Western Star, you need to take a lesson on how e-bay works. If I place one bid for $1,000 and the last sniper comes in with a bid of $500, I still get the item for $501. How have I lost anything, if I was willing to pay $1,000 to begin with? It's people like me that make it tough on last second snipers like you because you can't guess my high bid, which is sitting there, waiting to execute. As you bid higher and higher, my bid will always top yours, until you get to $1,001, and you'll almost never have enough time to get your bid high enough. If you do, and $1,000 was the top price I was willing to pay, then it's yours. I haven't gone over my limit and you haven't gotten a bargain. Most snipers spend a lot of time and effort just to get caught up in bidding wars. Just place a bid for the highest price you're willing to pay and let the people with no life sit on top of the item for the last few hours of the auction.
Jim, a quick correction and then a comment. You're correct that if you proxy bid $1000, a later bidder for $500 will only generate a response from your proxy bid and he will still lose. But you won't get the item for $501 because the minimum bid increment at the $500 level is $10. You would win, but for $510, not $501.
Now my comment; I can still beat your $1000 proxy bid. Face it, if you know the item is worth $1000 and are willing to pay that for it, someone else knows it's value and is willing to pay more. He can bid up the price until he finds your high proxy bid (and why not if he's willing to pay the same thing you are!). When he finds your high bid, he can choose to quit and let you have it or he can outbid you. But remember, if he's actually BIDDING on the auction, he should know that you may be watching it, too, and standing by ready to outbid him again if necessary. What would I do in that situation? I'd bid you up until I either find your high bid or become the high bidder. If I find your high bid before I become the high bidder, I stop and, knowing exactly what your high bid is, I enter a snipe bid for $1050. I'm going to beat you, every time! (Unless, of course, there's another bidder doing the same thing I'm doing but sniping for $1100.) And I don't have to wory about how much time is left and can I get another bid in before the auction closes. I'm not bidding live! I'm sniping with ONE SECOND left in the auction. The ONLY way anyone can beat me is with another snipe bid.
Now, how can I win that auction without you even know I'm bidding? Simple. Like you, I know the value of the item. On a $1000 item, an extra $25 (the minimum bid increment at the $1000 level) isn't bidding up too much. I enter a snipe bid for $1100, a reasonable 10% over the value of the item. You don't even KNOW that I'm prepared to bid with only ONE SECOND left in the auction, so even if you're WATCHING the auction, you'll think you've won right up to the last second. Then BAM! My snipe beats your proxy!
Of course, if your $1000 bid was a "close-out" bid (meaning the item isn't worth $1000 but you don't think anyone is dumb enough to outbid you), you can find yourself buying a lot of expensive, over-priced stuff. Think about it: if the item is really worth $200-250, you know that no one in their right mind is going to out bid your $1000 proxy bid. But
they don't KNOW your proxy bid is that high, so they keep bidding on it, each time being immediately outbid by your proxy. Now it becomes a contest of wills, or revenge. He keeps bidding you up and your proxy continues to outbid him. He keeps going until he reaches a point where he thinks, "Ha! Now I've got this guy (you) up to $800 for a $200 item. Time for me to quit! LOL". The result? Yeah, you "won", but it's a Pyrrhic victory, a victory that is offset by staggering losses. You won, but you lost! Ironic, isn't it?
Another comment: you stated that your $1000 bid will outlast anyone who's bidding and they won't have TIME to outbid you. They will, if you bid early in the auction. They'll have up to 7 to 10 DAYS to outbid you, depending on when you entered your bid. With an early bid like that, I can find your high bid and decide if I want to outbid you or not. MY choice. And if I do, you lose, but you don't care because $1000 is all you were willing to pay. I, on the other hand, was willing to pay $25 more.
You also said snipers spend a lot of time and effort and get caught up in bidding wars. That's not how sniping works. I spend a few seconds entering a snipe bid. My snipe bid DOESN'T affect the auction bidding at all. As a snipe bid, it won't be entered until the end of the auction. I can't get caught up in a bidding war because I'm NOT BIDDING! And I don't even have to be at my computer when the auction ends. My computer doesn't even have to be ON! My snipe bid will do my last second bidding for me while I while away my time doing more constructive things than staring at my computer screen for hours at a time.
It all sound rather ridiculous when you're talking about $1000 bids. Look at an example where the item is only worth $5 or $10. Now the minimum bid increment is 25 CENTS. You bid $10 early in the auction. If I snipe at $10.50, I'm going to beat your proxy bid. You won't even know that you've been outbid until you check the auction, even if you're watching it as it ends!
Still, it's true that you weren't willing to pay more than $10 for the item, but doesn't it just gall you to know that for a measly quarter, you got outbid?
I snipe because it dramatically increase my chances of winning at a price I'm very comfortable with. If e-Bay changes their auction format to a going-going-gone format, I, and thousands of other bidders, will quit bidding entirely. I don't think e-Bay wants to lose thousands of potential bidders.
Well, those are my thoughts anyway. I could go on, but there's no real point to it. You are perfectly correct in having a different opinion. But my snipe STILL beats your proxy!
Darrell, quiet...for now
