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I’d prefer people to be open from the beginning by bidding to show their interest and what they’re thinking of spending on it, and then if you feel like putting in a bid and then maybe a higher one, you can. Like traditional bidding. It gives you time to figure out if you want to or can spend more, and also, it may be impossible for some people (especially those of us without smartphones) to be online at the time bidding ends. I don’t think people should have to plan their lives around being online at the precise moment to have a chance for that. I don’t see how that’s considered easier than bidding at your leisure.
If I sounded butthurt in this post, well, I’m not really. Those are my thoughts but my feelings on it aren’t particularly strong, and it doesn’t affect me much since I usually don’t have the money to bid on much of anything anyhow.
eBay used to have a snipe-neutralizing option for Sellers to list their items with. If that box was checked, the Auction would extend another minute until no more bids were placed. This option was no longer available when I signed up in January of 2006. I did watch my father bidding on items in ’04-’05 when this was still in effect. Personally, I think it was good that eBay removed that option, because anybody who really wanted the item might have ended up playing “bid tag” against someone who was just driving up the price for kicks. There seemed to be less of a commitment back then, and Sellers and Buyers who were legitimate lost out.
I don’t know for certain, but it’s what seemed to be the cause of the changes eBay implemented by the time
I had an account. I’m sure someone who’s been active on eBay since the early 2000’s would have a better perspective of this. Mine is based on watching auctions my father participated in, or was considering to.As for being online when the auction ends, if you really want the item, you’ll be there either way. Whether you started bidding when the auction was first posted, or if you’re considering to snipe in the last few seconds. Like I said in a post on the previous page, there were times I missed out on the auction completely, and wished I’d placed a bid earlier in the day, but that hasn’t happened often enough in my near ten years for me to change my bid tactics. Only a few times, really. There was only one time that I missed out on an item that only came available once in awhile, and it sold for a price that was ridiculously low. Was really kicking myself then, but that’s the game we play on eBay. It’s all a matter of being present when the time’s right, and a lot of luck. Luck, for example, is if someone just so happens to glance at your wishlist, happens across an eBay listing for an item from it, and is willing to let you know about an auction you would have otherwise missed completely because the keyword for your saved search wasn’t in the auction title. I’m still incredulous at that stroke of luck, and extremely thankful to that person.
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☙ #224 KOI GB '22 Young Qi'LinThis topic is always a hot button for me. People bid on an item, see they are leading for five days, get emotionally attached to it, and then are crushed when they do not win. First of all, it is not yours merely because you are leading in the bidding, and you cannot “lose” something that was not yours to begin with. Bidders should not allow themselves to fall into that mindset; you are not entitled to the item unless you are the ultimate winner.
I would also like to set the record straight about all the people “losing” by only a few dollars. You usually have no idea how much the winner had as their max bid; the bids have to fall a certain way for you to know that.
If my max bid is $500 and yours is $200, my winning bid will show as $205 because $5 was the amount of eBay’s automatic bid increase in that price range. The $205 you are seeing is a far cry from my actual bid of $500. You did not lose by $5; you lost by several hundred dollars.
If my max bid was $203 and yours was $200, eBay cannot fully raise my bid by their automatic $5; so my winning bid would be $203. This time you can see my actual max bid. In order to win, your max would have to be at least $203.01; and you did lose by a few dollars. However if you think you should have time to bid again if you are sniped, why shouldn’t the sniper also be able to bid again?
People from all over the world can bid on the various eBays; all they need to do is register. It is a business, not a friendly little club. Why should a person think they have the right to an item just because they say they want it? Others want it too, or they would not be bidding on it. And why should I let others know what I will bid so it is easier for them? I am bidding with the hope of winning at the lowest price, not a higher one. When I bid, it is not to win at any cost; it is to win at the price that item is worth to me. In other words, I put in the maximum bid that I am willing to pay. Not the amount I want to pay, the max I am willing to pay if it reaches that max. I do not just throw in a ridiculously high bid thinking no one else will top it, because I have seen that happen; and if I win it, I pay for it.
Check the eBay tips; they tell you straight out to bid your maximum. If you do not do that, blame yourself, not the person who put in a higher maximum than you did. And yes I know that not everyone is at the same time and place financially. I sympathize; been there and done that. But do you really think people should not bid higher just because you can’t? If so, then you should not be bidding either, because I am sure there are others who cannot afford what you can.
Also, I do not have a smart phone either, only a dumb one. And no sniping service either.
I would also like to set the record straight about all the people “losing” by only a few dollars. You usually have no idea how much the winner had as their max bid; the bids have to fall a certain way for you to know that.
