Bid Tinkering on eBay

Auction Sniper

Use auction sniper. Basically anybody who bids at any time in the auction process before the last few seconds is an amateur who is artificially driving up the price of the item they are trying to get for cheap. Experienced bidders are looking for auctions that are not being bid up, then hoping that their maximum price is more that somebody else's. The other nice thing about Auction sniper is that you pick a price, go out to dinner or whatever while the auction closes, and you won it or not. You don't get sucked in by going up "just $5 more" until you pay more that market value. Funny that somebody said to pick weekend closes, I try to close auctions weekday late at night, not that it makes any difference if you snipe. I also pick a weird price that is over $x.50. Like $53.57. If somebody is manually sniping they at least have to make a few bids to figure it out. I won a fly rod last week that had 5 bids in the last 5 seconds.

I usually have three prices in mind when I bid on eBay:
The price I want to pay.
The price I think it will sell for.
The highest price I'm willing to pay.

At the start of an auction, I bid my low price. That price usually sits there until the last day of the auction when people start bidding up.
On the last day, I bid my middle price and wait until the auction gets near closing. If the bidding doesn't go too high I'll put in my highest price in the last few minutes of the auction.

I don't understand what attraction sniping has for people. I have seen snipers take auctions at the last second but it is almost always for a higher price than I was going to pay in the first place. I have no problem with holding on to your maximum bid until the final minutes of the auction. That's what we used to call "Playing your cards close to your vest."

Basically, snipers just end up paying more for the same junk and driving up the price for everybody else.

Bob-D659 said:

If that's the older chrome body Componon, the rear lens cell will probably unscrew and you can clean 99% of the haze off rear cell and with the aperture wide open, clean the back of the front cell.

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The lens I have is a Schneider Componar. When I get a new lens, I plan to take this one apart to see if I can clean it. If it can't be cleaned well enough or if I end up messing it up in the process, I'll consider it a science project. There's often no better way to learn than to take something apart to find out what makes it tick, inside.

But that doesn't happen until the new lens arrives.
(I might be crazy but I'm not stupid! )

I just make an offer typically a couple days before the auction ends, and then "forget" about it. If I won, I know it by mail. I take emotion out of the equation, which helps in getting stuff at low prices.

My last auctions:

Photographic bag, Reporter brand, middle size, "like new", €11
Jobo 1510 with cog lid, reel, rod: €7,60
Kaiser film cutter with magnifying lens and lamp: €15
Voigtländer Bessa-L plus Voigtländer 15mm Heliar: €301,66
Jobo 1510 with normal lid, reel, rod: €4
Canon Canonet QL19 G-III QL: €66 (those are maybe cheaper in the US were more were sold).

Taking emotion away from the process is of capital importance. If you follow the auction, it's easy to feel you can add some € and it would still be a decent price. Not being in a hurry is important. I hunt for bargains. Put a price at which I am glad to win the auction, and that's it.

Sniping (whether in person or by machine) seems not useful to me. If you do it by machine, I see no advantage in postponing the offer to the last moment. Actually if the sniper maximum bid is equal to my maximum bid, I win. "Shilling" is not a problem, as I am not going to pay more than my offer in any case. Sniping "in person" just make you more vulnerable to emotions. The maximum price might be reached two minutes before the end and in that case, if not for anything else than giving a sense to the time wasted, one would offer "just a few Euros more".

I typically lose 4 or more auctions before getting what I need, but it's not wasted time as the entire process takes very little time, I place the bid and forget.

I don't even care about shilling. The seller can put a minimum bid, a reserve price, or practice shilling, I don't care. I just offer a price at which I am glad to get the object and if I get it I'm a happy camper.

Seems to me you guys don't really know how automatic sniping helps you. If you really want the item, you enter the maximum bid amount and go away. No one knows you are bidding and you do not engage in a bidding war which drives the price up. At the auction end, your auto bid is made and you either win or lose. But most times, you win and at a price lower than your maximum. Sometimes you are outbid before the auction ends. So wait for another auction. I like sleeping in the middle of the night. Auto-sniping makes this possible.

Re-thinking about it, machine-sniping can be useful.

First I would place a small offer because if the item remains with 0 offers the seller can withdraw it. If I'm interested, I will first of all have the auction start, if it hasn't started yet.

If I now just place my moderate bid and walk, as I normally do, a very moderate and lucky amount of "shilling" can accomplish to raise the price that I pay, without compromising my victory. That's not too bad. If I'm ready to offer €30, and the seller wants €25 at minimum, in theory he will get those €25 or give up the sale (he can use shilling, reserve price, or minimum offer).

But if the auction remains very low and the bidder cannot withdraw the object any more, machine-sniping can be helpful, as I might get the item for less than €25.

I think I'll try it one day. When one day everybody snipes, sellers will put a reserve price, or a minimum bid, instead of playing dirty shilling tricks.

My typical auction is for a price at which I consider the auction a bargain, so I did not worry so far. This is more interesting for those auction (rare items, for instance) in which one "wants" to win and doesn't want to run any risk of being shilled. And it encourages a more honest seller attitude in any case.

