What exactly is sniping? Doesn't it mean bidding at the last second? How is that bad?

[titanictarn]

I could be wrong, but I always thought sniping was placing a bid at the last possible second. I can't for the life of me see the problem with that as bidders have every right to place bids until the auction closes. Yet I encountered another Ebay seller who mentioned they don't want bidders who snipe. I lost count the numbers of Ebay bidders I have encountered who were bitter that someone outbid them in the closing 5 seconds of the auction. Maybe I'm missing something- shouldn't sellers want last second bidders which will increase their profits, and wouldn't bidders want the right to bid until the very last second? The way not to get outbid is by placing a high bid. Does Ebay have any policy regarding sniping? Sniping IS bidding as far as I can see, just at the last second. In the area in which I collect, it's very competitive and bidders often wait until the closing 10 seconds to bid

[dryophelia]

@titanictarn 

This seller is misinformed. I struggle to understand why a seller wouldn’t want all the bids they can get. 
How does one enforce this? Cancelling a completed listing because it came in during the last seconds seems asinine. A seller would receive a defect for each canceled transaction. 

eBay allows bids to come in until the auction ends. 
Some bidders will use a sniping service, others do it manually. 

It almost makes me WANT to snipe! 🙂

[7606dennis]

Actually, any time an auction has a finite timed bidding period placing one's bid as close as possible to the end of that period is a sound bidding practice.  Here it is commonly called sniping.  While the practice is not effective in outcry auctions, it is very effective on eBay style auctions.  Of course, the bidding period here is usually about a week while at an outcry auction the bidding period is usually less than a minute.

[simba6]

Many bidders don't understand eBay is far closer to a sealed bid auction than an outcry.   The outcry is the only type of auction many people know of as it in movies and TV since it's an action.  They then get upset when the hard cutoff time for the listing stops there nibble bidding cold.   In the early days of eBay, there was a lot of nibble bidding. You could watch the prices of your listed items climb for days. That slowly went away.

eBay added the number of bids and watchers to the selling page to try to replace that in part so sellers had something to watch. 

Sellers don't understand most snipe bidders will throw a strong bid as the only have one shot at it. So the price still goes up. It just now sudden at the end of the listing and not a slow climb the entire time.

[nobody*s_perfect]

"I can't for the life of me see the problem with that as bidders have every right to place bids until the auction closes. Yet I encountered another Ebay seller who mentioned they don't want bidders who snipe."

Sellers like that just don't understand how eBay bidding works.  Snipers   bid their true maximum because they know they won't get a second chance.  So they drive up the price far more than early, nibble-style bidders who then complain that they didn't get a chance to bid again, when they get outbid by snipers.  

The nibblers who fail to bid their true maximum are the ones who lower the end price of an auction, so THEY are the ones who the sellers should be complaining about.

[eburtonlab]

eBay explicitly permits sniping, whether it is done manually or using a sniping service:

https://www.ebay.com/help/buying/bidding/bid-sniping?id=4224

Any qualified bid at least one bid increment above the current bid amount received by eBay before the auction ends is considered a valid bid by eBay.

All bidders have the same opportunity to submit a maximum bid up until the end of the auction.

There is no need to bid less than you are willing to pay, or to wait until being outbid to bid higher, or to ever consider the bids of any other users when deciding to bid -- as long as one is able to meet the minimum bid amount.

[mudshark61369]

@titanictarn,

  "Yet I encountered another Ebay seller who mentioned they don't want bidders who snipe".

I'd snipe any way, they would not have time to react to the bid, and I doubt they would cancel because they received more money. Especially, if a couple of snipers raised the price by quite a lot.

[woodland_gnome]

Sniping is the single best defense against a shilling seller.   Some sellers are ignorant, but perhaps some doth protest too much.

[Anonymous]

Sorry but I'm not seeing your logic. If anything a sniper is falling victim to a shiller, paying an artificially inflated price at the end and possibly preventing the shill from backfiring.

[mypalrocco]

It's only bad for the whiners who've been outbid. What the whiners need to do is enter their maximum bid and stop whining. If somebody is willing to pay more than you are, with or without sniping, you're going to lose!  

[eburtonlab]

@Anonymous 

Sorry but I'm not seeing your logic. If anything a sniper is falling victim to a shiller, paying an artificially inflated price at the end and possibly preventing the shill from backfiring.

Typically shill bidding refers to bidding up another bidder that has already placed a bid, making sure that the actual bidder pays the maximum amount possible. The shill may keep raising the bid, possibly until the actual bidder's maximum is revealed, and possibly requiring the shill to withdraw a bid in the process (or requiring the seller to cancel a bid or else make a risky second chance offer) so that the actual bidder wins and pays.

Early bids are much more vulnerable to shilling, nibble bidding and other sorts of possible bid interference, as there is more time available for discovery and mischief.

Snipe bids cannot be shilled in this fashion, since there is not time for the shilling bidder to react to the sniped bid and to submit multiple bids, or even one bid in some cases.

While it might be possible for an unscrupulous seller to place a pre-emptive bid before the sniper bids, as a sort of hidden reserve amount to prevent the item from selling for less, if a seller is willing to risk losing the account if caught by eBay by doing that, it is unlikely that the seller would have been willing to actually part with the item for less than that amount in any case, and most likely the seller would have found an excuse to cancel the transaction rather than sell cheaply. Sniping cannot really help in that case, but no bidding strategy can, really.

[Anonymous]

@eburtonlab Thank you very much for the detailed and well thought out explanation.

And to all, I'm not anti-sniping/sniper at all, just needed an explanation on the shill logic and thinking process. Did not realize the shill was so complex and devious.

[eburtonlab]

@Anonymous 

You are most welcome. There can be a lot of strategy involved in bidding, and if there are weaknesses that can be exploited one way or the other, someone will try to take advantage of that at some point. It is often worth considering the incentives from the other side, and how each move can be reacted to (or not).

[dryophelia]

@Anonymous 

Shill bidding is done in reaction to a known bid. 
Snipe bidding doesn’t leave time for a shill to react to my bid. Snipers bid once, bid the most they are willing to pay and they bid as late as possible. 

I do understand your question. It’s about (potential) shill bids that happened days ago. If ANY bidder bids more than my predetermined amount, that’s ok. 

[bearswatching]

As a seller I’m always confused when I see listings where the seller states they won’t sell to a sniper. Not to mention they won’t be sellers for very long if they continue to cancel those bids. EBay doesn’t like their buyers to be disappointed. I once had an item go from $75 to $405 with less than 8 seconds to go. Feel free to snipe any of my auctions!