postcardman
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posted on June 12, 2005 01:22:17 PM new
Has anyone ever heard from eBay about solutions to deal with sniping? I am not anti-sniping but I am concerned about auctions ending as people are attempting to bid since more and more a large number of folks wait to the very last seconds to bid. I guess I think about a real life live auction where the auctioneer has called out going.... going and bidders are trying frantically to get his attention before he brings down the hammer. In eBay land the hammer comes down at precisely time zero regardless of how many folks are trying to get a bid in. I know others have mentioned before that one possible solution would be to extend an auction as long as bids are being place perhaps with some time lag factor such as 30 seconds or 1 minute at the end to occur from last bid before the auction ends. I don't know for certain but I think that ending prices would be quite a bit higher IF eBay had some mechanism to deal with sniping and last second bids. Do you think it makes a difference? Do you think eBay cares? Do you think they would ever try to do anything about it?
One long time successful eBay seller that I know states in his listings that all unbid auctions will be pulled 24 hours to stated end time. He does pull the unbid listings and it has seemed to help and his sell through is now near 100%
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bcpostcards
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posted on June 12, 2005 02:13:57 PM new
In eBay land the hammer comes down at precisely time zero regardless of how many folks are trying to get a bid in.
the only place I know of where the auction doesn't end at time zero is at "ebay live", where the auctions are being held live in actual b&m auction houses and the auctioneer holds the keys as to when he wants to close bidding on a particular lot.
As for me, I'd take any bid, any time, on my items. Nice if there's at least one bid early on as I think it builds interest with a certain amount of fence-sitters out there. 
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fenix03
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posted on June 12, 2005 02:21:20 PM new
BTW - I sat here last night and watched an ebay live auction. Could someone please explain where I go in New York City to attend live auctions at 11pm on a Saturday night?
Gotta tell you, I'm not buying it. I'm usually not big on paranoia but that one screamed shill.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
No, I'm saying -- I'm merely -- I'm saying what I'm saying. I don't know why I'm always having people say, are you trying to say -- you know what you can do if you want to know what I'm saying is listen to what I'm saying. What I'm saying is what I said ...
- Ann Coulter
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longtime1
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posted on June 12, 2005 02:43:07 PM new
Fenix....I think if you want a front row seat on the shill you need to head out to Sheapshead Bay, especially if it was a jewelry auction. Likely a Russian sitting on a computer in his living room.
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aqmay
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posted on June 12, 2005 02:48:33 PM new
i am against snipping and here is why ,it only takes one bid to get people interested,and then it can be like feeding freny.if you never get a bid until 3 to 5 seconds before the end ,no one will ever see the bid ,so there is no interest , no frenzy, no bids . thus we have the ebay of millions of items and no bids.
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bcpostcards
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posted on June 12, 2005 03:05:02 PM new
fenix, check out the application to become an ebay live seller.
http://v2.liveauctions.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?LAApplicationForm
See question 2. Are you an auction house? If not, will you be using a licenced auctioneer at your event(s)?
It either raises the possibility that you don't have to be an auction house? (Could my basement office go "ebay live"?) Or could it just be a trick question where if you answer no you hear a buzzer and your puter self-destructs? 
g2g
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ebayvet
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posted on June 12, 2005 05:07:54 PM new
It is very unlikely that ebay will change the way auctions end, they have 10+ years of doing it a certain way. I am against extending the auctions, I like when it ends, it ends.
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sanmar
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posted on June 12, 2005 06:07:25 PM new
I am with ebayvet. I have no problem with sniping, have done it myself a couple of times. I am a 99% seller, so I would rather have one bid than none. I quit running 10 day auctions for 2 reasons; #1 I think 40 cents is rediculis & #2 I get a lot of lookers but no bidders until the last 2 days. It seems no one wants to be the first bidder.
Life Is Too Short To Drink Bad Wine
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glassgrl
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posted on June 12, 2005 06:13:04 PM new
snipping
Hey - where do you go to get that SNIPPING service? The scissors shop?
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toolhound
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posted on June 12, 2005 06:24:53 PM new
Less than 50% of the auctions on eBay sell so I love to have snipe bidders on my auctions. Who cares when they bid as long as they bid. I start my auctions at the price I want for the item anyway. It has been a couple of years since I could start items cheap and not lose money.
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sparkz
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posted on June 12, 2005 06:34:53 PM new
I could care less when a bidder places a bid. Be it one second after the auction starts, or 1 second before it ends. Just so they bid. Bidders habits or strategies don't concern me. The bottom line is all that is important.
A $75.00 solid state device will always blow first to protect a 25 cent fuse ~ Murphy's Law
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replaymedia
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posted on June 12, 2005 07:03:59 PM new
This is one area where I think Yahoo auctions has eBay beat. If your auction gets a bid in the last five minutes, the end of the auction moves back five more minutes. If someone then outbids them, the auction gets an additional five minutes, and so forth.
