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I'm
a sniper and it's OK
By
Tyler
Jones
Despite
what you hear from the Anti-Sniper crowd, snipers
and the practice of sniping are actually wonderful
and beautiful things. Let's examine some of the
benefits resulting from sniping and maybe even a
crticisim or two regarding those who don't
snipe.
Snping mainly benefits the buyer, but can have other
benefits as well. eBay user pcr99 has an excellent
about
me
page
that dicusses sniping much like this page does.
You can go there to view most of the good things
about sniping. I'll just mention some others right
here.
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Benefit
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Why sniping is good
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| The
lowballer actually hurts the seller. |
I
believe that all bids help the seller, since each
one raises the current bid by at least one increment
and in many cases by much more than that. However,
lowballers often make this complaint about snipers,
while the truth is that lowballers are really the
ones who keep prices low by refusing to bid their
max. While keeping prices low is not a crime, the
lowballers are far more guilty of this than the snipers
are. |
| Lowballers
force low opening bids. |
I've
seen this myself many times. For the same item, one
with a high opening bid gets no bids at all, while the
exact same item with a lower opening bid often goes
much higher than the opening bid of the first. I believe
that the reason for this is that lowballers are uncomfortable
with placing a high opening bid. They are more than
willing to bid the same or more in an ongoing auction.
For an example, let's follow the bidding of Larry the
Lowballer (no relation to Leisure suit Larry), with
apologies to the many people I know named Larry. :-)
Larry wants a Playstation2. He searches for one, and
finds one with an opening bid of $500.00 and no bids
yet. Larry doesn't want to initiate a $500.00 bid all
by himself, so he looks on. He finds another one that
is currently up to $650.00, but had an opening bid of
$10.00 and currently has 47 bids. He happily bids $660.00,
since that's only pushing the amount up by $10.00.
In this example, my belief is that Larry looks at the
first item as him bidding the entire $500.00 all by
himself in one shot. In the second auction, he looks
at it like he's only bidding $10.00. Other people bid
the rest of it, so it's not really his money. Of course
it IS his money, if he wins, but the psychological ramifications
from this are very profound. If a seller opens an item
for far less than he is willing to accept, he runs a
very big risk. However, Lowballers by their very nature
force them to do so |
| Snipers
can actually raise the price a fair amount. |
Suppose
that you are selling an item and open with a bid of
$10.00. I bid an early proxy of $60.00. Days later,
just before the end, a sniper enters and decides that
she will bid $75.00. In a span of perhaps five seconds,
you just made an extra $50.00. Bad news if you're
one of those that ends auctions early. |
| Time
to ponder the Univserse. |
If
you are a sniper, and know about an item that you want
days in advance, then you have time to really examine
the item. Do you really want it? How much do you want
to pay for it? You can change your mind over and over
again. You have time to e-mail the seller with any questions.
You can read the description thoroughly and understand
exactly what you are bidding on. With a lowballer style,
you risk committing yourself without really knowing
what's going on. |
| In
and Out Burger |
If
a bidder wants a certain item, she does a search. If
she finds a large number of items, with various ending
times, she may not want to wait 6 days before winning.
She wants it now, and is likely to bid on the item with
the quickest end time. By sniping, her transaction moves
through the system faster, eases the burden on eBay
and make the whole thing go more efficiently.
This may seem to contradict the benefit above, but that's
the beauty of it. Whether you are in a hurry or want
to take your time, sniping is your friend. |
| Under
the radar. |
By
sniping, we protect ourselves from nibblers and shill
bidders, those who would wear away our safety margin
and take the item away. It's not our fault if they can't
or won't place their True Max bid. We also protect ourselves
from enemies who might follow us around just to take
away items or force a higher price. If we only bid in
the last 10 seconds, it's hard for them to search for
us and then outbid us.
Odd as it may seem, we even snipe to protect us from
ourselves! How is this possible? Suppose you find an
item that you want, and decide that your True Max will
be $150.00. You need to bid early because you have to
go to work, so you give yourself just enough time to
bid and then leave home. You bid, but do not take the
lead. Your reaction? "Well, maybe $150.00 wasn't
really my True Max...
Yes, even snipers can sometimes fall victim to this
feeling. If we bid with 9 seconds left and do not take
the lead, we won't have enough time to outbid ourselves
and perhaps spend more than we should. |
| One
auction, one bid, one win |
Sniping
is perfectly designed for eBay's bidding system, which
is 24/7 worldwide. It's impossible to sit at your screen
for 10 days, lowballing every time somebody else comes
in. Also, it reduces the total number of bids chugging
through the system, thereby easing the strain on eBay's
servers. |
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