If my max bid is $500 and yours is $200, my winning bid will show as $205 because $5 was the amount of eBay’s automatic bid increase in that price range. The $205 you are seeing is a far cry from my actual bid of $500. You did not lose by $5; you lost by several hundred dollars.
If my max bid was $203 and yours was $200, eBay cannot fully raise my bid by their automatic $5; so my winning bid would be $203. This time you can see my actual max bid. In order to win, your max would have to be at least $203.01; and you did lose by a few dollars. However if you think you should have time to bid again if you are sniped, why shouldn’t the sniper also be able to bid again?
My hubby doesn’t understand this either. He will see me watching an auction until the end, if the current bid is at $10.00, he’ll say that I should hurry up and bid $20.00. Then he’s completely flabbergasted when I bid $500 on an auction that is at $10. If there’s another sniper out there who wants it as much as I do, I need to make sure I put in what I think it’s worth TO ME because somebody else is going to bid what it’s worth TO THEM.
There was a Windstone on eBay years ago that I made myself sick with worry over. My husband was laid off and I had a tiny bit of money saved in the emergency Windstone fund, so at the last second I bid every cent I had, to the penny. I ended up winning by between 35-50 CENTS!
Years later, there was a unicorn I HAD to have and I ended up winning him for $300 LESS than I had bid.You never know what the winning high bid ACTUALLY is. And this is the reason I don’t give myself time to bid again because I will send myself to the poorhouse trying to find out if I was going to lose by a few dollars!
As for being online when the auction ends, if you really want the item, you’ll be there either way.
Well, I don’t necessarily agree with that. If I’m at work I have absolutely no ability to do so. I guess if we’re talking extreme terms, you’re right, a person could request off work and plan everything around it (at least, for some people that could be possible), but my point was I don’t feel a person should have to in order to have a chance.
Regardless of the fact that my understanding of how much a bid loses by was messed up, I just don’t really understand waiting until the last moment to bid.
First of all, it is not yours merely because you are leading in the bidding, and you cannot “lose” something that was not yours to begin with. Bidders should not allow themselves to fall into that mindset; you are not entitled to the item unless you are the ultimate winner.
By saying they’ve lost, I don’t think anyone is claiming the item was theirs. To “win” and “lose” are terms you use in an auction situation, that’s all. At least that was how I meant the word in my post.
Nor was anything in my post meant to insinuate I deserved the dragon I bid on more than anyone else. I feel like my words are being read too much into for people grasping for things to be offended at.
I also specifically said I did blame myself for losing the dragon since I didn’t realize the value of the piece at the time. And me mentioning the fact that I don’t have money to bid very often was certainly not meant to be a pity party or saying bad things towards people with more money. I stated it as the reason that this whole topic doesn’t affect me a whole lot since I don’t bid often.I don’t really feel the desire to comment on anything else, as my opinion is what it is. As I said, I’m not pissed at anyone for sniping, and may try it myself if and when I bid on something like that again. It’s just not my preferred way of doing things. Sorry if that upsets anyone but oh well. The topic asked! I’m moving on now as this really isn’t a big deal to me.
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They’ll always get it for just barely higher than your max, which means you probably would’ve paid that much too, but by sniping you weren’t given a chance.
I’ve seen a couple of people say things like this in the thread now, and I’m a little bit confused by it, because… this is just how bidding works! All bidding, not just sniping. Whether they sniped it or just bid after you, the next winning bidder’s offer is *always* going to be “just a few dollars higher” than your max — there are set increments for bidding, generally linked to price (so an item currently at $1 may have increments of $.50, while an item at $100 will have increments of $5 or $10, and one at $1000 will have $100 increments, etc.) so the next bid will always be [1 increment] above your max bid, regardless of whether they did it on day 2 or day 7.
No matter how high the bidder’s max is, Ebay will always place the “current price” at the next increment above the last bidder’s maximum, and then bid up to their maximum as other offers come in. Example: your max bid is $50, and Sarah comes along and puts in a max bid of $100. The displayed “winning bid” amount will be $55, because that’s one increment over the last person’s maximum bid! If you came right back and bid $60, Ebay would raise Sarah’s bid to $65, another increment over your bid. And so on, until your bid was high enough to reach the amount [Sarah’s maximum + 1 increment].
