Electronic Bidding on E-bay

[Geordie582 18]

Have you noticed the increasing use of electronic automatic bidding on E-bay? I was watching a Richard I penny today, that was at £41 for the last few days and up to only <1minute to go, when the price suddenly reached £68! I reckon it is probably the future of purchasing in auctions.

Edited January 27, 2008 by Geordie582

[HistoricCoinage 160]

Sniping has always been a debated topic, I think it's a bit harsh but then again it is perfectly legal and acceptable.

Most of the coins that I bid on go up in the last minute, I put most of my bids in manually within the last 8 seconds or so. That does mean that I win quite a few coins though, if only flea-bay had a rating for Power-Buyer!

Clive.

[scottishmoney 51]

I have several auctions which are closing as I write this, yes, I have noticed several sniper bids. So, I do it myself too. I sniped on an auction for a James IV Plack just awhile ago. I do it manually, never electronically, it is more thrilling that way.

[Chris Perkins 228]

I saw a Scandinavian auction site once where the system extended the length of the Auction automatically by something like 30 seconds whenever anyone placed a bid in the last 10 seconds, or something like that, I can remember the exact times involved.

That put a stop to all sniping. I'm in 2 minds about sniping. As a seller it's great to see the price of an item shoot up in the last seconds. As a buyer it is of course frustrating to loose something by the next increment in the last seconds.

[Hussulo 6]

I use electronic Snipping. I like using it as its easy and you can fire and forget about it days before the auction ends. I decide on my top price fire it in and take my chances.You do get more of a rush doing it manually though,and a lot of the US auctions end at silly o'clock in the morning. There's no way I'm staying up to 3am on a work night. I've seen the price of things I've sold on ebay double just before the end.

[Peter 615]

I agree with the manual sniping...I indeed set my price and have a stopwatch set to Ebay time.

If I lose it OK...a recent coin went for £175+ my best offer was £16.89 with 7 seconds to go.

Edited January 28, 2008 by Peter

[scottishmoney 51]

Yesterday I sniped a coin with 10 seconds to go, but my best ever was 0 seconds a few years ago. So now I should have a James IV plack coming my way for a mere £6.75.

If for some reason my bid wasn't high enough, then I did not want it that bad.

[Geordie582 18]

I'm afraid I'm a bit staid in bidding. I see a coin, decide how much I can afford (not necessarily how much it's worth) and leave it at that. If I don't get an e-mail saying I've won, then I just try to forget it (not always easy!)

[scottishmoney 51]

  Geordie582 said:

I'm afraid I'm a bit staid in bidding. I see a coin, decide how much I can afford (not necessarily how much it's worth) and leave it at that. If I don't get an e-mail saying I've won, then I just try to forget it (not always easy!)

That is not such a bad thing.

[Colin G. 147]

I too admit to being a last minute sniper , because I have witnessed first hand those bidders that just keep doing it an increment at a time. Bid too early and it can cost you money!!!

Bid early and you can also become victim to people searching for items by bidder name. For example if I collect a certain type of coin, and another e-bay user also collects the same item and knows my ebay ID, they can search for items I am bidding on, to save them searching, another reason why I bid late!!

Its the rush of the bid in the last few seconds that does it for me Although I have messed it up on occasion

[scottishmoney 51]

I sold an 1862 $10 bill yesterday on eBay, the serious bids came in during the last 20 seconds of the auction. I was glad, because the high bidder for a bit of yesterday was a bidder that registered - yesterday! and had of course zilch feedback. But alas someone that had been something of a pest about getting images of the note, details etc. put a proxy snipe bid in, and blew them all way out of the water. The item had something like 25 bids on it, and about as many watchers. It is kind of exciting to see something double in bid amount in the last seconds, and to have appreciated a 200% return on my investment.

[scottishmoney 51]

  Colin G. said:

Its the rush of the bid in the last few seconds that does it for me Although I have messed it up on occasion

Yep, my index finger has missed on that last second a couple of times, and my bid was nixed.