Recommended Time - Is 1 Second Best or Do you Risk the Bid

[Acuritepepper24]

Is there a Recommended Time to set when Gixen Bids for you?

So Far I have Kept it on the Default of 6 Seconds.

I am wondering why isn't it 1 Second as that would save you money?

I am guessing if you go under 6 Seconds You Risk the Bid Not Going Through?

What do you guys keep it at?

Also, do you keep the Regular and Mirror at the Same Time or do you have them Differ?

[Cupid]

This is probably the most popular topic raised on this forum, so you can find lots of discussion of this here on other threads.

It isn't always the latest scheduled bid that wins on Ebay because of the bid increment rule. It is definitely a mistake to think that later is always better but the likelihood of the bid being placed is not significantly diminished purely by the snipe being scheduled for a later time.

Personally I prefer offsets higher than the default of 6 seconds because I bid on auctions that often have other snipers, and I prefer my bid to have a better chance of being accepted and other snipers bids blocked by the bid increment rule.

Different scenarios do however lead to different outcomes and that is why this is left as a choice and not fixed, particularly not at 1 second, and there are no recommendations that can be applied to all Ebay auctions in this respect.

As to differences between Main and Mirror, just a couple of things to bear in mind, it is the one with the largest offset that will win the vast majority of the time since it gets it's bid in first and effectively blocks the second server from being able to place its bid, and the only difference it tends to make to bidding is that if they are the same occasionally you will see two bids of the same amount on your auctions as Ebay isn't always quick enough to flag that they are from the same account when they get placed at exactly the same time, that isn't really an issue that has ever caused me an issue that I am aware of though.
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Mark

[Acuritepepper24]

I don't know if it helps or not but I am buying Basketball Cards which if you know anything about that is it the hottest thing around.

Many Cards are Rare (Less than 99 Made).

People go into a Frenzy buying them and I am doing it for a living.

I am not buying random cheap items like DVD's or Books where if you don't win you can bid on 100 more of the same item the next day.

So I want to get bids as late as possible (1 Second would be ideal I would think).

I can't afford to loose any auction because any auction I loose is Money I loose down the road when I sell.

[Guest]

Pricing can be all over the place.

It is not like buying typical goods that many buy on ebay.

I feel that One Second could save possibly hundreds or thousands of dollars for each auction won.

So it is pretty important that I have it set right for maximum profits.

These are investments so I want to get them as cheap as possible.

I bid on around 100 auctions a day currently.

[Gixen]

[Cupid]

OK, well here is a recent story where later wasn't better.

On Ebay it is always the highest accepted bid that wins. That is to say, the amount of your bid is always the most significant factor, the timing is always a secondary concern.

However the higher you bid, the more likely you are to have to pay more, as others (perhaps also trying to make a living in exactly the way you do) will follow your lead over time, even on unique items, and therefore reduce your profits.

So, what you, and everyone else, is doing is trying to win at the lowest price. For that reason it is left up to you what offset you want to try for any particular auction (if you have a Mirror subscription), because different scenarios do give different outcomes.

One consideration I would also highlight though is that any manual bidder that has decided to bid late in an auction is unlikely to be able to change the decision as to what amount they are prepared to pay and get that bid placed on Ebay in less than about 10 seconds, and since those are the only ones that make a difference to the outcome based on when you schedule your bid, that is generally close enough to the end of the auction.
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Mark

[Azzamean]

3 Seconds seems to be a good rule... Although I suppose 2 is OK. 1 second I get a little nervous...

Yea the increment rule matters but you still want the highest you are willing to pay at the latest you can get it in.

IDK what these other people are talking about 6 seconds or more. That's silly. I bid on hundreds of gold and silver coins daily and fight people who ALWAYS bid 2-3 seconds before it ends. Half of them use sniping bots as well.

If there is a coin with a current bid of say, $500... and I bid $520 six seconds before it ends. Someone is going to come in there during that six seconds and snipe me. Lets say I put $550 in six seconds before it ends. That gives someone 6 seconds to either beat my $550 or jack it up as high as they can. Say, $540 and they call it quits. So I end up paying that $550. However, if I had waited 2-3 seconds before it ends and I put $520, they may have only came in with a $510 and now they don't have time to keep jacking it up.

You get the idea. Put a \"good\" bid in as close to ending as possible. The increment matters but it also depends what that increment is. Is it $3? Is it $10? $25?

[Cupid]