Galaga! And what the hell is wrong with Ebay users

[Pipercub]

Finally got me a galaga, after years of effort. Year before last I didn't have the $$, last year I did but they were all junk at the auction. I was planning on finding one at this years upcoming auction but a perfect one popped up on ebay, close enough to pick up and see in person before I hand over the $$ in case it isn't as claimed. But it eneded up going for less because it was the seller's first auction and details were slim at best. It cut about $500 out of my auction budget but a Galaga in this condition would run me a few bills more at auction.

That was my happy dance, so now the Poll, I can't wait to see what people think. That stuff drives me batty, Why, Why do people get into bidding contests at 7 days out, anything other than 30 seconds out is just driving up the price.

[Tilzs]

Because you aren't really overly concerend if you win something so you just place a bid and the most you are willing to pay. If you get it you get it, if you don't you don't.

[Pipercub]

Even if you do that, for the love of tokens, do it at 30 seconds out.  

[RacerX]

Even if you do that, for the love of tokens, do it at 30 seconds out.  

Why?  Once you have bid your maximum, it doesn't matter when you do it.  If my max bid is more than your snipe bid, I'm still going to "win" the auction, but you're the one driving the price up.

[missioncontrol]

not at the p.c. 24/7 waiting for auctions to end....just bid what I would pay when at the p.c. on the chance to win....If I win good for me if not try again on another auction....if i don't bid than I have no chance on it....

[MonitorGuru]

The ONLY way to win an auction on ebay is to SNIPE the auction in the last few seconds.

DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT place a bid early.

Either a newbie bidder, a shilling seller, a deadbeat bidder or a out-to-get-em bidder *WILL* out bid you either immediately after you bid or right before the end.

Do not bid early, it only lets them out bid you.

Sniping is the only fair way to keep bidding fair. Bid your absolute maximum and don't let anyone (other buyers or bad sellers) know your bid giving them time to react to raise it.

[Zathras]

Well thats certainly one theory on how to win things on eBay but it is definately not the ONLY way to win an auction.

Sure If I see something I like that is ending soon I'll wait but more often than not I'll forget it till it is too late etc.  So I'll bid before the end of an item.

  If you bid your max bid - that is what you are willing to pay for the item.  If it passes you oh well.  It is the exact same thing as those who wait until the last 30 seconds to bid, just without the rush.

[Safron]

Once bids start, other people are predisposed towards bidding on the item. If no bids are in yet, people have a tendency to not bid. Call it eBay psychology or something.

[NoOne=NBA=]

I will place minimum bids early to:

1) Bust a buy-it-now that is higher than I'm willing to go on an item.
2) Let people know that they are going to have competition on an item that has no bids yet.

[brained]

recently the stuff I've bought from ebay, where ending auctions with no bids. So I'm not bidding till it's ending...  that way I can get a better price. Also I put my max bid, if some one surpasses it what the hell!!

[u_rebelscum]

These are may reasons I bid early.  But I don't "bid war" early, late, or snipe-time.

• I'm always late, unless I do it early.  If I plan to wait till an hour is left, I'll show up after the biddings are over.
  
• I bid my max, and don't bid after.  "Bid wars" are between the other increment bidders and my ebay "proxy".  
• I keep my max bid under retail.  
• I don't get into the heat of bidding (ie: don't increment bid, don't bid war, don't snipe).  "In the heat" bidding could grow my bid above retail.
• If something is already bid on, I am less likely to bid on it myself.  This is true for me, and probably true for a few others.  So if I place my bid early, those people are less likely to bid.  True, eary bid doesn't effect die-hard bidders, but I'll lose against them anyway (see above reasons).
  
• Snipe bidding only works against increment bidders and max bidders that have bid less than your snipe bid.  A snipe bid still loses against a higher early bid.

Learned the hard way.  Or both hard ways: losing something to a $1 bid because I was too late to snipe, and getting into the heat and over bidding what I really wanted to.

The ONLY way to win an auction on ebay is to SNIPE the auction in the last few seconds.

I've won my share

Do not bid early, it only lets them out bid you.

"They" can out bid you even if you snipe.

Sniping is the only fair way to keep bidding fair. Bid your absolute maximum and don't let anyone (other buyers or bad sellers) know your bid giving them time to react to raise it.

If everyone bids their max early, then it's just as fair as everyone bidding max at snipe time.  

