BidBud.com - Sniping - Snipers and Me

Snipers and Me		These myths discuss how sniping affects others bidding and overall experience on eBay
#	Myth	It's not true because...
5.1	I led the bidding for this item for six days, then some sniper stole it from me. Sub-Myth : Sniping is like going up to somebody who is carrying a toy from the store shelf to the cash register, and ripping it out of their hands. The sub-myth was contributed by the fruit loop J-Monster. I forgot her name, but about six of her id's are now NARU.	Sniping is not stealing. Any bid that comes in during the auction timeframe is as equally valid as any other bid. The time of the auction is clearly marked, so you can bid at the beginning, the middle or near the end. Bidding early, bidding often or holding the lead for a long time does not give you ownership or control of the item, the auction or the bidding process. eBay knows no "dibs". By bidding early, you are registering your intent and willingness to purchase the item at a certain price should you be the winner when the auction is over. You are not making a claim of ownership. The seller, and only the seller, and nobody else, retains full ownership and control of the item, the auction and the bidding process until the auction ends and there is a listed winner. At that time, and only at that time, payment and transfer of ownership begins to take place. As for the sub-myth, this gets into the process. If I go to Toys 'R' Us and take a game off the shelf, I am doing more than registering my intent and willingness to purchase the game. By touching the item and holding it, I gain exlusive rights to purchase the item if I so desire. I do not yet own the game, but as long as I am holding the item, I control the buying process. If I choose, I can buy the game, or I can return it to the shelf (retract my bid) with no penatly, and somebody else can take it off the shelf. In other words, if you are physically holding an item in a store, but have not yet bought it, society recognizes your implicit claim to buy the item to the exclusion of all else. The analogy ends there. Buying an item in a store is different from an auction. In a store, one person grabs one item and pays the listed price. In an auction, multiple people bid at different times and whoever bids the highest wins. While an auction has a current leader, that person has no more right to the item than anybody else, including people who have not bid yet, until the auction ends.
5.2	Sniping is disruptive and takes away from the "fun" of a a friendly auction and bidding process.	The last time I checked, the purpose of bidding on an auction was to WIN something, not just to have fun and socialize. Yes, it's fun to bid on items, and take the lead, and watch the price go up as the lead goes back and forth. I was like that too, once. However, that is all secondary to our prime purpose of getting stuff. I can't see how sniping in and of itself is less friendly than any other bid. If you want to socialize, go to the chat boards. I do that all the time, but an auction is a place to bid on something and win it. Any bid that comes in during the pre-specified timeframe is as equally valid as any other. A snipe bid is no more likely to beat you than any other bid. Besides, if enter a snipe bid at the end, and am beaten by an earlier proxy bid, I could claim that the winning bid was disruptive and unfriendly to me. If your main goal on eBay is just to have fun bidding and enjoy the process, then what difference does it make if I snipe? If your main purpose is to bid and have fun, and my main purpose is to win the auction, then we all achieve our goals together.
5.3	Snipers prevent people from bidding because many people won't bid until others do. Since nobody can see the snipers until the auction is over, snipers make the prices lower than they should be by fooling others who want to bid.	The original person who said this clearly subscribes to the philosophy that "bids beget other bids". That is, the mere fact that an item is getting bids makes it more desireable, and hence other people bid on the item, making it even MORE desireable, and so on. However, the ramifications of this statement are profound and more far-reaching than the original anti-sniper may realize. I basically see this as a case of people blaming snipers for the habits of others. Yes, I know that many people won't bid until somebody else does and the bids beget other bids theory is true in many cases. However, I am not responsible for the bidding habits of others. I am responsible only for my own bids. If somebody else is afraid to bid first, that's not my fault. If this myth were true, then there would be no bidders at all except for snipers. In the cases where the snipers is the only bidder, at least he is preventing the item from going unsold. Even if the herd mentality were everywhere, somebody would still have to bid first. For people who won't bid until somebody else does, they have only themselves to blame. I put no store in "The devil made me do it" or in this case "The Sniper DIDN'T make me do it"! I've seen the effect of this myself. There are a few issues with this, though. Somebody has to bid first. Even in a situation where people won't bid until somebody else does, and in an auction with 500 bidders, somebody has to step up to the plate and bid on the auction before anybody else does. This makes sense, if you think about it. If nobody bid on eBay until somebody else did first, then nothing would ever sell. For every auction that ends with a winner, somebody had the courage to bid first. One of the most important factors in proxy bidding is that every bidder (and bid) is an entity unto themselves. You should never let your bidding be affected by what other people are doing. Even if this was the way it was done, why am I being singled out? In other words, why should I bid early just to inspire you to bid? Why don't you bid early and inspire me? It makes no sense to demand that some bidders on eBay act as "pioneers", whose only job is to bid on items so that others, who are afraid to bid, can then do so. If there are people out there who won't bid until I do, that's not my fault. It's their fault for not using the system properly. There are a number of auctions where I have won as the only bidder, and that means by definition I must have bid "first". Why can't others do this as well? Consider this. If snipers are willing to bid first, last or whatever, and some bidders won't bid until somebody else does, and the believers of this myth demand that snipers bid earlier to give them the guts to bid, which they would not otherwise do, then where does that leave us? We now have two classes of bidders. Those who are willing to bid first, and those who wait until somebody else goes first. The problem is that as a sniper, I have a responsibility to other bidders that I did not have before. I am now virtually required to bid to help out others who don't have the guts to bid first. I'm basically being asked to be your daddy, and to hand-hold you through the auction process. Well, why can't you be the daddy, bid first, and hand-hold ME through the process? If we're going to have different classes of bidders, we must have some means of identifying them. Do we have to register as one or the other? Will eBay assign us to the role? What if everybody wants to be a secondary bidder? Finally, and this may be just another way of saying the same thing, I don't prevent anything. If you want to bid $50.00 on an item, then nothing I do can prevent it. You can bid on as many items as you want, as many times as you want, for any amount that you want, and there's not thing one I can do about it, nor would I want to. It can be argued that if you want to bid $50.00 on something, and just before you do, two people bid over $50.00, then we are preventing you from bidding $50.00, but that's just a function of the system. You can still bid, it's just that in this case the system would prevent you from bidding $50.00 because there's no way you can win or affect the final price with that bid, assuming that nobody retracts or cancels, and eBay makes that assumption.
5.4	Snipers would never bid on anything at all unless other people bid on it first, so they ruin it for the rest of us. Contributed by eBay user card4s	This myth is a fascinating complement to the one directly above it. That myth claims snipers prevent other people from bidding early, thus snipers ALWAYS bid first and ruin things. This myth claims that snipers would not bid at all were it not for these early bidders, thus snipers NEVER bid first and ruin things. This myth has deep roots in the more basic myth that claims snipers don't want the items that they bid on. This myth takes it a little further and claims that the act of other people bidding on items makes the item more desireable for snipers, or possibly that they only bid to steal items away from people, and never because they want it. Oddly enough, this theory actually describes nibblers and lowballers, the very people who rail against the snipers. It seems that once again, anti-snipers are blaming the snipers for their own shortcomings. As of this writing, I have won 300 auctions, 137 of which saw me as the only bidder. In short, no, we don't wait to bid until somebody else does. That is the philosophy of the lowballer, which is in direct opposition to sniping. Snipers make their bids first, second, last or whatever. Our bidding is NEVER based on what other bidders are or are not doing. Remember, "each bidder is an entity unto himself".