BidBud.com - Reading the Snipers Minds

Reading the Snipers minds		These myths attack the motivations of the snipers
#	Myth	It's not true because...
7.1	Snipers are craven cowards, afraid to show themselves and try their luck with an early bid. They hide behind the sniping shield so nobody will know what they're doing, the wimps.	Sniping is merely a bidding strategy, one of many out there. eBay user dr.gizmonic compares this to playing poker. Nobody I know shows their cards while playing. Are they chicken? Are they afraid to try their luck? No. They're simply playing the game to win. Much like that, snipers bid on eBay to win items, not to show how "manly" they are. If anybody, it's the lowballers who are afraid to enter their True Max bid. I don't believe fear, cowardice or even machismo enter into most people's bidding, though. We're just trying to get things we want for the lowest price possible. I believe that sniping is the best way to do that. Here's a thought for the people who believe in this myth. Why not just bid $50,000 on each and every item? You would win virtually every time. Don't want to? Why not? Are you "chicken"?
7.2	Snipers don't really want the items. They're just bidding for the fun of it. Direct from the land of small price.	I can only analyze my own bidding patterns, and I only bid on items that I want. I have never, ever bid on an item that I did not really really want, and that was true even before I became a sniper. Early bidders are not necessarily more committed to the item than snipers, and it may not be the case that they are more serious about their bid. Joke and deadbeat bids are equally likely to come in at all times. In fact, early bidders retract all of the time, or decide that they don't want the item after all. Snipers are often aware of them item days before they bid. They're just waiting for the right moment. Many people search for items and find what they want minutes before the auction ends. Do they want the item less because of this? I don't think so. Maybe I really needed the item, but was unable to search until just before it ended. Maybe I've been watching the item for days, but I prefer to choose when to strike. The timing of when I choose to reveal my hand has nothing to do with how much I want the item or how serious I am about paying for it.
7.3	Snipers bid the way they do because they're afraid of competition. Direct from the land of small price.	This appears to yet another one of the so-called Projection Myths. That is, the anti-snipers are once again projecting their weaknesses onto Snipers because they can't admit to their own failings. Competition is one of the greatest things in the world. It causes us all to continually strive to do better. In the arena of eBay, there is competition in the sense of winning items. Each of us places our bids, and the highest wins. As a sniper, I do not specifically seek out competition, since that only raises the price, but neither do I shy away from it. I welcome anybody at all onto the site and I challenge them to bid the best way that they can. How do you judge whether or not a bidder is "afraid" of competition? If we were truly afraid, we would never bid. By entering our max, we give it all we've got and thereby challenge anybody to beat us, even though we don't challenge directly. By not entering their max, it's the lowballers who don't want to compete. Like many others, this myth results from a lack of knowledge of the system. Many anti-snipers view competition as multiple people directly bidding each other up in little bits, like a GGG auction. Since eBay is different, the nature of the competition is also different. On eBay, you compete by simply bidding the most you are willing to pay. Since bidders, especially proxy bidders and snipers, do this on their own, it appears as if we're not directly battling other bidders. We're not, but in this type of auction, being "afraid" of directly bidding against somebody else simply does not apply and demonstrates a complete lack of knowledge of how the system works.
7.4	Snipers bid the way they do, because they can't stand to lose. Direct from the land of small price.	This may be the most truthful "myth" out there. You bet I don't like to lose. I don't bid on eBay to feel good and happy, and to let somebody else get things. I'm on eBay to win items. Period. That being the case, why shouldn't I use the strategy that I believe best gets me there? Of course, this myth is always said in a sarcastic way (as much as you can on the internet anyway). That is, snipers are portrayed as whiny babies who throw hissy fits if they lose, thus they resort to underhanded tactics to make sure that they win. This, of course, is completely false. Nobody (nobody I know anyway) likes to lose, but whenever snipers lose, they just accept the disappointment and move on. I've lost, and I don't like it much, but I'm philosophical enough to know that it happens sometimes. Finally, who is it that whines the most on the boards anyway? What group continoulsy moans how unfair the system is, how everybody is cheating them, and how the entire system should be re-engineered to cater specifically to them? You guessed it, it's the anti-snipers. Mostly from ignorance, true, but this is yet another case of classic transferance. This myth is an excellent example of hypocrisy, since the ones who shout it the loudest also complain the loudest about losing themselves!