Since Ebay will automatically bid for you up to your maximum, you don’t have to be online at the exact moment the auction closes in order to win; you just have to have a maximum bid that’s higher than the sniper’s. (This can actually work for you and against the sniper! Because the downside to bidding last-minute is that you don’t have time to make another offer; if the price is $45 bid by Member X, and you bid $100 with ten seconds left on the clock… well, if it turns out that Member X’s maximum was $200, you don’t have time to make another bid! The auction closes with a $105 winning bid by Member X, and you’re just out of luck.)
Long story short: they call it a “maximum bid” for a reason. If you’re upset that someone topped your maximum bid by $10 because you were willing to go $20 higher… you didn’t actually enter your maximum. And the winning bid isn’t necessarily your competitor’s maximum, so you might not win anyway, even if you did come back and try to re-snipe it.
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Please read ALL the comments in this thread, and you will see that my remarks and observations were in response to multiple people saying pretty much the same things. The only one that was directed solely to one person was the one about not having a smart phone to bid at the end, and I have a solution for that; I am sure there are others too.
You can use a sniping service (google it) if you cannot be home or change your schedule in order to bid, or you can have someone else bid AS you. By that I mean that you give your sign in and password to this person, they sign into eBay with your info, and they then bid as if they were you. If they win the item with your winning bid, you can then pay with PayPal when you get home from work. The “winning” email is sent to you, the request for payment email is sent to you, and the item is sent to your address.
I have done this for two people, and it worked exactly the same as if they had been bidding themselves. Obviously you need someone you trust implicitly; you are giving them your password and access to your eBay account. You can always change your password immediately afterward if you wish to be sure your account is safe.
What always flabbergasts me is this: Let’s say something is at $200 the whole time until a minute before the auction ends. If I happen to be on when it’s ending I might try and bid near the end to see if I can beat the current bid by a bit if I really want the item and know I have just enough to get it. But then in the last 10 seconds suddenly there might be 2 or more snipers on that both bid their max and the price suddenly goes up to like $500 when I thought I had a chance at winning it for maybe $250. This has happened to me a few times when I thought I had a chance at something the whole time based on the current bid only to be disappointed that it sold for twice as much. This has also happened on items when it was unexpected that something would sell for that much because other similar pieces sold for half the amount. So that is what bugs me. Now if say I bid $250 and then someone sniped it for $255, then I would say well it was over my max and congrats to the other person. But if it sold for $500 I would honestly be ticked I even spent the time watching the auction because if someone thought it was worth that much then why wait until the last 10 seconds to bid that? I also think people often end up paying more that way because if they had bid say $300 early then probably others would have dropped out bidding at the end instead of a few people trying to snipe by bidding a couple hundred dollars more. That is where I think it would be nice for someone to bid their max early so no one else wastes their time watching it at the end.
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Sadly, that is the name of the game. Disappointment happens, just don’t invest too much into it until you’ve paid and it’s shipped to you, which I know is hard to do but it’s a hard lesson we’ve all learned in the years ebay’s been around.
It’s a case of ‘Hate the game, not the player.’
*Formerly meowmix101
Not currently open for PYO commissions.Now if say I bid $250 and then someone sniped it for $255, then I would say well it was over my max and congrats to the other person. But if it sold for $500 I would honestly be ticked I even spent the time watching the auction because if someone thought it was worth that much then why wait until the last 10 seconds to bid that?
This, Kim, is exactly why I was irked and started this post. It bothers me that people wait until the last second to bid their max. If a max bid IS an actual max limit, then there really shouldn’t be a reason for people to delay the bid. Yes, early bidding wars can be atrocious however, I’ve found (and much prefer) that a higher bid upfront will square off the competition since it settles the mindset of hesitant bidders. I do understand that there is a fear of people bidding up just to spite other competitors but I think a lot of that is unfounded; if someone is wasting money doing that _particularly_ on expensive items, it’s going to bite them in the proverbial behind.
Comparatively, I’d take live auctions ANY DAY over an internet one (I grew up attending them as my parents spent a lot of time collecting various antiques) so perhaps that factors into my ire, too.
Since last minute bids are completely legal and are always a possibility, you have absolutely no control over them. The only thing you do have control over is your feelings and response to those feelings. Like many people have said on here, you can’t count your Windstones til they’re sitting on your shelf. It’s not yours til you are the highest bidder and have paid for your item so while getting attached is easy to do, avoiding that mindset helps set reasonable expectations.
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DRAGONS: Male CoyoteBut if it sold for $500 I would honestly be ticked I even spent the time watching the auction because if someone thought it was worth that much then why wait until the last 10 seconds to bid that?
Because they did not want to pay $600 or $700 for that item they won for $500.
