2s or 1s Offset?

[Happy_Mike]

Hi Mario,

I am the type of person who likes to live "on the edge".

Is there any chance of making a 2s or 1s offset available?

I've been using your 3s mirror service for over 50 successful snipes and GIXEN has not let me down even once.

So please provide a 2s or 1s option.

It will be the coolest thing (to me) to snipe and win with 1s only.

[nochkin]

1 second snipe will not add any benefits for your sniping.
1 second snipe will have a higher chance of being missed when eBay has high load and slow to respond.

[mario]

I could add it, but aside from being "coolest" there is zero benefit in it. Even 3 sec I added only because users at the time thought it would be cool.

[Cupid]

I think that the most important thing any sniping site can provide is the best chance of winning items at the price the buyer is willing to pay, or less... anything that reduces that possibility for users is not what I would regard as 'cool'.

I can not see any chance of furthering the aims of the service by offering to place bids even closer to the end of the auction...

Who would we be trying to impress with this? The sellers wouldn't even notice, manual bidders are not more likely to switch to a sniping strategy as a result, other snipers might be the most likely to notice but if they have thought about this they will have realised it is actually an advantage to bid earlier than other scheduled snipes so why would it impress them?... I'm left thinking only of the friends and family of the winning bidder... and if I think about mine I can imagine the looks I would get if I tried to show them that I won an auction on eBay with a bid that was placed in the last second... they would not be impressed I can assure you, they would think I had finally lost my grip on the real world.
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Mark

[Gixen]

[Happy_Mike]

So far, I have won my 3 sec bids most of the time.

SERIOUSLY speaking now.

I have encountered some ebay users placing a bid with 1sec to go. Looking at the item's bid history, I can deduce that 3 secs still provides other people with a chance to react to a bid from Gixen.

BTW, that's the reason why I use 3 secs and not 6 secs. 6s definitely allows other users to place a higher bid.

If the 2 sec offset option were available, this would really prevent other ebay users from placing a counter bid.

As an Ebay buyer (and Gixen user/subscriber), I snipe because it helps me win an item without getting into a costly (to me) bidding war.
Any comments involving Ebay sellers are therefore irrelevent.

As for the coolness factor, this may mean nothing to you. But to me, it is tantamount to winning a race via a photofinish photo. Now, that is COOL!!!

[Cupid]

If I were in a race I would think it more impressive to win by a long way than have to ask judges to decide if I did.

For a reaction to happen in three seconds the person would have to be sitting at their computer with the intention of reacting if a higher bid is placed, so they must already know they have not placed their maximum bid... if it is possible to do, which I still doubt... it is a waste of their time and has great potential for not winning the item at the price they are willing to pay if necessary... I think you must agree that a better strategy than that is to have their bid registered before yours is placed?... and even better than that is to decide on the maximum that you are prepared to pay well in advance and then let a service place that bid in the last few seconds.
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Mark

[mario]

Mike, I would bet my life that that bid was also scheduled via some sniping service (or even sniped manually), and not a reaction.

However, I think I'll allow 2 and 1 second snipes, just to avoid responding to posts on this subject. If users want it, users should have it.

[Happy_Mike]

[Sumflow]

Happy Mike:> BTW, from experience, 6s really allows other users to react by placing a higher bid. This is the main reason why I subscribed to the Mirror service with 3s option. <

How do you know this?

[Jeremy]

"Happy Mike:> BTW, from experience, 6s really allows other users to react by placing a higher bid. This is the main reason why I subscribed to the Mirror service with 3s option. <

How do you know this?"

I don't know if the person you responded to had done so but it is possible to glean this.

When you look at bid histories you can always spot a "nibbler" since (at least the last time I checked) only manually placed bids are shown.

Thus if you see: $5, $10, $15, $20, $25 (etc.) bids associated with the same user id (masked but the system still shows you who is who so to speak) that is a nibbler increasing their max $5 at a time until they are the high bidder.

If such a bidder gets a bid in a few seconds before the end of the auction you can be relatively sure they are doing so in reaction to being outbid in the closing seconds.

I just started being active on ebay again and I know in the olden days you had to keep hitting "refresh" to see if you were outbid and in that case I think 6 seconds would be pretty damn tough to beat.

However I was watching an auction yesterday and the system showed me I was outbid without my having to hit refresh and I do suspect that a person who already had an amount entered in and was ready to hit "submit" only if they were outbid in the closing seconds would be able to react in time to a bid that went through 5 or 6 seconds before the end.

But I would be interested in hearing others thoughts on this.

[Cupid]

I'll agree that it is easier than it used to be, still quite hard to react in under 6 seconds though, unless you already have a bid scheduled to be placed on another tab.

My main point in all of this is that someone that does that is sitting there at the end of the auction already knowing that they have not placed a bid at the maximum that they are willing to pay, there is a high risk that they will not achieve placing that bid if it proves necessary to win the auction or increase the price that the eventual winner pays.

I would suggest that is not a productive use of their time, and it does not really bother me if they choose to waste their time on such activities.
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Mark

[Happy_Mike]

[Cupid]

Based on the figures that you quote I have even more experience of trading on eBay than you do... but I'm not keen on getting into a 'Mine is bigger than yours' argument, I simply wish to point out that the amount of trading does not necessarily always lead to the same view of things.

For the sake of argument lets assume I accept your view that reactions to 6 second bids are (much) more likely than other snipers simply scheduling later bids (and missing out more often when the bid increment rule goes against them... which you will never see in the bid history since such bids are never accepted) ... Then what we have from these successful bidders is a willingness to sit at their computer waiting for that 6 second bid in order to place their higher bid, and not to do so if there is no such bid appearing... now there is the problem (for these bidders)... they have a strategy that is less likely to win at a price that they have already decided that they are willing to pay than those that schedule a bid at less than 10 seconds and get on with their lives doing something more productive... pretty much you have already made that argument yourself by pointing out that you no longer do it yourself.
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Mark

[jchasko]

[Cupid]

jchasko,

Isn't offering 1 second snipes on Main with a default of 2 on the Mirror just offering 2 second snipes but publicising them as 1 second snipes? The Mirror would nearly always be doing the primary work and bidding earlier, making the Main the redundant server in this scenario.

People would always want to override that default if they were really wanting 1 second snipes, wouldn't they?

As I have stated many times, I don't see a significant increase in losses by having larger offset times for snipes, not within 10 seconds of the auction end anyway... and I generally use higher than the default 6 seconds to gain advantage of the bid increment rule... for me the losses are greater with later snipes not earlier ones because of that rule... I don't like seeing things go for less than I am prepared to pay and that happens (for me) more often when I schedule later snipes... That is probably because the items I take an interest in are often of interest to other snipers, and the value amongst them is pretty well established... and most of them use automated processes or services like Gixen.
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Mark