And I don't see what's "unfair" about others seeing the current bid price.  If they bid their max, they won't react to your bid (besides cursing, knowing they lost, and go look for other auctions, but not needing to worry about if they won or if they didn't).

[RacerX]

The ONLY way to win an auction on ebay is to SNIPE the auction in the last few seconds.

DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT place a bid early.

Either a newbie bidder, a shilling seller, a deadbeat bidder or a out-to-get-em bidder *WILL* out bid you either immediately after you bid or right before the end.

Do not bid early, it only lets them out bid you.

Sniping is the only fair way to keep bidding fair. Bid your absolute maximum and don't let anyone (other buyers or bad sellers) know your bid giving them time to react to raise it.

This is completely untrue.  For one thing, you aren't letting other buyers or bad sellers know your bid.  They have no idea what your maximum bid is.

I recently bought three 15 inch LCD monitors off of Ebay by just bidding my max bid early in the auction.  If I was outbid, fine.  I didn't want to pay more than that, and there were *tons* of other ones available.  I placed bids on about 25 monitors over a 3 week period, and I ended up getting 3 nice ones for less than my max bid.

Snipe if you want, but as I said before, if the person who bid early has a higher max bid than your sniping bid, you still are not going to win the auction.

[RayB]

In Comic Book Guy's voice:
"Lamest   Poll   Ever"

[zaphod]

I've sniped but I've also bid very early and been pleasantly surprised when notified days later that I won the auctions.  Granted, when I bid my max early, I do lose more than I win.  Curiously, I have beaten snipers even with my max bid three days early.  They may have time for only one bid and they have no idea what my max already is.

By bidding early, I also keep from spending more than I originally intended on.  

Like others, I have a busy life and tend to let time slip by and miss the close of auctions if I don't bid them when I see them.

[Pipercub]

"Why?  Once you have bid your maximum, it doesn't matter when you do it.  If my max bid is more than your snipe bid, I'm still going to "win" the auction, but you're the one driving the price up. "

With a snipe bid you do bid your max if you do it right. Sniping at a hair over is not really going to work any better. What you are not doing is giving other incriment bidders time to react and re-consider their max bid. And therefore, keep the price down. Each bid DOES raise the price, fewer bids means lower price, not much leeway there. Entering your max bid earlier is guaranteed to increase your final price even if you win.

The Galaga machine went down like this;

My max bid was 710.

Aug-18-04 17:14:51 PDT US $585.00 ME
Aug-18-04 15:40:30 PDT US $575.00 user3
Aug-18-04 14:01:24 PDT US $555.00 user4
Aug-18-04 15:40:15 PDT US $550.00 user3
Aug-18-04 07:44:44 PDT US $500.00 user3
Aug-18-04 07:44:11 PDT US $475.00 user3
Aug-18-04 07:42:52 PDT US $450.00 user3
Aug-15-04 19:15:11 PDT US $400.00 user4
Aug-18-04 07:42:26 PDT US $400.00 user3
Aug-18-04 07:42:01 PDT US $350.00 user3
Aug-18-04 01:30:03 PDT US $300.00 user2
Aug-15-04 16:40:16 PDT US $250.00 user1

There is a strong chance that user 3 would have upped his bid by
another few bucks to outdo me. If he wanted to pay more than 710 he would have won. But clearly user 3 had a habbit of bidding again to hold the high bid. That is how the price goes up, bidding in the days ahead of the closing, then upping your bid to stay in the lead.

[NoOne=NBA=]

The above is a perfect example of why you should snipe.

User 3's FIRST "maximum" bid was only $350.
Likewise, User 4's "maximum" bid was only $400.

Had they been given opportunity to see Pipercub's REAL maximum of $710, one of them may well have outbid him, or at least driven the price up a alot higher to see if they could outbid him.


The other advantage to sniping is that it leaves you free to bid on something you want more, should opportunity arise.
I've had several times where I've been bidding on, or watching, item A, and had a second seller list the same item, in better condition, with an earlier ending time.
If I've already got a max bid in on item A, I don't have the freedom to bid on item B instead.

You can all bid how you want, but sniping will save you money--if done properly.

[SirPoonga]

Here's how I bid.

If there are no bids on the item I will bid on it, just so if someone else bids later I get an email
Otherwise I setup auctionstealer.com if I really want the item.  Otherwise if I am around I will snipe it myself because that is fun.


The advantage of not bidding until the last moment is you don't give someone else time to rethink what they wanted their highest bid to be.   Sure, you say you are going to make your high bid so high.  But your emotions will get involved and if you get outbid you will try to come up with an excuse to bid higher.

