"Sniping"

[Tom Spielman]

On Monday, February 10, 2003, at 08:23 PM, Cube List wrote:

> It's irritating and unfair from the seller's standpoint, however.  What
> happens is you hope to get $50 for an item, but 10 bidders wait for the
> last minute and all place bids at once.  One wins at $5; the others are
> outbid and all you get is $5, even though there were 10 bidders.  As a
> frequent seller, I definitely consider sniping "slimy".  I've suggested
> many times to eBay that the auction should automatically be extended on
> any winning bid - LIKE A REAL AUCTION - and of course they have ignored
> it, because that would be too hard to program.  After all, one can't
> expect people making millions of dollars from a system to implement any
> improvements.
>

Here's another perspective:

As both an Ebay seller and a buyer, I expect sniping and plan 
accordingly. If you want $50, don't set the starting price above $5 and 
you won't have to worry about 10 people bidding under $5 right at the 
end.

Unlike a "REAL AUCTION", when you're selling something on Ebay you have 
a world wide pool of buyers as opposed to just a roomful. That more 
than more than makes up for the fact the ending an auction at it's 
scheduled time might lose some bids. Ubid keeps the auction open while 
bidding is continuing (I think there's a time limit) and that doesn't 
stop sniping and I find it to be more slimy because extending the 
auction just increases the likelyhood that somebody will get caught up 
in the excitement and bid more than what they would have been willing 
to spend had they kept their cool.

My honest opinion is that Ebay favors the sellers because as a buyer 
you can often find a better deal by just looking around a little. The 
whole competitive nature of auctions plays into the sellers hands and 
sniping is one way of limiting the big advantage that the seller has. 
It shortens the period of time where people will bid higher than what 
they really should.

I'm getting ready to sell an item I bought from ubid about a year and a 
half ago. I will get anywhere from $10 less than what I payed for it to 
$30 more based on recently completed auctions. At the time I bought it, 
I remember folks buying bunches of them from ubid and then turning 
around and selling them on Ebay. Now that's slimy if you ask me. What 
value did these people add?  Sniping only prevented people from getting 
ripped off more than they already were.

Ebay exists to make money. By extending auctions they might increase 
their own profits and the profits of the sellers. Why then haven't they 
done it? I seriously doubt it has anything to do with the difficulty of 
programming. My guess is that they know it would turn off buyers and 
the more buyers they have, the better it is for Ebay *and* for sellers.

If you have 15 people sniping, your odds of the price getting run up is 
better than if only 2 people bother to hang around for the end of the 
auction.

I am opposed to sniping services though.