyers as well. It is funny that I have sold a lot on eBay and never had a problem with anyone as a Seller but only had problems as a Buyer a few times. But then again, when I sell on eBay, I'm not trying to get over one someone to make an extra buck by either being dishonest of what I sell or overcharge on shipping charges.
True auctions don't have fixed end times. They end whenever the bidding stops not when the clock strikes zero.
Other online auction formats ALREADY use rolling closes. This is neither new nor unusual.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, evn when irrefutably accurate.
...eBay is a buyers platform...come heavy with your snipe or don’t come at all...winner takes it at the whistle...there is no sudden death, and there shouldn’t be any
I like sniping on ebay..... It works well if you prepare....Lots of fun... I never lost an item I really wanted...Cheers, RickO
Exactly what I used to do when I bid on auctions there. Don't shop there so much anymore because it's become Alibaba west. I figure 20-30% of the coins peddled on the bay are probably fake. Any purchase now is from the big dogs and they don't usually do auctions, just awesome buy it now specials with the bonus bucks etc.
The whole worlds off its rocker, buy Gold™.
BOOMIN!™
Wooooha! Did someone just say it's officially "TACO™" Tuesday????
I did reread what you said. This is the key part: "Complaints about people because they are usually dishonest about their items or are shady people and didn't send the items that they had on auction usually. It really is a shame that today people just can't be very honest people." The two things you mentioned are about sellers.
That said, I do appreciate the passive aggressive jab that I'm trying to get one over on my buyers or overcharge them.
My issue is buried in the above. Someone lists 20 items I like 1 minute apart with an average sale price of $250, and I only want to spend $1500 total. If I snipe them all and win 10, I've blown my budget. If I try to bid directly, I miss half of them clicking back and forth and get sniped by others.
Best offer with one bid and I forget about it. If win, so be it. If not, wait until the next buying opportunity. Never have been a slave to "Got to have it". Got to know your limitations.
They really should offer the listing scheduler for free. I would never pay extra for this feature but it certainly would make selling items easier. Can work all week getting pics and descriptions written and schedule 7 day auctions to start in 2 minute increments starting st 11am CST on Saturday.
That only sounds like an issue if the items get extended with each snipe and don't end in the original order. With the current system, I'd open each item in a new tab in my browser (in order of ending time), and then go down the list until my budget is spent. If each item kept changing its end time, then you'd have an issue with going back and forth and missing out on some.
AuctionSniper has a way to bid on multiple items until you win one, but I'm not sure if anyone does something similar where it keeps bidding until you win X or spend $Y.