Not everyone bids their highest they would pay.  If they did you wouldn't have this discussion.

[MonitorGuru]

I never said you're guarenteed to win an auction by sniping. But you can:

- Have a better chance of winning
- Have a lesser chance of being outbid, either legitimately or swindling.



Take 2 comparisons:
1) I bid my MAX proxy early.  

Result1: A newbie will come in and bid 30 times to outbid your proxy. Now you have to sit and think if you should out bid them again by raising your "MAX" you thought was the max before.  You basically outthink yourself and end up paying more than you really wanted to, even if you do win it.

Result2: A shill for the seller or a deadbeat bidder will come in and outbid you triggering the same result as #1. You have to rebid a "new" max if you really really want it.

Result3: A shill/deadbeat will come in and outbid you, then RETRACT their bid and rebid just a hair under your bid.  Result: You will win the item but pay your absolute max.

Result4: No one else bids or they do only under you.  Great, you got the item but you never know if all those 0 feedbacks bidding you up were real or not. Shilling is a huge problem, noted by the large amount of auctions cancelled before the last few minutes only to be relisted again and again (because the seller wasn't getting what they wanted for the unit)


2) Bid you MAX proxy LATE (last few seconds with an automated sniping tool, online or on your own PC..there are many)

Result1: You bid more than the high bidder and win. You are safe in knowing you never disclosed your maximum bid to anyone too early to let them have a chance to play games with it. Whether it's a shill or not you are confident no one tricked you using your bid as information.

Result2: Seller cancells the auction early because they didn't want to pay for a reserve price and arn't happy with the price getting closer to the end of the auction. You dont win, you see the item up for sale again in a few hours/days/weeks.

Result3: You bid less than the reserve/other bidders and dont win.  You placed a bid with the most you're willing to spend, walk away knowing it wasn't yours to get.  No second guessing with "well I could have bid $5 and maybe got it".


Again, I'm not saying to not bid your MAX.  I'm saying don't do it early to let the fever of bidding get the best of you when antagonized by others.  Bid your max, just do it at the end to remove the ability of the crazy (legit) bidders or illegal bidders from making you pay more.  It's that simple.


Bidding $1 early and then sniping for a huge amount at the end is usually okay, but don;'t bid high early as it only will get more interest in the item at a price that may exceed your proxy snipe.

[Pipercub]

A fine point about not being locked into something till the last second.

[MonitorGuru]

> "This is completely untrue.  For one thing, you aren't letting other buyers or bad sellers know your bid.  They have no idea what your maximum bid is."


OH YES YOU ARE exposing your bid!. See my previous comment.  Any bad seller can come in and bid and find out your proxy, retract and rebid just under your proxy. BAM.. you've now been forced to pay the highest price.

Or if the item is at $1 and you bid $500, and two others see you bidding at $1 and then bid $200 and $300, someone will see that you have the high bid at $305 (next increment) and see that the others bid after you (it's all in the bid history while the auction is active). Seeing that they will keep trying to outbid you until they do.   Had you waited til the end to bid $500, they'd have bid $300 and think they've won it.  If they bid $600, then you were never meant to win the item, they'll take it at $505 at the very end, but you bid your max.

If someone doesn't see people bidding they are less likely to bid. If they see tons of bids and the price is low, they will bid, upping your amount.


I will always snipe and never early bid. Unless eBay changes their format to a non fixed-time end, this is the only way you can prevent being taken by fraudulent bidders and have a better chance of winning (at a lower price) by not exposing your interest in the item and let people play games before the auction ends)

[Bgnome]

Here's how I bid.

If there are no bids on the item I will bid on it, just so if someone else bids later I get an email
Otherwise I setup auctionstealer.com if I really want the item.  Otherwise if I am around I will snipe it myself because that is fun.

thanks for the tip on the website!  i have been having problems with some of the bidding programs and was considering an online service..

[paigeoliver]

It really depends on the item.

Very common items have fairly standard "going rates" and it isn't going to matter too much.

Uncommon/low demand items can often be picked up dirt cheap, even with a proxy bid days in advance.

High demand, uncommon items, it is best to snipe.  In our hobby you see this the most with parts to I'Robot, most vectors, Blaster and the other rare Williams games, and prototype stuff.

A good example of proxy bids working just fine would be with my City Connection boards (I have two working boardsets, out of 3 known to exist), I dropped in HUGE proxy bids far in advance and won both of them for chump change. (I had like $102 bids in, and got them for like $15 and $10).