If someone puts a huge bid in early, there is a risk that they will be slowly bid up by people who would not have been bidding at the last second 🙂 There is a risk that someone might get caught up trying to outbid me, and over the course of a few days, run my bid up higher and higher. I snipe to avoid unnecessary competition, so that hopefully I will win the item for a lot less than my max bid. If I bid in the last seconds, the only competition I have is the high bidder before me, and any other snipers who might be around.
What always flabbergasts me is this: Let’s say something is at $200 the whole time until a minute before the auction ends. If I happen to be on when it’s ending I might try and bid near the end to see if I can beat the current bid by a bit if I really want the item and know I have just enough to get it. But then in the last 10 seconds suddenly there might be 2 or more snipers on that both bid their max and the price suddenly goes up to like $500 when I thought I had a chance at winning it for maybe $250. This has happened to me a few times when I thought I had a chance at something the whole time based on the current bid only to be disappointed that it sold for twice as much. This has also happened on items when it was unexpected that something would sell for that much because other similar pieces sold for half the amount. So that is what bugs me. Now if say I bid $250 and then someone sniped it for $255, then I would say well it was over my max and congrats to the other person. But if it sold for $500 I would honestly be ticked I even spent the time watching the auction because if someone thought it was worth that much then why wait until the last 10 seconds to bid that? I also think people often end up paying more that way because if they had bid say $300 early then probably others would have dropped out bidding at the end instead of a few people trying to snipe by bidding a couple hundred dollars more. That is where I think it would be nice for someone to bid their max early so no one else wastes their time watching it at the end.
This is what I think everyone means when they say they felt like it was in the bag so to speak because it seems like there isn’t a lot of interest above what you’re willing to pay and then out of nowhere it jumps to a crazy price in the last few minutes (which by the way is a good example of how sniping doesn’t in any way keep the price down on an item). I prefer to know I have no chance early on.
This is what I think everyone means when they say they felt like it was in the bag so to speak because it seems like there isn’t a lot of interest above what you’re willing to pay and then out of nowhere it jumps to a crazy price in the last few minutes (which by the way is a good example of how sniping doesn’t in any way keep the price down on an item). I prefer to know I have no chance early on.
Imagine how high the final end price would have been had it been bid up early on though ;). Plus there’s always the hope that if other bidders don’t think there is much interest in the piece , maybe they’ll become lax and not watch it closely towards the end of the auction and ol’ snipey can swoop in and maybe grab it.
*Formerly meowmix101
Not currently open for PYO commissions.This topic is always a hot button for me. People bid on an item, see they are leading for five days, get emotionally attached to it, and then are crushed when they do not win. First of all, it is not yours merely because you are leading in the bidding, and you cannot “lose” something that was not yours to begin with. Bidders should not allow themselves to fall into that mindset; you are not entitled to the item unless you are the ultimate winner.
I would also like to set the record straight about all the people “losing” by only a few dollars. You usually have no idea how much the winner had as their max bid; the bids have to fall a certain way for you to know that.
If my max bid is $500 and yours is $200, my winning bid will show as $205 because $5 was the amount of eBay’s automatic bid increase in that price range. The $205 you are seeing is a far cry from my actual bid of $500. You did not lose by $5; you lost by several hundred dollars.
If my max bid was $203 and yours was $200, eBay cannot fully raise my bid by their automatic $5; so my winning bid would be $203. This time you can see my actual max bid. In order to win, your max would have to be at least $203.01; and you did lose by a few dollars. However if you think you should have time to bid again if you are sniped, why shouldn’t the sniper also be able to bid again?
People from all over the world can bid on the various eBays; all they need to do is register. It is a business, not a friendly little club. Why should a person think they have the right to an item just because they say they want it? Others want it too, or they would not be bidding on it. And why should I let others know what I will bid so it is easier for them? I am bidding with the hope of winning at the lowest price, not a higher one. When I bid, it is not to win at any cost; it is to win at the price that item is worth to me. In other words, I put in the maximum bid that I am willing to pay. Not the amount I want to pay, the max I am willing to pay if it reaches that max. I do not just throw in a ridiculously high bid thinking no one else will top it, because I have seen that happen; and if I win it, I pay for it.
Check the eBay tips; they tell you straight out to bid your maximum. If you do not do that, blame yourself, not the person who put in a higher maximum than you did. And yes I know that not everyone is at the same time and place financially. I sympathize; been there and done that. But do you really think people should not bid higher just because you can’t? If so, then you should not be bidding either, because I am sure there are others who cannot afford what you can.
Also, I do not have a smart phone either, only a dumb one. And no sniping service either.
^^ Such an eloquent and well reasoned response.
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