Another question in the great offset debate

rickajho · Guest

I did a 15 second offset on this auction. Someone else placed a bid several minutes before my snipe. BUT: Once my snipe was placed did this person continue to manually keep increasing their bid in the last 15 seconds? The reason I'm asking is that each subsequent bid they placed has a different time stamp on it. If their bid increases were from a proxy wouldn't they all have the same time stamp? (My snipe bid increases did.) Their bids were also in non-incremental amounts: $1.50, $2.00, $1.50 if that's any indication of manual bidding.

Cupid · Joined: 09 Aug 2007 Posts: 7970 Location: Bristol, UK

Later time stamps do indeed indicate later bids.

Out of interest, how did you get so many different bids submitted on the same account at the same time... or have you actually expanded the Ebay display to show proxy bids, as we discussed recently on another thread?

If someone is sitting there prepared to bid more, in the last seconds of the auction, in my opinion they are either wasting their time... because to do so they must have already decided to bid more than any bid they had scheduled or already placed on Ebay... either that or they were actually shill bidding... something that earlier sniping can, unfortunately also encourage.

Also out of interest, what made you decide on an offset of 15 and not 10 or 8 ?... My default is 8 these days.
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rickajho · Guest

Cupid · Joined: 09 Aug 2007 Posts: 7970 Location: Bristol, UK

OK... I think I usually say that there is no universal agreement about what is 'best' hence the choice being given.

My personal opinion is that around 8 seconds works 'best' for me, all things considered, but that is because I know that I am involved, most often, in auctions where other snipers are likely.

In the particular instance in question I would suspect that the other bidder was sitting there with the auction page still displayed on their browser, having placed their bid of 10 dollars just a few minutes earlier. These days when you do that, as soon as you are outbid the Ebay page updates showing it and prompting you as to whether you want to place another bid, with push button options giving instant bid amounts for you to select... it is good for Ebay... and that way it is much easier to place a few bids, over a short period, at the end of an auction, than it used to be.

Not something I would recommend as a buyer if you are sitting there knowing that you have not placed a bid, or even scheduled one, that actually reflects the amount that you are willing to pay.

I think I may have tried it myself a couple of times in my earlier days (also around 1999, when things were quite different on the auction pages than they are now), but I soon realised what a waste of my time it was and moved on to more successful, less time consuming, means of winning Ebay auctions.

It is also good for shill bidders though, and there doesn't appear to be much downside to dong it any more... I suspect Ebay is taking less and less action against such activity, actually effectively even encouraging it with changes they have made over the past few years... it does no harm to Ebays' profits, evidently.
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rickajho · Guest

BTW: The default at bidnapper is 4 seconds. So consideration may need to be given to what other sights are doing as well.

mario · Site Admin Joined: 03 Oct 2006 Posts: 7267

rickajho,

What others are doing is often not the best choice, even if they were all doing the same thing. When using the web interface, users now have an option to specify any offset from 1-15 sec. I am still convinced that in vast majority of cases 8 is the best choice. But this is far less important than decision whether to snipe at all or not. So once you start using Gixen, you probably obtained 95% of the benefit. Offset may (or may not) be the remaining 5%.