Thanks for the useful information
Fabrizio

One thing is that I always try to pay as near to the end of the auction as is practical. It keeps my rating up and it puts me in front of the ball, so to speak, if or when it comes to a question of honesty via the internet.

If I didn't want the item, if I had any questions about the merchandise or if I was unsure of the seller's reputation, I would not have bid in the first place.

Due to this, I am usually watching the bidding near the end of the auction, hopefully, I am on-line to see it end.

I guess I, sort of, see the value in sniping but it seems no different to me than, as I said before, "playing your cards close to the vest." The only benefit to using a sniping service would be speed but I usually post my maximum bid in the final minutes of the auction anyway.

If a sniper takes the auction in the last 10 seconds of bidding, he can have it. He's already paying more than I would have paid.

The componon-s (in black with the aperture lever and lit f-stops) is a nice lens just like the el nikkor.

One way to get what you want more often is to put murphy's law to work for you. Bid on 2-3 of the same item from different sellers. Hope you don't win them all, but follow through if you do. Don't you always bid on something and then the next day, a better ones comes along that you wished you could bid on?

Other casual bidders might stay away because of the activity. If you do actually win more than you need, you can resell the rest if it's not a consumable product that you're going to use anyways. I do this all the time with network parts for business. Sometimes I get an abundance of good wins. Sometimes I'm empty handed. Often one or more pans out well for me. It kinda hedges my costs too by averaging things out.

That person didn't bid 4 times in a row. They set their maximum bid higher and every time someone else tried to bid, the winning bidder's bid went up.

Roxycreative said:

That person didn't bid 4 times in a row. They set their maximum bid higher and every time someone else tried to bid, the winning bidder's bid went up.

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I am not convinced, because the bid remained $70, the final and winning bid, in all four bids. If somebody had offered more than the current bid, you would see four bids by 6***1 for increasing sums.

I think 6***1 could have been a "legitimate" buyer, not a shiller. You can see he offered $62. Making that offer, he set $70 as his maximum. When 2***3 offered $70, the $70 offer of 6***1 was winning because it was made before. But 6***1 possibly realized that the auction arrived to the very last dollar he was ready to spend.

So he begun mumbling (who didn't do that once?) that maybe he might retouch his bid up, because he didn't want to lose the auction for $1. So he changed his mind 3 times, raising his maximum bid. Nobody offered more so he won for $70, but maybe he offered $75, $79, $81

What surprises me is that eBay shows 4 $70 bids even if the $70 bid was never passed.

CGW said:

Like buses, another one will come along soon.

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That is ideal. But nowhere near what it is like in L.A. If I miss the bus that I sometimes take to save gas, I sit and rot for another 45 minutes...and hope that the next one has not broken down or run in to traffic.

I must say that S.F. is really like you describe, though. Amazing public transit...but it also has far less geographical area to cover.

Worker 11811 said:

I don't understand what attraction sniping has for people. I have seen snipers take auctions at the last second but it is almost always for a higher price than I was going to pay in the first place. I have no problem with holding on to your maximum bid until the final minutes of the auction. That's what we used to call "Playing your cards close to your vest."

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I don't understand how you can claim sniping has no value, then in the next sentence say you have no problem with it. "Playing your cards close to your vest" IS sniping.

Worker 11811 said:

Basically, snipers just end up paying more for the same junk and driving up the price for everybody else.

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??? Every bid "drives up the price for everybody else". The snipers placed a higher value on the item than you did. What's wrong with that? Are they "overpaying", or are you "undervaluing"?

BTW, there was absolutely nothing suspicious about either of the auctions you referenced in the OP.

Worker 11811 said:

One thing is that I always try to pay as near to the end of the auction as is practical. It keeps my rating up and it puts me in front of the ball, so to speak, if or when it comes to a question of honesty via the internet.

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Where did you get the idea that paying quickly keeps your "rating" up? Buyers can only be given positive feedback; it's been that way for over three years. So if someone is just a buyer, their feedback rating will be 100% even if they're the scum of the earth.

I use a sniping service for everything I buy unless it has a Buy it Now price that I am happy to pay.

It lets me ignore the time when the auction closes. It also removes the frustration of interruptions at just the wrong time.

Some times I'll place a small bid early - both to prevent the seller withdrawing the item, and to prevent losing an item where the Buy it Now price is only slightly higher than what I am happy to pay.

I bid what an item is worth to me. If I lose then another will come along eventually. Snipers have won a few items so they can have them. Strategy plays a big part in winning on ebay. Sellers sometimes list items incorrectly. Look for items with low or no interest and track them. I could kick myself for not bidding on a 'Rollie' 2.8 for less than $50!

Worker 11811 said:

if I had any questions about the merchandise or.......................... I would not have bid in the first place.

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Why not just ask the question?


Steve.

Steve Smith said:

Why not just ask the question?


Steve.

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If I had any questions that were not satisfactorily answered.

Just won a 75 mm. El-Nikkor for $51.

All is right with the world, now.