Is snipe bidding killing the hobby?

glynparson · #1 06-25-2015, 06:19 AM

It has lowered the number of auctions starting at a dollar that i agree with. THe peak hobby years there was no ebay and most things were sold "retail" I think a lot of the have to sell for cash flow dealers have gone away, many during the last downturn, but I don't see the hobby going any where in fact many areas are as strong as they have been in a long time.

vintagesportscollector · #2 06-25-2015, 07:32 AM

Interesting question, but Snipe is nothing new. I agree that the dynamics of sales (i.e. fewer auctions) has changed significantly over the years, but not sure I would attribure that to Snipe nor would I say it is killing the hobby. Sellers have become more sensitive to price, with great awareness of market value, and do not wish to give items away below market - I think that has attrbuted more to the change than Snipe.

Econteachert205 · #3 06-25-2015, 07:47 AM

I still get good deals off ebay through traditional bids.

GoCubsGo32 · #4 06-25-2015, 08:02 AM

I mostly snipe due to the potential shill bid factor.

packs · #5 06-25-2015, 08:42 AM

I don't think sniping is all that different from how I normally bid anyway. I'll wait until the clock counts down to 2 seconds and bid on my own. I guess it would be more convenient if I just got a snipe service, but I'm doing the same thing anyway.

Scott Garner · #6 06-25-2015, 08:59 AM

I agree with both of the last two posters. The only real thing that has changed is that the great majority of all bidding activity occurs at the very end of an auction.

Personally, I've never understood the logic of bidding repeatedly early in an auction. The only thing that this does is artificially force the price up and increase the likelihood that you will spend an excessive amount as a buyer.

I certainly believe this as a buyer and understand and accept this as a seller FWIW...

cfhofer · #7 06-25-2015, 10:10 AM

Great comments/points! EBay provided (IMHO) the single biggest jolt to the sports memorabilia hobby in the last 30 years. While it may have accelerated the downfall of brick & mortar sport shops and local card shows, it had enough global accessibility to generate a true �market value� for our collectibles � while completely eliminating the middle man in the process.

Does snipe bidding establish a true "market value"? It is a flurry of independent single offers within the last 10 seconds of an auction. While it is almost foolish for a bidder to NOT snipe bid (as pointed out above), the seller is forced to play a game of �Russian roulette�. Now some sports collectibles (vintage cards instantly come to mind) generate enough bids that a seller typically makes out ok. But for vintage sports memorabilia it is a total crapshoot on eBay.

Is it a coincidence the high quality vintage sports memorabilia has dried up on eBay over the last few years? Sure an occasional antique dealer puts up a cool piece, but those are few and far between. It seems that more and more high quality pieces are making their way to a plethora of sports auction sites instead � which has reestablished the middle man that eBay helped eliminate. Has the hobby now come full circle?

Great discussion this morning!!

Runscott · #8 06-25-2015, 10:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by packs

I don't think sniping is all that different from how I normally bid anyway. I'll wait until the clock counts down to 2 seconds and bid on my own. I guess it would be more convenient if I just got a snipe service, but I'm doing the same thing anyway.

Same here. I essentially enter the equivalent of a manual snipe, but if the item is extremely important to me I use a snipe service, simply because I don't want to forget to bid.

The good old days are gone. But they always are - things always look better in the rear view mirror.

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