Who here hates on-line sellers sometimes?

[PROTOTYPE]

Man, you are so right.This auction I'm talking about had 8 ps1 games and 7 of the games were worth maybe 3 to 8 a piece. mortal kombat 3 is not a very good game but its a rare version of that game and he knew that so he put a sniper program on it So, no matter what I bid on it went over it. I was caught off guard, I should just been honest with seller and offer her a buy it now sale and try to deal...but try to get it cheap. This seller will sell this for big time inflated money, I will see in on-line by next week or two.

[jonebone]

Where's the link?

I doubt the winning bidder has any idea about the MK3 small case variant, it's extremely niche. I just sold one on these boards maybe 2 months ago, and there's only a couple of people that own it.

Resellers know about the hot and popular stuff but not much about variants, especially on PS1 where variants aren't talked about too much.

[wiggyx]

A lot of the time people use sniping programs that have computers place their bid with one second left so they win. It happens all the time, pretty much the only way to win many auctions.

No, the only way to win is to bid more than anyone else is willing to, no matter what time you bid. Bidding last second really serves no real purpose other than to get you all worked up and bidding more than you originally intended.

[Genesaturn]

I understand your pain man - but there is a point where its not even worth it anymore - my first bid I always put the max i'm willing to dish out, and if some sap wants to overpay, then its his own fault. It's just the way it is man.

[Bojay1997]

No, the only way to win is to bid more than anyone else is willing to, no matter what time you bid. Bidding last second really serves no real purpose other than to get you all worked up and bidding more than you originally intended.

Exactly right.

[jb143]

No, the only way to win is to bid more than anyone else is willing to, no matter what time you bid. Bidding last second really serves no real purpose other than to get you all worked up and bidding more than you originally intended.

No, sniping is how you get something for as cheap as possible. You don't leave time for someone else to raise your bid. Putting in more than anyone else is willing to pay simply means that you're leaving it to everyone else how much you pay. If you put a max bid of $10000 then you're sure to win most everything...but you'll also end up overpaying for a lot of it.

[Badhornet]

I just bid the most I'm willing to bid for an item. If I win great, if I dont then thats fine too. At least I know I didnt feel I overbid. Ebay has always been a crapshoot

[wiggyx]

No, sniping is how you get something for as cheap as possible. You don't leave time for someone else to raise your bid. Putting in more than anyone else is willing to pay simply means that you're leaving it to everyone else how much you pay. If you put a max bid of $10000 then you're sure to win most everything...but you'll also end up overpaying for a lot of it.

"you're leaving it to everyone else how much you pay"

I hope that I'm understanding what you mean by this. You're ALWAYS leaving it up to other people bidding against you (if there are any) to determine what the final sale price will be. Instead you're proposing that we should fight fire with fire (sniper against sniper)

eBay isn't an auction house, you have no idea what someone else is bidding. Snipers will bid last second no matter if you've already bid or not. If they bid more than you're willing to pay, then kudos for them. If not, congrats, you won.

[Aussie2B]

Sniping is to deal with the people who don't put in their max bid. There are a lot of bidders who will incrementally bid just for the purpose of claiming the top bidder status. When they get outbid, then they just make another bid. If you bid at the very end, you can outsmart them by not giving them enough time to reclaim the top spot. If you bid earlier, they'll either chip away at your lead, forcing you to pay more, or will outbid you. I've never used an automatic bidding program myself, but I often do wait until near the end. There are times when I wish I placed my bid even later since if I leave a minute or two remaining, the bidder I outbid will have enough time to place some more bids.

[jb143]

Sniping is to deal with the people who don't put in their max bid. There are a lot of bidders who will incrementally bid just for the purpose of claiming the top bidder status. When they get outbid, then they just make another bid. If you bid at the very end, you can outsmart them by not giving them enough time to reclaim the top spot. If you bid earlier, they'll either chip away at your lead, forcing you to pay more, or will outbid you. I've never used an automatic bidding program myself, but I often do wait until near the end. There are times when I wish I placed my bid even later since if I leave a minute or two remaining, the bidder I outbid will have enough time to place some more bids.

This. This is how most people seem to bid. Either they don't realize that ebay will up their bid for them or they want to think they will get it for as cheap as possible. Just look at bidding history and you will see it's true. They almost always make the lowest possible bid until they are the highest bidder. It makes no sense to do it this way. What they could end up doing is getting into a bidding war with someone else doing the same thing.

Now on the other hand, lets say that someone bids $1.00 on something early on in the listing. They check back every day and see if someone outbid them. Now you want it so you bid $20. The auction now sits at$1.25(or whatever) Then they see that and bid $1.50, then $1.75, then $2.00, then decide to give up when they hit $10.00. Well, if you had waited until the end(and provided no one else was bidding) then you could have won it for $1.25 instead of $10.50. This is why snipping works.

Having said that though, I tend to prefer Buy it now listings...so much less drama.

[understatement]

"you're leaving it to everyone else how much you pay"

I hope that I'm understanding what you mean by this. You're ALWAYS leaving it up to other people bidding against you (if there are any) to determine what the final sale price will be. Instead you're proposing that we should fight fire with fire (sniper against sniper)

eBay isn't an auction house, you have no idea what someone else is bidding. Snipers will bid last second no matter if you've already bid or not. If they bid more than you're willing to pay, then kudos for them. If not, congrats, you won.

Ebay is a system if you know how to work it only people’s initial bids will determine what you pay.

As an example, say a lot of games goes up starting at $.99 for 7 days and this lots estimated value is $100. I want it but I don’t bid till the last 20 seconds so I watch for now, by day two it has say 4 bids and is currently sitting at $5.50 with someone on the winning side with a max bid of say $25.00 because like the OP he wants to get the lot cheap. He sits with the winning bid all the way till the end, So he assumes that hes going get a great deal when he wins. He might sit there with the mouse on the “1 click bid” button but if no one has pushed past his $25 bid by now why would they? So he keeps his max bid where it is. Then someone like me comes and in the last 20 seconds and puts a max bid of $90. The guy doesn’t know what to do he was so sure it was won he might have enough time to do one or two “1 click bids” but not enough to put in a new max bid. So now I just won a $100 lot for about $29 and if another sniper did it for more than $90 I wouldn’t have time to even try another bid and would lose or if bid up to my max I would pay as I was willing to do from the start.

Edit: Basically what Aussie2B said.

[Jaruff]

No, sniping is how you get something for as cheap as possible. You don't leave time for someone else to raise your bid. Putting in more than anyone else is willing to pay simply means that you're leaving it to everyone else how much you pay. If you put a max bid of $10000 then you're sure to win most everything...but you'll also end up overpaying for a lot of it.

This is true.

If I see an item I want that's about to end, I come up with a figure in my head. I add a few dollars to that figure and I pull up the menu and I'm ready to bid with a few seconds left. If I win, awesome. If not, oh well. There are other items that I don't care if I win or not so I won't worry about securing a last second bid. I'll just put in a figure I'm willing to pay and see what happens.