Those are some of the rarest board on the planet (especially in working condition), but the demand isn't there. Had those been Blaster boards or Quantum boards I would have waited until the end.

[Mameotron]

Well, there are many theories about how to bid on e-bay.  My theory is real simple:

I have a dial-up connection.  I bid early.  I generally don't win, but I don't stand a chance in the last 10 minutes, much less the last 30 seconds.

I look at ebay as an opportunity to get a real good deal on something.  I've never seen anything on ebay I want that I absolutely can't find somewhere else.  For me, it has to be an exceptional deal for me to put up with the hassle of bidding, shipping costs, etc.  I know these aren't real problems, but I'd rather run over to best buy or whatever and have the thing I want right now.

[Martoon]

I'm coming in a little late on this discussion, so it's all pretty much been said already, but I thought I'd weigh in on the side in favor of sniping.  I generally wait until the last 30 seconds or so to snipe, and I do it for three reasons:

1.  It doesn't give other bidders a chance to see they've been outbid, have an emotional reaction to this disappointment, and raise their proxy.

2.  It doesn't give me a chance to do that, either.

3.  It's just more exciting.  

I do tend to forget to login and bid sometimes, but if it's something I really want, I'll remember.

I definitely disagree, however, that sniping is "the only fair way".  It's an auction.  People are supposed to get into the bidding frenzy, etc.  If anything, sniping might be a little unfair to the seller.

[exibar]

Sniping is the only fair way to keep bidding fair. Bid your absolute maximum and don't let anyone (other buyers or bad sellers) know your bid giving them time to react to raise it.

  Sorry the ONLY absolutely ONLY way to have a fiar auction is if E-Bay changes their rules about bidding.  ANY bid within 10 minutes of the end of the auction SHOULD extend that auction's end time for another 15 minutes.  THEN and only THEN will there be a fair auction.  Get rid of the snipers, sniping is unfair to the seller, if anything else...
 
   Ok ok, if there is an item I really want, I'll snipe the bid with one of those free programs or watch the bid and hit place bid at the last few seconds....  Yes I admit I'll snipe when needed, just playing by E-Bay's rules, their CURRENT rules :-)

  I have my asbestos suit on, flame away :-)

  Mike B

[RacerX]

> "This is completely untrue.  For one thing, you aren't letting other buyers or bad sellers know your bid.  They have no idea what your maximum bid is."


OH YES YOU ARE exposing your bid!. See my previous comment.  Any bad seller can come in and bid and find out your proxy, retract and rebid just under your proxy. BAM.. you've now been forced to pay the highest price.

I can see that, but in my view, if someone does this, you would have a legitimate gripe and could file a complaint with Ebay.  But even so, if I bought it for my max bid, I'm still getting a bargain, just not as big of one as if the other person had not bid.

[Pipercub]

The point in this is for the seller to try and get as much as they can, and the buyer to get it for as little as they can. Such is the nature of an auction. If you want top dollar as a seller with no chance of getting less don't auction your stuff. If as a buyer you want no chance of not taking home the item don't use an auction. Submitting to an auction's circumstances then crying when someone out maneuvers you is just lame.  Each uses the rules to their advantage. To do anything less is just plain stupid.

[FractalWalk]

There's actually some interesting behavioral research about auction strategy:

http://www.siam.org/siamnews/03-03/auctions.htm
http://www.economics.harvard.edu/~aroth/papers/eBay.ai.pdf

[MonitorGuru]

There's actually some interesting behavioral research about auction strategy:

http://www.siam.org/siamnews/03-03/auctions.htm
http://www.economics.harvard.edu/~aroth/papers/eBay.ai.pdf

He He    Seems the first article said exactly what I said: Prevent outbidding by inexperienced bidders and prevent shilling by scamming sellers.   At least someone agrees with me.

"Why Snipe?

One obvious reason to snipe on eBay is to avoid getting into bidding wars with inexperienced bidders who do not use the proxy system and who bid repeatedly when higher bids come in, treating the auction like the familiar "going, going, gone" auctions used in art houses like Sotheby's and Christie's. If you place an early bid using the proxy system, such a bidder will top your bid, after which your proxy will top her bid, she'll top your bid, and so on, until one of you has been pushed up to your maximum. If you place your bid at the last moment, by contrast, that bidder has no time to react and push up the price. For the same reason, sniping is also a good defense against "shilling," in which the seller enters the auction, under a false name, to drive up prices, in strict violation of eBay's rules. On Amazon, sniping will be ineffective against either a naive bidder or a seller who shills, since late bids are always followed by extensions of the auction."