True, you may not be able to predict exactly when your auciton will end, but so long as you're getting bids, who really cares?
--------------------------------------
Quidquid Latine dictum sit altum sonatur.
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crowfarm
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posted on June 12, 2005 08:05:09 PM new
Sorry, aqmay, but the feeding frenzy comes because you have something people want.
If that bid at 3-5 seconds is the only one you get...it's the only person interested.
Remind me never to try to BUY anything on Yahoo.....what a dippy system.
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classicrock000
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posted on June 12, 2005 08:08:28 PM new
as a buyer as much as a seller I love the sniping-its the ONLY way I bid.Ya think Im going to try and outbid someone for 7 days and keep jacking up the price?? Only an idiot would do that.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Baseball season has started,but they have it all wrong.3 strikes and you're out,4 balls you walk.I can tell you right now a man with 4 balls could not possibly walk
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sparkz
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posted on June 12, 2005 08:20:58 PM new
Crowfarm...You got that right. If you have a quality item that a collector needs in his collection, he's going to bid on it. Who cares it it's at the beginning of the auction or at the end. OTOH, if you are selling a bunch of cheap imported crap from China that can be obtained at a yard sale any Saturday for half of your opening bid, what modification to the bidding rules could Ebay possibly make to entice some sucker into bidding, other than to hold a gun to his head?
A $75.00 solid state device will always blow first to protect a 25 cent fuse ~ Murphy's Law
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barparts
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posted on June 12, 2005 09:36:03 PM new
I love snipers. I get them often. Many of my items receive bids on the last minute or two raising the price of the item from the $400 dollar range to over $800 or higher. Send the snipers my way.
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photosensitive
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posted on June 13, 2005 05:30:22 AM new
In some areas where we bid there are bidding wars on the rare, well described items. They just take place in the last seconds of the listing. All the collectors who have a clue about value snipe. When you look at the bidding history you see the same bidders at the end of the auction with escalating bids. We know our competition is out there and bid accordingly. Changes in the ending time would have little impact since we are putting in a timed snipe that is always more than what we would like to bid.
There are early bidders on these items but they are always bid low and do nothing to increase the final price.
-----o----o----o----o----o----o----o----o
The illiterate of the future will be the person ignorant of the use of the camera as well as of the pen.
Maholy-Nagy, Vision in Motion, 1947
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aqmay
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posted on June 13, 2005 11:33:16 AM new
let me see if i understand you crowface, you would rather have a bid the last 3 seconds,than have a bid on the first day.bids make people look ,if you see an item with 10 bids and one with no bids ,the 10 bid item will have far more hits,than the zero item.
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Libra63
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posted on June 13, 2005 12:19:19 PM new
Well I find sniping interesting. I had an early bidder on a pair of earrings. First day. When another bidder came and upped the first, this happened until the price was $24.00. Bidding stopped. I was happy with that bid. Well in the last 5 seconds of the auction the bid went from $24.00 to $42.00. Can you see why I like sniping. I also had 3 other pair on that they were also snipped in the last 5 seconds. 4 pr of earrings went for combined price of $100.00. It only happens once in a while but I would never want to stop sniping. I don't know how high those earrings would have gone if eBay extended the time but I honestly don't think it is fair for the last person that snipped to give the other another chance. An auction is an auction and when the time is up it should be done.
_________________
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cashinyourcloset
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posted on June 13, 2005 06:20:37 PM new
Live auctions end when the bidders run out of steam and I don't think that's a bad model for online auctions. My items get sniped quite a bit, which is okay with me, but it is not unusual to have someone tell me that they would have gone higher at the end, but that their internet response time was slow and that they lost out.
The only thing I really hate about sniping programs are the haughty emails that they send out.
I think that a modified ending, not 5 minutes, but the auction getting extended 10 seconds until nobody bids any more is a good idea. And eBay might get more FVFs, which after all is my deepest wish in life.
Claude
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cashinyourcloset
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posted on June 13, 2005 08:17:21 PM new
repeat
[ edited by cashinyourcloset on Jun 13, 2005 08:17 PM ]
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sparkz
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posted on June 13, 2005 08:43:19 PM new
The only problem with an automatic extension would be that it requires special programing to work correctly. With Ebay's history of enhancements and glitches, a function such as this, even though it seems simple, would have a high probabality of malfunctioning. Immediately after it's introduction, many bidders would change their bidding strategy, with the snipers leading the parade, to adapt to it. Any glitch or malfunction could cost a seller big $$$ when a sniper is using a program to take advantage of that 10 second window, and the system malfunctions. You've read the posts of outrage on these boards of sellers who have auctions ending today and the pictures arn't loading, or the servers slow down, or any one of a number of glitches show up. You ain't seen nuthin yet till this function develops the hiccups. They better leave the system as is and let the bidders learn to live within its limitations.
A $75.00 solid state device will always blow first to protect a 25 cent fuse ~ Murphy's Law
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