BidBud.com - Sniping - Bidding Philosophy 101

Bidding Philosophy 101		These myths are centered around how people bid and think about bidding
3.1	Proxy bidding makes no sense because there is no such thing as a True Max Bid, therefore snipers win by default Contributed by eBay user phone-a-holic, but echoed in some way by sherriff jimmie.	The originator of this myth seems to be saying that the final amount can never be determined, therefore the only fair way to run auctions is to lowball indefinitely until somebody gives up, for whatever reason that may be. In the first place, if that were true, then lowballers and nibblers would run auctions up into the millions, and I've never seen that happen. In the second place, I believe that for every item, every person (or nearly every person) does have some amount above which she will not spend even one penny more. That amount may not be known right away, but it can be determined through research, soul-searching and my max bid page. As dr.gizmonic says, would you pay $10,000.00 for a jar of peanuts? I doubt it. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that just about anybody could come up with an amount for any item that's too much, and as soon as you determine that, then you know your True Max exists. Now go find it.
3.2	The rules and strategies of proxy bidding and sniping are extrememly difficult and time-consuming to learn, so that the average eBayer cannot become a good bidder. To that end, sniping should be banned to force equality on those few that unfairly have the time and ability to learn the system. Contributed by eBay user ecollects.	A classic case of "dumbing down", and completely false. Proxy bidding and the true max bids are very easy concepts to learn. I myself picked it up in about a week. Bidding once and bidding late are very simple. Even figuring your max bid can be easy. Ignore my semi-logarithmic method for the time being. Just run an auction in your mind. Pretend that you are bidding for the item, and that somebody else always bids just a little more than you. Eventually, as you bid up, you will give up and let the other bidder have the item. That point of giving up is your true max bid. Easy to do and very quick. Further, even if I have some esoteric skill that others don't, why should I weaken myself just to let others win? Should standards for being a pilot or running a nuclear power plant be lowered because not everybody can learn all of the things there are to doing these things? Should the basketball hoop be lowered in the NBA because some people can't shoot as well as others? In every activity and occupation in the world, there are those who are good, those who are poor, and those who are outstanding. Rather than punish the good ones, why not simply let them do what they do best? And educate the others to do as well as they can, too? Then everybody wins.
3.3	When snipers bid and lose, they unfairly raise the price for the bidder who bid earlier, who now has to pay an artificially inflated price. Snipe bids who don't win should not count toward the final price. contributed by eBay user winterhusky179	On the surface, it sounds to me like somebody bid too much. Why would you bid that much if you weren't willing to pay it? If you place a bid on ANY item, you must realize that there is a chance that you will pay the entire price. Like we have always said, a bid is a bid is a bid. Any bid can come in at any time. If this sniper had instead bid two days before, you would pay just as much. What would you do in that case, retract? Refuse to pay? This "solution" would also hurt the seller, as legitimate bids would no longer count toward the final proxy price. This myth sounds more like buyers remorse than anything else. The user bid, then got mad when he had to pay what he bid. Then don't bid that much! Kind of like the old joke "Doctor, it hurts when I do this. Then don't do that". Never bid more than you are willing to pay or can afford, and always keep in mind that you might have to pay the full price of your proxy bid, even if it's unexposed with 3 seconds left.
3.4	Snipers make astronomically high bids, so there's no way I can beat them, even with a proxy bid. Direct from the land of small price.	The evidence seems to be against that, since snipers lose a fair amount of bids to early proxy bidders. I suppose this tactic, which I call "nuclear bidding", could work if there was only one person on eBay doing this. What would happen if became widely known that this person was so successful using this method? Other people would probably copy him. Then you would have 2 people doing this, then 5, then 10, then 50, then 200, then 5000, then a million. Eventually, 2 of these nuclear bidders are going to meet, then you've got problems. If somebody routinely bids far more than they should for items, they will eventually get burned. If that's the risk they're willing to take, let them. Of couse, some people believe that ANY amount over their own max is "astronomical", but that's just sour grapes. Whoever bids the most wins, no matter what. There are several auctions where several snipers all bid in the closing seconds of the auction. The price has never, to my knowledge, jumped an astronomical amount. True, the price has often surged by a few hundred dollars, but IMHO the other bidders were lowballing it to begin with. Further, it's my opinion that if such activities were commonplace, we'd hear complaints about low priced items going for thousands of dollars, and people backing out. Since there has never been such an outcry, as of this writing, I dismiss this myth as completely false.
3.5	Snipers make astronomically low bids, which hurts sellers by forcing prices far below what they really should be. Direct from the land of small price.	It is true that one of the main reasons for sniping is that it prevents the final bid from going too high. It prevents lowballers and shillers from nibbling you. However, I don't believe that using the system to get the lowest price equates to hurting the sellers. Bargain hunting is a tradition. When you go shopping on the town, do you drive around deliberately looking for the HIGHEST prices around? Remember too that the seller sets a minimum bid on each of her items. For example, suppose that I want an item and the seller has set a minimum bid of $5.00. No matter when or how I bid, I can't bid below that. All bids will be at least that amount, and I have to assume that the seller will be happy if she gets that much. More is ok, naturally, and obviously every seller wants each item to for as much as possible, but if the seller would be unhappy with a final bid of $5.00, then she can (and should) raise the minimum bid to a price that she will be happy with. The way I see it, the seller wants to get the highest price possible. The buyer tries to get the lowest price possible. Those two desires, combined with market forces, create a price that is acceptable to both. There is no pre-defined mark where a price "should" be. Further, I do not believe that it is the duty of the buyers to inflate the price of an item. Is it just me, or does there appear to be a contradiction between this myth and the one just above? Particularly since these two myths orginated from the same person!