Sniping services
 

I've never used one and am not sure of the benefits.
If there is an item closing on eBay, why can't I just wait till 3 seconds is left and then bid my maximum and see what happens?
Does a sniping service do anything different that this? Just trying to understand the allure.
Or, if I don't want to bother being at my computer when the auction ends, I can just bid my maximum a few hours before the auction ends and then forget about it. Wait for an email from eBay.
Is there something else a sniping service does that I'm missing?

Lol

Nope, you've got it covered.

You can bid manually with a couple seconds remaining in an auction, but a snipe means that you don't have be watching the auction to put in a last-second bid; that is the allure vs. manually putting in a last-second bid.

You might want to read one of the 2000 threads on shill and string bidding.

Well if I have nothing else to do, then yes I can do this like I did years ago and do the two things you stated. Spend my whole day waiting for the auction to end or putting some max bid in and hoping for the best.

What really has happened when I did that over the past 20 years on eBay is a massive about of frustration as I forgot about an auction till a couple minutes after it ended because I lost track of time or I paid an absolute crap ton more than I would have on a last second bid. Reason being that either a legit bidder nickel and dime bid me to near my max till they decided they did not want it or a Shiller did it dishonestly. Sniping kills those opportunities for shills and non snipers to add bids.

Gavelsnipe is free and takes no effort, working for wasted money by not sniping is effort.

Why is that even important is they ship quickly?

If you really want something and want to sniff out fraud, seems to me the best thing you can do it watch an auction in the closing minute and see if the action passes the smell test. If it does jump in. If not just let it go.

And how much does this service cost?

I mean if I had a wedding or some event that was going to keep me from the computer on a must get item I sort of get it. But it seems like I can do the same thing for free and be watching the action.

How does a sniping service keep me from shill bidding if the shill bidder realizes most of you are using sniping services and with 5 seconds to go just bids thousands higher on eBay to drag all of you up with him.

I'm just not as smart as you guys but trying desperately to learn.

If I was a shill bidder I'd step on the gas in the last 10 seconds. Rising tide
lifts all snipes as someone once said.

$5 a month for unlimited snipes on JustSnipe. Free for up to 2 at any given time, I believe.

If I was shilling something and thought to myself "under no circumstances am I going to let this go for under $20,000" I have no clue how a sniping service is going to act as some kind of deterrence to me. If it is sitting at $18,000 with ten seconds to go I enter a bid for $20,000. I must be missing something.

OP if most of the message board participants understood economics and markets they would realize that sniping makes no difference and under no circumstances does it prevent you from being shilled. I have read more idiotic posts related to this topic than any other. Predicting what others will bid consistently is impossible and in order for a snipe to be as effective as most think it is you would have to do this. 30% of all bids come at the close relagating its effectiveness. The shill snipe is as popular as ever. Just watch the final closing moments of many auctions and the bidders with all the tell tale signs also come in at the end. If you feel like you are being shilled with time to go put in the triple stacked bid as it is the ultimate bate. A true shill can't resist and your outbid. Nothing wrong with bidding at the end but not even remotely as effective as most think.

Your post on April 24:

Ronnie -flattered that you spend so much time studying my past posts. Maybe I will publish them in a bound volume to save you time and effort.

I'm just trying to understand how a service works that I've never used and can't seem to understand what others see in it.

Yeah, odd post from the OP. There are a bunch of reasons for and against using a sniping service.
Pros: Auction can close at 4am and you can still bid with seconds to go while you're sleeping.
Single bid at the end *reduces* the likelihood of being raised either by the consignor/owner or other bidders. Many only bid when they get the email from eBay saying "You're no longer the high bidder..."
If you get stressed out watching the end of auctions, it can reduce your blood pressure.

Cons: Sometimes snipes don't go through because eBay turns on their Captcha software to root out bots from bidding, and sniping services are by definition, bots. (Strong passwords can reduce the odds of your getting the captcha block, but this mainly seems to happen on Sunday nights which is when a lot of big cards get sold.)
You have to remember to change your password in the sniping service whenever you change it on eBay, or else they won't go through.
Some sniping services have had their own network outages and didn't make bids.

I have never signed up for one, since I prefer to watch the end of auctions, and if it's important enough, I'll even wake up in the middle of the night to bid. Bidding your max hours before the end time is just costing you more money.

