pdp1@EARTHLINK.NET on thu 22 jan 04
and, their something of their 'why'...maybe a primer...got longish
Hi Andre, all...
Right...
Bidding at the last minute is called 'sniping'.
It is a nice method for winning an Auction where the
previous bidder(s) had a low or lowish bid, and nothing much
has happenned bid-wise after their bid(s), where, if one had
entered the fray, and bid a little more earlier, it may
alert the previous bidder(s) to up their bid, and the whole
thing may escalate ( to the pleasure of the seller and the
chagrin or thrills of the vieing, prospective buyers).
Nothing wrong with that...a
And...none-the-less...
I will 'snipe' even on items as never had any bids on them
at all, in the possibility that someone else, as is also
intending to snipe, may be complascent in their ultimate,
last-minute amount, which I imagine my bid will then be
poised to exceed. And sometimes that is in fact the case,
too. I tend to 'win' most often in this method. But too, it
is ONLY because my bid is ultimately 'highest'.
The logic of this, is as being coy, and or to avoid a
bidding contest to which Auctions by nature are liable, (as
may escalate an item's price beyond what I am willing to
pay,) as the Auction would have more time to escalate in the
week or days or hours or whatever of an auction's remaining
duration.
As a seller, I have had Auctions in which nothing happened,
or maybe as had recieved one little token bid, for the whole
week's run. And, at the last few seconds, went banannas,
having in but a few moments, maybe twenty five bids, as last
minute snipers ( just like me!) got into their dizzying
electronic submission's vieings, as the last few seconds
tick off to the Auction's close...
When an Auction's close occurs at a time inconvenient for me
to bid, I simply give my best shot as close to the auction's
end as is convenient , which may be some hours or even a day
before it closes. Which of course is not then a 'snipe'.
I tend to win less often by this method than I do when I
'snipe'. Or, I tend to win less often, unless it is an item
of such generally valueless obscurity, that the seller is
fortunate anyone at all wanted it at any price ( I want many
such things, and have many myself as I have sold,
too...sigh...)
But, as ever, no matter, it all ultimately resolves on who,
among attentive or complaiscent bidders, is disposed to
offer the highest bid, and, that is the final 'logic' of
all...the rest has to do with being coy or complaiscent or
strategic or only offering such tentative, opportunistic or
casual interest as one's bid(s) actually reflect.
Too, as we must gather by now, the bid one sees listed for
an item, does not
necessarily tell anything of how much was bid, it tells only
that someone had bid enough to satisfy the seller's
"Starting Bid", or, for the price to go up some
increment, and to show the increment then arrived at.
If an item is listed with a starting bid of $5.00...
And you bid $1,000.00 for it...and never touch it again...
The listing will show a present hi bid of $5.50. Untill
someone else attempts to exceed that...
Recently, I won a very nice 1930s Stove Flue air inlet
self-regulating dampener for .01 Cent, as that was the
starting price the seller had began the Auction with.
Now, I bid something like $10.00 for the item because I
wanted it for the 'Reclaimed Cooking and Lubricateing Oil'
Heat stove I aspire to build one of these days...
But, oweing to the nature of the structure of the Auctions,
I won the item for One Cent. Now, this was not because I am
a cheap bastard trying to be cute, but because no one else
bid anything for my $10.00 bid to get to stretch it's legs.
So...
Say an Item has a starting bid of $5.00...
If someone else comes in and bids say $7.00, your actual
($1,000.00) 'bid' will kick
in what it needs to, and the listing will show a present hi
bid (yours) of $7.50.
If the "$7.00" bidder keeps making seperate bids of a few
dollars more each time, your actual ($1,000.00) bid will
keep adjusting to exceed theirs by (the electronicly
built-in progression of) 50 cents or whatever, and, it will
appear that the item has many bids, which in a way it does -
your big bid, and someone's many small seperate successive
increases of trying to get their amount to show as present
hi-bidder.
If someone snipes at the last minute, bidding $150.00, they
will loose, and you old original bid of $1,000.00 will kick
in to use $150.50 of itself, and you win.
The 'e-bay' term for this is 'Proxy Bidding'...although I
think that is an odd term to use.
Sniping will not allow one to win an Auction unless the
sniper happens to bid more than whatever the highest
previous bid had
been (regardless of the shown present price as reflects only
how much OF that actual 'bid' is presently being used), and,
as I
am trying to show here, you may not know what
that actual bid had been unless, by construence or
inference, your bid shows as highest because you infact had
exceeded it. Or, I suppose, if you are a talented hacker...
If you had bid on $1,000.00 on an item a week ago, and the
starting bid had been $5.00, it would show a hi bid (yours)
of $5.50
untill someone else exceeds a $5.50 bid, whereupon, your
$1,000.00 bid would merely use what it needed to of itself
to
exceed anyone else's bid...and, at the last minute, if
someone else bids or 'snipes' $1,000.01, then they would
win, but not
otherwise.
And the shown price would have jumped from $5.50 to
$1,000.01 only at the last minute, or after the Auction's
close.
If you click on the blue text of how many bids an item has
recieved ( you may not review the amounts unless you are the
seller, or, again, a talanted hacker, but, ) you may see
something of this process implied or represented in the
order of bidders. When you see the same name many times in a
row, it is not that the bidder had kept bidding to exceed
their previous bid by seperate gestures, but rather, you may
understand that seemingly repetative bidder to have made a
particular, single large bid which others were bidding
against without knowing how large it had been, where every
time they bid, the un-used portion of the large bid exceeded
their bid...
Like that...
Phil
Las Vegas
----- Original Message -----
From:
> The Ebay term for that is "sniping"....its commonly done.
>
> Andre
| |
|
