How to Stop eBay Auction Sniping
Posted: Monday, October 10, 2005
by Lissa Jannini
Break Your Shackles
How to Stop eBay Auction Sniping
By Lissa Jannini
Every day, hapless bidders get beaten to the punch by
auction snipers who jump in at the last minute. I know how
annoying it can be, as I once had it happen to me three
times in a row on the same item! The thing is that the only
people who can help the poor bidders are us, the sellers.
Bidders will bid on an item and then wait for days until it
finishes, only to have someone else outbid them at the last
minute. In a traditional auction at a real auction house,
this isn’t a problem at all, as the auction keeps going
until everyone has bid as much as they want to, and the
auctioneer double-checks with the classic phrase “going,
going, gone".
The problem on eBay is caused by the fixed length of time
that eBay’s auctions last, and the fact that they aren’t
extended significantly if someone places a new bid in the
last few seconds of the auction. Imagine if a real auction
house worked that way, letting people shout “50 cents
more!" at the last second and win an item. It would simply
be unfair, and many buyers think it’s unfair on eBay too.
The Solutions.
Until eBay decide to fix the problem (and by now it’s
looking unlikely that they ever will), you’re the only one
who can do anything for your buyers.
First off, you can encourage your buyers to use eBay’s
proxy bidding system the way it was intended. The idea of
the system is that they enter the maximum they’re willing
to pay for an item and eBay places bids for them
automatically up to that maximum. They’re not supposed to
come back and bid an extra dollar every time they get
outbid.
If your bidders are bidding high enough, then no sniper
will even come along and beat them – because they will have
set the maximum snipe level in their sniping software to
less than the normal bidder’s maximum. Changing the way
people use eBay is hard, though.
One alternative is to keep an eye on who’s bidding on your
auction, and cancel bids from known snipers – but this
requires you to be around right at the end of the auction
to cancel their bids. You might also want to set your
auction to end sometime when bidders will be around so that
they can outbid snipers themselves. This is good business
sense anyway – most of the bidding always takes place in
the last few hours of an auction.
An easier way to thwart bid snipers is to offer ‘Second
Chance’ sales to bidders who get outbid by a sniper at the
last minute. This is good for you, and for them – they
still get to buy the item they wanted, and you’ve just made
two sales: one to the sniper and one to them.
Learn everything you need to know about creating,
getting your hands on and selling the most profitable
kind of products you can possibly sell on eBay
http://www.ebayresource.com/infoebay/
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Top-level comments on this article: (8 total)I agree with you that the only real thing that can or should be done is to have buyers bid their maximum amount. But then, why get upset at snipers? Why not get mad at those folks that are trying to lowball you? They're the ones who are causing the winning sniped bid to be low. If they bid more rather than piddling in a dollar at a time, you'd start considering snipers to be your friends rather than your enemies. The fact is, its the lowballers you should have a problem with, not the snipers. As for getting people to stay around in the auctions to beat the snipers ... so let me get this straight. You are encouraging people to beat the snipers by being snipers themselves? It's not that I have a problem with encouraging more people to snipe - it's that anybody could think this actually solves the "problem" of snipers. It's kinda like saying "there is too much crime on the streets, so let's encourage potential victims to go out and commit more crimes to even the score." Not exactly the same - sniping is not a crime - but just as ridiculous.
Ms. Janinni wrote: "The problem on eBay is caused by the fixed length of time that eBay’s auctions last, and the fact that they aren’t extended significantly if someone places a new bid in the last few seconds of the auction. Imagine if a real auction house worked that way..." I say: The fact is that eBay IS NOT AN AUCTION SITE. Seriously. According to the official eBay description of itself, "The eBay Marketplace creates a powerful online platform for the sale of goods and services....there are millions of items available through auction-style and fixed-price trading." Note the use of the hyphenated adjective "auction-style". Thus we should not expect eBay to change its policies to make it like a REAL auction house. Furthermore, PayPal is not a real bank or nor is it subject to Federal regulation like a bank; but maybe that is already well-known. -eBay Realist
I have Super-fast Cable internet connection. I have three monitors. I have a duo processor on my PC. And I make my business buying at the last three seconds of any auction. So the quesiton is this, are you upset that you lost three times on the same item because someone beat you at the end, or because you just didn't bid as much as you would have paid for the item. If someone beat you at an action at the last second, it means you didn't bid enough for the item. So, in a sense, they didn't beat you, they won it. It's just like the new eBay marketing strategy, "Don't just buy it, Win it".
Stop raising the price of items by bidding!!!!Sniping is the only way to get the lowest price on an item. If an item is common then sniping is the answer. There is nothing wrong or illegal about sniping. It has a higher risk factor and not useful for rare or one of a kind items. Stop expecting Ebay to be a GGG auction and use it properly.The only thing you are doing by bidding more than 5 seconds before the end is RAISING THE PRICE!Until people learn to bid properly it stays a sellers marketplace.
With ebays proxy bidding system everyone has the opportunity to enter the maximum amount they are willing to pay. If someone enters their maximum bid at the last second, they only win if it is the highest bid, otherwise they lose. I don't see anything wrong with it. If a 'sniper' wins its only because they bid they highest amount.From the point of view of a seller though, I would think you would want people to engage in bidding wars. And if you happen to have a sniper then they do you the service of engaging everyones maximum bids.From a buyers point of view, it doesn't make since to do it any other way.
The problem has gotten so bad as of late with me, since most of the items I sell only really appeal to 'technically' oriented people, who are almost certain to use sniping tools like bidrobot etc. I've had more than a few 7 days listings get ZERO bids until the last 2 seconds, then receive 15 bids in 2 seconds. You might say the result is the same, but it's not. Good old fashioned bid wars bring out the competitive side of people. People in general hate to lose even if they end up paying too much. This competition is good for both the sellers, as it makes them more, and ebay as well, since they get a % of the final ending price.. so the higher something ends, the bigger cut they get. I've never understood why they've been pro-sniping anyway due to that. They lose as much from the practice as the sellers do.My solution has been this.. Since most of my buyers are guaranteed to be snipers for some reason, on auctions of mine that have 0 bids and a lot of watchers near the end, I simply end them early and relist. There are no restrictions on ending auctions with 0 bids even if there are less than 12 hours left. As a seller, this is the only counter to sniping I have but it isn't really a solution. It just forces at least one person to bid a good bit before the auction ends, though usually after the first person bids, others join in.
well said Anonymous. i do exactly the same & to which @#$@#&*es snipers off. failing that there is a gropu of us that now has several ebay accounts registered at different locations and we use these accounts to add bids and this works a treat. simply close account and open new one after account has been used a few times with same seller. failing this. set a start price or reserve and pass the fee charged onto the buyer via postage or take into account when setting start price.so just to reiterate,unless your happy to sell items at 99p etc and happy to sell at this then let snipers bid. otherwise dont bother trying to save yourself or buyers the cost of fees by listing at 99p & hope that bids come in cos they probably wont until the snipers on benefits start bidding so its worth paying a little extra in ebay fees to protect your item and you can always pass these onto the buyer anyway. im also working on software at present to which will block sniping sites and when finished it will be available to download onto your ebay account via button.
The last minute? Try the last second or the last few milliseconds! I think Ebay should step up to the plate and BAN the use of these travisties!
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