[DrewKaree]

In Comic Book Guy's voice:
"Lamest   Poll   Ever"

I don't have one that says that, but how 'bout this?

[DaveMMR]

I already said my thoughts on sniping on another thread but I'll say that bid sniping sometimes causes people to bid over their heads (competition kicks in and suddenly thought goes out the window).

You really can't depend on sniping.  It's all about who's willing to spend the most not the quickest bid finger.

[danny_galaga]

im a 'sniper'. i came to that style through trail and error. i think its the best way. like a lot of you have said, theres less chance of prices getting silly. just bid in the last minute or so the most youre willing to spend and then see if you get it. works well for comic books and models (which is what ive mostly bought on ebay) sadly, i found it didnt matter what i did when it came to second hand pc parts. too many fools willing to pay more for a second hand 1 gig cpu than for a new 2.4!! im glad now, cos now i have the certain reliabililty of new parts in my cab (",)

[Dougmeister]

  Ok ok, if there is an item I really want, I'll snipe the bid with one of those free programs

What free programs?  I spent at least 2 minutes Googling and didn't find any, just websites that give free trials then charge...

[RacerX]

Of course, if there are 2 people sniping the same item in the last few seconds, the price can get driven up anyway if both enter their max bid.

But I definitely see your point about the dishonest seller artificially bidding the price up to find out how much your max is.  That's bad news.

[fredster]

Sometimes I don't have time to be there at the last second by an activity called 'life' and I don't have the time to be there at the very very last second.

Sometimes my dial up isn't very good and I have to make sure the bid is in because it times out now and then.  So if I really want it, I can't count on my system working due to Murphy's law of Ebay.

I put in what I pay for it and leave when that happens.  If I get it, I get it. If not, they made more than one.

[ErikRuud]

I pretty much agree with PaigeOlivers strategy.

I mostly bid on toys and games that I had as a child. I always bid what the item is worth to me and that's all.  If I get the item, great!  if I don't, then I try again next time.

Except that I rarely bid on HighDemand, Uncommon Items, because I know the prices are going to go higher than I want anyway.  When I do bid on these items, I usually wait until the last 30 minutes or so to bid.

Many items that I want to bid on are so rare, that they only pop up two or three time per year, so I am used to waiting.  Luckily for me, many of them are so rare that no one else even remembers them and the demand is low.

A few of the things that I have gotten great deals on are:

Bing, Bang, Bounce by Ideal.  Almost no one ever had this game.

Sears Remote Control Tower Crane.  Very few people had this either. I bid on 5 of these over two years before I got mine.

Sears Highway Police Chase set.  Aain, it took two years to finally snag one for under $40.00

Twix by Avalon Hill.  For some reason this auction fell threw the cracks, and I got it for $15.00.  I had seen several go for $50.00 or more.

I have won a few auctions for HO scale slot cars, but that is a market within ebay that has gone just nuts. It is full of sellers with very common cars and buyers who will pay anything to get them.

[GodSend25]

They have services that you can sign up for (esnipe is the one I like).  You get enough free snipe points to win about 1000$ worth of stuff, after that 10$ gets you enough snipe points to win another 2500$ worth.  I consider it a bargin for how much ive saved.

Just find your item, enter your max bid into enipe, and how soon before auction end you want it bid, and away you go!  6 seconds is what I use.  Obviously if an item is only @ 5.00$ right now and you enter 100$ as your max, you dont pay 100$, you pay 5.00$ + bid increment (or MAX.PROXY+big increment)...  Its all web based and their server places the bid, so no need to be online at auctions end...

Couldent be easier...

Sometimes I don't have time to be there at the last second by an activity called 'life' and I don't have the time to be there at the very very last second.

Sometimes my dial up isn't very good and I have to make sure the bid is in because it times out now and then.  So if I really want it, I can't count on my system working due to Murphy's law of Ebay.

I put in what I pay for it and leave when that happens.  If I get it, I get it. If not, they made more than one.

[Tailgunner]

I've sniped a time or two when it was for something hard to find, but more often than not I'll just bid my max and leave it at that. If I win it, cool. If not, no biggie.

I've lost auctions to snipers, I've lost auctions to simply being outbid. But then I've won auctions where my bid was the only bid, or the only early bid.