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 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.

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 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).

Originally Posted by Quick

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).

That's my understanding of the process too.

Which is why I'm asking on the Gixen forum how the bids are queued since the first max bid wins if two people were sniping with the same max bid whoever's bid was recorded first would win...in which case it might be worth subscribing to their "mirror" service so you can adjust your bid time.

Agreed. The time it gets entered on eBay is the time that is used to break ties. One of the questions was if 20 people were the only ones bidding, all were using Gixen, and all entered the same max bid. Then it would be determined by the order that Gixen submitted the bids to eBay. I was speculating that Gixen would use the same method. First one entered would be the first one submitted. They do say that if you modify your bid on Gixen before it has been submitted the original bid will be canceled (on Gixen) and a new bid entered (on Gixen). I would expect this to move you to the back of the (Gixen) queue if there was one.

Originally Posted by Quick

Agreed. The time it gets entered on eBay is the time that is used to break ties. One of the questions was if 20 people were the only ones bidding, all were using Gixen, and all entered the same max bid. Then it would be determined by the order that Gixen submitted the bids to eBay. I was speculating that Gixen would use the same method. First one entered would be the first one submitted. They do say that if you modify your bid on Gixen before it has been submitted the original bid will be canceled (on Gixen) and a new bid entered (on Gixen). I would expect this to move you to the back of the (Gixen) queue if there was one.

I was worried about this myself as I sometimes adjust my max bid if the price goes up while I'm watching and I was afraid my new bid would be placed at the back of the pack so to speak.

Now for the definitive answer.

The question I posed on the Gixen forum...

One question I've always had about snipe programs in general is since they all try to bid at the last second how are those bids queued?

Since whoever puts in the highest bid first wins lets take the hypothetical example of 20 Gixen snipers all putting in the same max bid. Who would win?
And their answer...

The winner will be the one whose bid is submitted first. This is completely random if all the participants use the same offset.

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.

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.