7.5	Snipers are cheap and afraid to bid the true market value of an item. Contributed by eBayer allegrad	If by "cheap" you mean "tries to get the lowest price possible for things" then yes, I'm cheap. I work hard for my money, and I don't want to waste it. I like to buy things, but I would rather spend less than more. If you want to call that cheap, then so be it. Besides, how do you know that I'm cheap? The winner will always show a bid equal to the second-highest bidder plus one increment. You, as an observer, have no way of telling how much I actually bid. If the current high bidder has a Max Bid of $10.00, then suddenly somebody else takes the lead with $10.50, how can you tell if that person bid $10.50, $25.00 or $500.00? You can't. Comments that snipers are cheap are at best a wild guess. My Max Bid is what I would be willing to pay if the need so arises. If the need DOESN'T so arise, then that's not really my fault, and there's no need to pay more than I have to. If I snipe and item with an "unfairly" low bid, and win anyway, what does that say about the bids that came before me? Aren't they cheap bidders too? The second part of this myth is a little harder to analyze. I'm not sure if the one who said this meant True Max or the Market Value due to the context of his speech. Let's take them one at a time. The whole point of sniping is to bid your True Max. Figure out the absolute most you are willing to bid, then bid as late as you can. If you're not doing this, then you're not really a sniper. You're just a lowballer who happens to wander in at the end. That may not even be the True Value. Suppose that you're mildly interested in an item that every expert in the world has appraised at $500.00. You, however, are only willing to bid $100.00. Are you afraid? A chicken? A wimp? The answer is no. You're just not willing to pay as much as others think you should. If, on the other hand, he meant Fair Market Value, then that's another can of worms. If I want to pay Fair Market Value, I'll go to the mall. Auctions are for getting things at a bargain, at least from the buyer's point of view. Why should I deliberately pay more than I need to? Some items may not have a market value. The whole reason I joined eBay in the first place was to find a copy of Dungeons & Dragons Module T1-4, The Temple of Elemental Evil. I found one in excellent shape, but this myth could not apply here. This module has been out of print, to my knowledge, for 15 years. How, then, can I judge the market value for something like this? All I can do is bid what I can and hope for the best. I won, of course, and that was one of the auctions that led me to being a sniper. I just don't buy this whole "afraid" business anyway. I'm reminded of elementary school, where we would dare each other to do stupid things, then call each other chicken if we didn't. I'm sorry, sir, but I'm not going to throw away my dead presidents just to prove to YOU how much of a "real man" I am!
7.6	Why can't snipers bid their True Max like everybody else?	I must confess that this myth has me buffaloed. It is completely contradictory to almost everything that most anti-snipers say about snipers. Bidding your Max is at the heart of sniping. If you don't, then you're not a sniper. The people who say this may not actually know what a sniper is. The may be confusing various terminologies and jargon that we use on the boards. Also, "Everybody else" does not bid their max. That's the source of over 90% of the complaints against snipers: That the lowballer get outbid before they can bid again. That implies that they have NOT bid their True Max. If "EveryBody" bid their max except for snipers, then snipers would nearly always lose, which they don't.
7.7	All snipers care about is winning, and they want to win at all costs. Contributed, in various ways, by rickbuds and danlcat (danlcat has been converted to pro-sniping).	This is two myths, but they relate to each other pretty well, so I'll combine them. Every once in a while, an anti-sniper will say the word "win" like it's a dirty word. Well, of course I want to win! Why else would you EVER bid in an auction? Do anti-snipers bid hoping to lose? Do they get upset if they win? I doubt it. The answer is yes, when I bid on an auction, I want to win and nothing else. If that means others are going to lose, so be it. It seems to me that anti-snipers come on the boards to complain only when they lose, so doesn't that imply that they want to win also? Since when is losing, or the direct attempt to lose, a noble thing? Winning "at all costs" could mean two different things here. I'll assume that the original meaning was "win even if it makes others lose". I hate to break it to the anti-snipers, but if there's more than one bidder on an auction, making somebody else lose is the only way you can win. The other possible meaning is "win by bidding an insane amount", and we've already covered that in the myths where small price brice claims that snipers make astronomically high bids and astronomically low bids AT THE SAME TIME. To sum up, yes, I want to win, and if you bid too, even if you hate sniping, then you want to win too. Please note that this myth contradicts the myth that says that snipers DON'T want to win.