Is snipe bidding killing the hobby?

[cfhofer]

You are spot on Drcy!

Let's be honest...we don't snipe bid to just avoid "shill" bids. We snipe bid to avoid "ANY" competing bid, even legitimate ones. It is exploitation of a flaw in eBay's auction system. Correct me if I'm wrong but it is the only auction house in history to function this way.

The purpose of an auction is to sell an item at fair market value. How does a flurry of snipe bids in the final 10 seconds determine fair market value? Now there are some items, say a 1968 Topps Nolan Ryan PSA 7, that the market value is pretty well established. But how much should someone pay for an 1894 Varsity Yale Football Pach Bros photo? Our hobby needs the back-and-forth of bids to determine that. That is healthy for our hobby.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by cfhofer

You are spot on Drcy!

Let's be honest...we don't snipe bid to just avoid "shill" bids. We snipe bid to avoid "ANY" competing bid, even legitimate ones. It is exploitation of a flaw in eBay's auction system. Correct me if I'm wrong but it is the only auction house in history to function this way.

The purpose of an auction is to sell an item at fair market value. How does a flurry of snipe bids in the final 10 seconds determine fair market value? Now there are some items, say a 1968 Topps Nolan Ryan PSA 7, that the market value is pretty well established. But how much should someone pay for an 1894 Varsity Yale Football Pach Bros photo? Our hobby needs the back-and-forth of bids to determine that. That is healthy for our hobby.

Heritage Auctions owns Gavelsnipe.com and you can bid/snipe (maybe) in Heritage from their sniping service.

And, to me, the flurry of snipe bids is true market. (unless they are shills). I only put in snipes ( I snipe 98% of the time, the other 2% I want the adrenaline rush) when I want something, and absent fraud, others do the same thing. How can that not be true market? In reality no auction in the world has 100% of interested buyers in their auction. I bid in a ton of auctions, ebay and otherwise....and help run a small auction company, so have my own views..... Fun debate.....

[cfhofer]

Leon,

It is a fun debate. Obviously there is no definitive answer. Heritage has a 5-minute rule on Internet auctions.

But let me ask you this, since you run a small auction company. If eBay gave you (as the seller) the option for a "10-minute rule" at an extra 1% would you take advantage of it?

[Leon]

Originally Posted by cfhofer

Leon,

It is a fun debate. Obviously there is no definitive answer. Heritage has a 5-minute rule on Internet auctions.

But let me ask you this, since you run a small auction company. If eBay gave you (as the seller) the option for a "10-minute rule" at an extra 1% would you take advantage of it?

I am not sure I would ever want to pay more for ebay services. They are kind of rich right now, imo. But I would have to consider it, financially, even if my personal bias is to hate more fees. At the end of the day their invoice, If I could make more than I am spending, I would do it.

And no, the 10 minute ebay rule programming would not be difficult to do, with respect to everything else. I have been involved in a few auction programming projects on the sales/marketing side of the business..(I am not technical but have seen what can be done and how long things take, in general)


,

[drcy]

Clearly people place snipe bids to get lower prices. People in this very thread have said that. So clearly sniping lowers prices. And it's not just a matter of shilling (which I don't deny is a legitimate problem), but people here have said they do it due to other legitimate bidders. They believe other bidders (and I'm talking about honest ones) will bid more and raise prices if they see their bids in the middle of the auction as opposed to when they're snuck in at the end and don't have a chance to react. Call it psychological bidding if you wish or people bidding more when they're emotionally invested in an item they've bid on or being irrationally exuberant or having more time to think if they are willing to place an extra bid, but that's a part of how people bid. People are psychological animals not robots and often will bid more than they would have if they someone has out bid them. Remove shilling and have only legitimate honest bidders participating in the bidding process and people would still place snip bids to get lower prices. The reason why auction houses have 10 or 15 minute rules is because bidders will reconsider what they're willing to bid and sometimes raise their bids when given a few minutes to think about it-- something that snipe bidding eliminates and is designed to eliminate. The idea that sniping has no effect on final pricing is, quite simply, wrong-- and I'm talking here about auctions where there is no shilling.

[mcgwirecom]

Yes we snipe to get a lower price but also to avoid the shillers. Back in the day I would just put in my secret highest bid. On several occasions I would wake up in the morning and get two different emails. One said "you were outbid". The next would say "you won!". WTF? I went back and would see a bidder top everyone and then retract his bid and rebid just under my secret high bid.

After that I would sit at the computer for every auction I wanted to bid in, wait until the last second and pop in my high bid. So esnipe was a great idea.

The other reason I wait until the last second is because some people don't put in the time and effort to research some items. They just look at what everyone is bidding on and jump in. I've won many auctions with only my bid because I spent a lot of time researching something to find out it was a great deal. I spent the time, I reap the benefits. If I were to bid on it the first day its like sending up a flag that this is a good item to bid on.

[Lordstan]

I look at sniping slightly differently.

I snipe not because of "lower" prices per se. I snipe because it prevents me from getting emotional about an item. By bidding the most I'm willing to pay at the very end, allows me to stay within my budget and either win or lose without regret. I never assume my bid will win it more cheaply than my max. If it does great. If it doesn't that's OK too. It's not my fault others don't bid at the end the same way. If they do, the final price isn't very likely to be lower at all.

I think the reason there is less stuff on ebay is because they have made it a very unfriendly place for small sellers. Sure, if you're KHW or PWCC or Probstein, you can still survive quite well because of the volume, but ebay is trying to be Amazon. This has made it virtually impossible for the collector who sells so he/she can buy to be able to sell cost effectively. The higher fees and strangling rules, not sniping, have made guys like Mark(perezfan) and others, who have high end items they may want to move to buy something else, no longer chance selling on ebay outside of BINs at prices that factor in the extra fees.

[murphusa]

I place a bid on an item for the amount I want to pay. If I win, great, if not, there is always the nest one.