Thread: Sniper question

I've recently lost a lot of auctions by exactly the minimum bid increment while using Gixen so at the risk of you professional snipers giving up your trade secrets I have to ask the question...is there a snipe program out there that has the capability to read the high bid and put in a bid just above it?

I'm not sure I understand.

If your highest bid was say $60, and my highest bid was $100, and there was only you and I sniping, why wouldn't I win by the minimum bid increment?

Is that not how sniping software works? I genuinely do not know, but that was always my impression.

James.

Originally Posted by OLD_SCHOOL

I could be mistaken, but I imagine that the person had a higher snipe set. Plus it snipes at the last few seconds, so if that persons increment went on, with a second remaining, there is no time for yours to be increased. I am guessing the person perhaps uses the paid, mirror service, if it's the same guy, and it's happening several times.

To successfully do that you would have to put in an insanely high max bid for something you wanted to be sure of winning...which might explain some of the prices I've seen lately on eBay...but some of the prices I've been outbid on while at the "upper range" were not unreasonable. Maybe I'm just being too cheap.

Originally Posted by Jimbo

I'm not sure I understand.

If your highest bid was say $60, and my highest bid was $100, and there was only you and I sniping, why wouldn't I win by the minimum bid increment?

Is that not how sniping software works? I genuinely do not know, but that was always my impression.

James.

That is how it should work.

What I'm not sure of is how it works from the eBay end of the deal. If we both snipe at the last second I'd think eBay would have to see both our max bids and award to you because if the item was say at the $5 price level there wouldn't be enough time for the system to adjust our bids by the minimum increment all the way to the point where you win.

Some of the "pay to play" sites show the prices in real time which can be interesting to watch in the final seconds of an auction.

The highest bidder wins the auction, if you feel you would have bid higher knowing the bidding would end just above your maximum bid you simply did not enter the maximum bid you were prepared to spend after all. You cannot blame Gixen for that. Occasionally you're not the winner while your max. bid was the same as the winning bid. In that case the winning bidder put in his winning bid before Gixen did. I do not think you can specify how many seconds before bidding's end Gixen puts in your max. bid.

I wonder what happens if 2 people enter the same max. bid on the same item with Gixen.

I think you're simply being outbid. I could enter a proxy bid on eBay for $100 days before auction end. Every time someone enters a bid under $100 after that, eBay will increase my bid to one increment higher than your's. If you're sniping and your bid gets entered a couple of seconds before the auction end then the bidder with the highest max bid will always win by 1 increment. The fact that you're losing by 1 increment most likely indicates that you had the second highest bid. By how much you were second you don't know, it could be a lot. There could also be other bidders whose max bid was within 1 increment of of your's and also came in second. The fact that you're losing by 1 increment also indicates that there were not multiple people with max bids more than 1 increment over yours. That last part might mean that you're pricing the items very well or a little on the high side and someone is grossly overbidding.

Well, I do not know if this answers your question or not, but I just found this at a site called auctionsofwarereview.com:

If all bids were snipe bids one of following could happen:

* A market price would be reached in exactly the same way as normal due to proxy bidding
* Many bids miss the end of the auction so the result is a lottery with random winners and prices
* The bidders with the best sniping program or service always win, and a new battle to be the fastest sniping company begins

James.

Originally Posted by Kees

The highest bidder wins the auction, if you feel you would have bid higher knowing the bidding would end just above your maximum bid you simply did not enter the maximum bid you were prepared to spend after all. You cannot blame Gixen for that. Occasionally you're not the winner while your max. bid was the same as the winning bid. In that case the winning bidder put in his winning bid before Gixen did. I do not think you can specify how many seconds before bidding's end Gixen puts in your max. bid.

I wonder what happens if 2 people enter the same max. bid on the same item with Gixen.

I'm not blaming Gixen...just venting. Some of the stuff I lost went for bizzare prices like a run of the mill dubl duck for $110 so I suppose there are a few folks who bid VERY high and hope to poach for a buck or two over the going price. Hell, I've seen stuff go for higher than you can buy it at WallMart.

If you subscribe to the mirror service you CAN adjust your bid time...which if I understand how the system works might help by allowing you to bid a couple seconds before all the "free" crowd. In theory if everyone bid the same max you would win because your bid was registered first.

I have a question in on the Gixen forum asking how they queue the bids and when answered I'll post in this forum.

To clarify a bit. I think that once your bid gets entered, it will be increased by 1 increment more than any subsequent bid until you reach your max bid. It doesn't matter when it gets entered as long as it gets entered. When you snipe you're just not revealing that you're bidding until the last seconds. This prevents people from being able to modify their max bid.

Most people are probably not using snipes. They enter a max bid and watch the auction. They hit their max bid and get outbid by 1 increment. The tendency is to go in and raise/re-enter your bid figuring "If I just bid a little more than I had planned to I might win it"... By entering your bid at the last seconds it prevents people from upping their bid manually. As someone else said, it also prevents you from upping your bid manually which is probably a good thing.

Originally Posted by OLD_SCHOOL

Both bids would not be entered at the exact same time, split second etc. One would get in first and beat you. That's why it's called a sniping program.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. I'm pretty sure that IF your bid gets entered at all then the eBay software WILL run it up to the max if needed. The auction-end time is simply a cutoff for bids to be entered. Once your bid has been entered it will be incremented as necessary until it reaches your max bid. That's my understanding. (even if it did work as you might be thinking, seconds is an eternity for the eBay server).