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I've bought hundreds of things on ebay over the years and I've never understood the issue with "sniping". Sure, I've been outbid at the last moment. Losing an

by Retr0id 10mo ago

I've bought hundreds of things on ebay over the years and I've never understood the issue with "sniping". Sure, I've been outbid at the last moment. Losing an auction is always a little frustrating. But if I was willing to pay that price I should have bid it myself. Feels fair enough?

tkzed49 10mo ago
why would you bid the highest price you can afford in an auction? the seller agreed to auction the thing; they could have just offered it for a set price.
- HotHotLava 10mo ago
  Do you not know how ebay works? You put in the maximum price you're willing to pay, and if you win you're paying 2nd highest bid + 1. So you don't save any money by starting with a low bid.
  - pwg 10mo ago
    From what I've seen discussed, it seems some percentage of "sniping" is to attempt to obtain both "winning bid" and "lowest possible price" (note, not the same as "max willing to pay for the same item"). The sniper is trying to hide interest, so as not to attract other interested bidders, and therefore grab "a great deal" of a small increment above the starting bid price. And this probably appears to work enough times in the snipers favor to trick them into thinking it is a winning strategy, whereas they likely would have won the same auctions in the end by just bidding that 'minimum' as their maximum bid. But as they can't easily (i.e., without expense) A/B test their strategy, they get no feedback that sniping isn't really helping them like they think it is helping them.
    - cge 10mo ago
      > But as they can't easily (i.e., without expense) A/B test their strategy There also isn't really any detriment. At worst, the sniper is making the same bid they would have made otherwise. If the opposing bidders are not purely rational, and have not put in their actual maximum bid, then sniping can deprive them of that opportunity and thus lowers the hammer price. And bidders are not purely rational, especially when the items are not purely utilitarian. Getting notifications that you have been outbid has an emotional effect, as does having time to think about raising the bid.
    - duskdozer 10mo ago
      they notify the bidder when they're outbid, and the incremental price increases can make it tempting for someone to adjust their idea of their max price. sniping deprives them of that opportunity.
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
blitzar 10mo ago
I run up the prices in less competitive auctions just for fun occasionally, especially if I think someone is getting too good a deal.
- Analemma_ 10mo ago
  I mean, dick move, but that has nothing to do with sniping. You could do that at any point during the auction and it would have the same effect.
  - ab5tract 10mo ago
    Sniping means that bidders may have decided to put in a higher ceiling in order to avoid losing at the last second. If there was never a worry about this, they could bring out (and decide) that ceiling only after being outbid.
- gond 10mo ago
  Question: what kind of fun you are referring to here? Since, from the outside, it surely sounds like you get pleasure by inflicting some form of suffering on others. But that hopefully isn’t considered fun, is it?
  - Dylan16807 10mo ago
    The price, when between the seller's minimum and the buyer's maximum, is a zero sum game. So while this is definitely screwing with people, the seller gets paid more and the amount of suffering in the world shouldn't really change.
    - gond 10mo ago
      You are falling for the zero-sum fallacy and mixing categories on top of it. Globally, wealth gets created, which leads to a positive-sum game, not a zero sum game. On the other hand, if one quadrillionaire in a city owns all the money available in that said system except 100 currency units, the remaining 100 humans are in possession of exactly 1 currency unit. The suffering for the 100 humans is significantly higher for the 100 than for the one, even though it fulfils your premise of a balanced global suffering index. Before the trade, the value for the seller and the buyer was zero. Whatever the trade involved, the moment the minimum of the seller gets hit, it becomes a positive-sum game. If this would not be the case long-term rise of stocks would be impossible. That would mean a stock rise is a redistribution and you take it away from someone else . So, if the stock market were truly zero-sum, every currency unit earned would require someone else to have lost one.
celeritascelery 10mo ago
And I prefer to use sniping bots because they let me revise my bid all the way up until the auction ends. If I put a bid on something and then sleep on it and decide I don’t actually want to pay that much, I can lower my bid or cancel it. If I bid with eBay directly then I loose that flexibility. It has nothing to do with trying to outsmart people or be sneaky.

by Retr0id 10mo ago

tkzed49 10mo ago

why would you bid the highest price you can afford in an auction? the seller agreed to auction the thing; they could have just offered it for a set price.

