beating other snipers?

[sickyd]

Ok so I just lost but it wasn't gixen's fault...there was another sniper up there bidding, gixen got in closer to the end but my bid was too low because before the other sniper bid, the item's price was lower. I am just wondering if there is any strategy to beat out other snipers? I can only think of putting my bid like $5 higher than the last bid so that i can beat out other snipers who come in before me, but then i am paying more than necessary of there are no other snipers. Wow i hope people can understand what i'm talking about haha.

[mario]

I understand perfectly what you are asking, and the best strategy one can have is to bet before(!), not after other sniper, so that ebay bid increment rule is on your side.

The ideal time to place a snipe is late enough for manual bidders not to be able to react, but early enough to get there before other snipers. In practice, this probably means 7-8 seconds before auction end. Gixen is placing bids 5-6 seconds before auction end, and I was thinking about slightly increasing this to 7 or 8. For most auctions, however, this doesn't make much of a difference.

[sickyd]

so i was just unlucky that there was another sniper out there who at the perfect time to render my bid useless? Another question though, if I set my bid really high, will gixen automatically reduce it down to just $1 above the highest bid when it snipes it 5 seconds before it closes?

[mario]

You were unlucky that there was a bidder ready to pay more than you, period. Sniper or not.

To answer your second question - Gixen submits your maximum bid to ebay, and then ebay uses proxy bidding to determine the amount necessary to win. So you will pay the minimum required to win.

[Gixen]

[sickyd]

got it, guess i didn't understand ebay bidding. thanks. your site is awesome!

[Joan of Arc]

[quote="mario"]....... In practice, this probably means 7-8 seconds before auction end. Gixen is placing bids 5-6 seconds before auction end, and I was thinking about slightly increasing this to 7 or 8........[/quote]

Dear Mario,

Please [u]do not[/u] increase the time because 6s is sufficient time for someone to launch a counterbid and hence increase the price of the final winning bid.

From my experience, for 2 times that Gixen placed the bid with 6s to spare, it allowed another sniper (manual I'm quite sure!) to place a counter bid with 1s to spare!

Given Gixen's great response so far, how about decreasing the standard time left from 5s to 3s to spare? This will improve Gixen's hit rate from the current 4-6 seconds to 2-4 seconds left. It will be impossible for any manual bidder to recover from such a snipe!

Alternatively, how about giving your users the choice of inputting their desired time left? In other words, letting Gixen users specify how many seconds left they want Gixen to do the bidding for them. Of course, specifying a lower time would increase the risk of not placing the bid due to network problems etc., but such a risk would be borne by the user since they would be the ones specifying the time left.

Thanks so far for everything you have done Mario!

[mario]

No, I'm not going to increase it, 5 seconds seems just about right.

However, I'm not going to decrease it either - I don't believe it is possible to see one's bid and then manually place your own in only 5 seconds left.
If there was a snipe after Gixen's in the last 5 seconds, it was coming anyway. So decreasing it further to 2-4 seconds would bring no benefit, and would only increase number of late bids.

As for giving the users choice... I honestly don't see a good reason to do that. Benefits of it are doubtful, and it would greatly increase number of support issues - as you know, some people complain even when it's their own fault. Investigating the problem and explaining the situation takes time, regardless of who caused the issue. And I'd rather invest that time in feature development and site improvement.

[bidderben33]

I just returned from a weekend away and had scheduled a snipe on a router... When I checked my eBay, there was no record of my bid... I assume the price was already higher then my maximum bid before the snipe could execute? I have no record of the item no. so I couldn't confirm my suspicions...

[mario]

If the final price is higher than your maximum bid, this is likely what happened. If important, email me the item id (or your user id if you don't know the item id), and I will check the logs for you.

[skylights]

[quote="mario"]As for giving the users choice... I honestly don't see a good reason to do that. Benefits of it are doubtful, and it would greatly increase number of support issues - as you know, some people complain even when it's their own fault. Investigating the problem and explaining the situation takes time, regardless of who caused the issue. And I'd rather invest that time in feature development and site improvement.[/quote]

How about encouraging users to offer support? Experienced users could surely answer newbies' questions. It's not fair that you have to take so much time on support issues when you could be programming or doing something else (I'm sure you have a life outside Gixen.com). You're going way beyond the call of duty, IMO.

As for lead time... I think I understand the logic of your "7-8 seconds would be best" and "it's best to get there before the other snipers" argument. Are you saying basically that if you want to bid $20 and another sniper wants to bid $20 too, you're going to win because you were first?

But I also agree with the poster who said 7 seconds could give another bidder time to respond. It's not the experienced sniper we have to worry about in this case. With them, if you're outbid, you're outbid. What we have to worry about is an incremental bidder. If they reload at 7 seconds and see the price change, that could give them enough time to enter a new bid, causing you to either pay more for the item, or be outbid. Do you understand what I'm saying? But at 5 seconds or less, that would be tough to beat manually.

I don't know, it's a conundrum! Two different scenarios with two different strategies. And only a two-second difference between them!

Maybe you should just split the difference and set the lead 6 seconds.

[mario]

> How about encouraging users to offer support? Experienced users
> could surely answer newbies' questions. It's not fair that you have
> to take so much time on support issues when you could be
> programming or doing something else (I'm sure you have a life
> outside Gixen.com). You're going way beyond the call of duty, IMO.

That's possible, however few people will respond as promptly as I do. Waiting for other users to respond instead of doing it myself would
deteriorate the quality of support.

> Are you saying basically that if you want to bid $20 and another
> sniper wants to bid $20 too, you're going to win because you were first?

Correct.