Outsniped?

[rh]

Hi,

I seem to be getting outsniped a lot (okay, I think on two auctions). One other auction my bid wasn't high enough, but gixen is bidding and still leaving time for others to bid (or has done with two auctions so far). Maybe the winning bid would have meant mine was under anyway (does that seem logical?), but it's a bit frustrating to have later bids when I'm supposed to be sniping at the last moment . . .

Here's tonight's lost bid:

130096719294 ENDED 19.60 20.60 1 OUTSNIPED

Any thoughts? I won't be around until tomorrow, so no rush in responding.

Thanks for taking the time.

[mario]

Hi, the point of sniping is not to protect you against other snipers, but to protect you against manual bidders who change their mind at the last moment.

There is no way sniping will help you against bidders who are determined to pay more than you are, it only helps you against those who are ready to pay more, but don't know that until they see your bid.

And, contrary to what one may believe, the optimal snipe is not the one that is closest to the auction end, it's the earliest one that does not leave enough time to manual bidders to submit the bid manually after they see your bid. In practice, this is probably 7-10 seconds before auction end. Why the erliest one? So that you can have an ebay increment rule to your advantage against other snipers. Just in case some bidder is very quick, I keep this on maximum of 5-6 seconds.

In your case, if it happened so that those bids that outsniped you were submitted before yours, you would be even worse off, as increment rule would be to their advantage, not yours. So there is really no reason to be upset, as you never had a chance.

[rh]

Hi Mario,

Just to be clear, I wasn't really "upset" -- somewhat annoyed, maybe, but I never bid more than I wanted to, and I would not have upped any of my bids to win those items.

Just wanted to make sure that my intuition that someone else's later bid really didn't effect mine. Thanks for clarifying sniping, though, that was helpful to me!

Thanks for the service (I'll not be so cheap sometime and then I'll actually win something with your service!).

Best,

RH

[mario]

Good luck rh, I'm sure you'll win some, keep sniping.

[Gixen]