HotHotLava 10mo ago
Do you not know how ebay works? You put in the maximum price you're willing to pay, and if you win you're paying 2nd highest bid + 1. So you don't save any money by starting with a low bid.
- pwg 10mo ago
  From what I've seen discussed, it seems some percentage of "sniping" is to attempt to obtain both "winning bid" and "lowest possible price" (note, not the same as "max willing to pay for the same item"). The sniper is trying to hide interest, so as not to attract other interested bidders, and therefore grab "a great deal" of a small increment above the starting bid price. And this probably appears to work enough times in the snipers favor to trick them into thinking it is a winning strategy, whereas they likely would have won the same auctions in the end by just bidding that 'minimum' as their maximum bid. But as they can't easily (i.e., without expense) A/B test their strategy, they get no feedback that sniping isn't really helping them like they think it is helping them.
  - cge 10mo ago
    > But as they can't easily (i.e., without expense) A/B test their strategy There also isn't really any detriment. At worst, the sniper is making the same bid they would have made otherwise. If the opposing bidders are not purely rational, and have not put in their actual maximum bid, then sniping can deprive them of that opportunity and thus lowers the hammer price. And bidders are not purely rational, especially when the items are not purely utilitarian. Getting notifications that you have been outbid has an emotional effect, as does having time to think about raising the bid.
  - duskdozer 10mo ago
    they notify the bidder when they're outbid, and the incremental price increases can make it tempting for someone to adjust their idea of their max price. sniping deprives them of that opportunity.
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]

blitzar 10mo ago

I run up the prices in less competitive auctions just for fun occasionally, especially if I think someone is getting too good a deal.

Analemma_ 10mo ago
I mean, dick move, but that has nothing to do with sniping. You could do that at any point during the auction and it would have the same effect.
- ab5tract 10mo ago
  Sniping means that bidders may have decided to put in a higher ceiling in order to avoid losing at the last second. If there was never a worry about this, they could bring out (and decide) that ceiling only after being outbid.
gond 10mo ago
Question: what kind of fun you are referring to here? Since, from the outside, it surely sounds like you get pleasure by inflicting some form of suffering on others. But that hopefully isn’t considered fun, is it?
- Dylan16807 10mo ago
  The price, when between the seller's minimum and the buyer's maximum, is a zero sum game. So while this is definitely screwing with people, the seller gets paid more and the amount of suffering in the world shouldn't really change.
  - gond 10mo ago
    You are falling for the zero-sum fallacy and mixing categories on top of it. Globally, wealth gets created, which leads to a positive-sum game, not a zero sum game. On the other hand, if one quadrillionaire in a city owns all the money available in that said system except 100 currency units, the remaining 100 humans are in possession of exactly 1 currency unit. The suffering for the 100 humans is significantly higher for the 100 than for the one, even though it fulfils your premise of a balanced global suffering index. Before the trade, the value for the seller and the buyer was zero. Whatever the trade involved, the moment the minimum of the seller gets hit, it becomes a positive-sum game. If this would not be the case long-term rise of stocks would be impossible. That would mean a stock rise is a redistribution and you take it away from someone else . So, if the stock market were truly zero-sum, every currency unit earned would require someone else to have lost one.

celeritascelery 10mo ago

And I prefer to use sniping bots because they let me revise my bid all the way up until the auction ends. If I put a bid on something and then sleep on it and decide I don’t actually want to pay that much, I can lower my bid or cancel it. If I bid with eBay directly then I loose that flexibility. It has nothing to do with trying to outsmart people or be sneaky.