I use a sniping service when I find an auction that I really want to win and don't want to have to worry about missing the end of the auction for any reason. I set my snipe and can forget it. The sniping service is free too. I just set my snipe at my max amount I'm willing to pay and that's it. It's convenience that I want, and I don't need to remember or put anything on hold just so I can sit there watching an eBay auction end on my phone.

And sniping (whether its a service you're using or you do it yourself) does save you money in some cases. Not all the time, but I'll gladly take the savings when it does.

AndyH

I get the convenience factor! I said that already. Peter told me there have been thousands of posts about how it will protect me from being shilled. That's what I'm not getting.

I like watching auctions end provided it's not 3am.

It reduces some shilling, but not all.

It is also convenient when sellers are ending multiple auctions within seconds of one another or at the same time, and you want to get your max bid in on more than could be handled if you tried to do it manually.

It can be a secondary means of getting in a bid that you absolutely do not want to miss even if you are watching---kind of a fail-safe if your Internet fails, your computer hangs, your power goes out, etc.

Justsnipe let's you have a few free snipes each month or so--I forget because I do not use it all that much. I am glad to know that I can use it though, and have done so as recently as in the past 4-6 weeks.

It won't protect you from all shilling as there are many ways to shill, and different reasons people do it. So if for example someone is intent on essentially establishing a reserve, there isn't anything you can do about it. But if you put your high bid out there during an auction, as opposed to doing it by snipe, people see it and can try to run you up and either outbid you and then retract, or outbid you and hope to push you higher, or if they are good with reading the increments, string bid and stop short and leave you at your max. If your bid isn't out there, they can't do any of this.

Maybe overall it doesn't make much difference, I don't know that anyone has that data, but it seems to make sense not to put a target on your back?

Wouldn't someone who wants to effectively shill their auction just use a sniping service themselves?

No because there is a much higher risk, I would think, of winning the auction that way whereas the intent is usually to push the bid as high as it goes without winning. Which, it seems to me, is easier to do with a bid on the books to shoot at.

If they are simply trying to protect the item they could or might but use a sniping service they could also do that by simply dropping a bid in early. If they are trying to run up the perspective buyers or create false competition they would absolutely not use a sniping service.

The huge danger with using a sniping service to shill an auction is that putting in a snipe does not allow time for a retraction. We have all seen eBay accounts that have dozens or hundreds of retractions. Last second shill bids are a dangerous game because the bid cannot be retracted. The shill bidder could accidentally win the auction with a last-second snipe.

This is true but why would the shill bidder care if they won. Just another non paying bidder or Seller/shiller just cancel the transaction to avoid fees. Then relist using the same or different account.

This is true if the shill bidder is shilling their own auction. I was thinking more along the lines of a situation in which someone consigns a card to a third-party seller like PWCC or Probstein. :)

Shillers and Manipulators feast off non-snipers. Letting your bid sit out early is what they love. Seems clear to me that sniping is major time-savor and helps eliminate fraud. At the same time, snipe what you think is a fair price and nothing more. Stay within your budget and you'll never be a "victim".

The main reason I would use a sniping service is for bidding on a high number of low value cards that end too quickly to be able to do it manually. The stuff I bid on tends to be lower end (for example, 1958 Topps Commons) and will often only attract one or two bidders.

I find under these circumstances that a snipe is effective, as the other bidder is often not going to also snipe...this seems to lower the cost for me as compared to trying to put in a higher bid earlier.

I used to have auctions open on my PC, iPad, and phone and try to manage it that way but it was stressful and sniping makes it a lot easier. I imagine this strategy would not work for higher end/more expensive items that attract more bidders.

I guess do what you want because to every reply someone says "but what about this?"

Well, I wear my seatbelt everyday because it adds a bit more protection than when I don't. Will it 100% stop me from being killed? Well no, but I was hit at a light by some tweaker on illegal meds at the start of the month crushing me between his van and an SUV at a stoplight and walked away just with a bad attitude and a new lawsuit to file because of the belt keeping my face from going through the windshield that day.

If using a simple free service helps just 5% of the time it's officially better than not using it. If that doesn't make sense then I am the confused one.

This I would never do. You are just asking to spend more for an item than you have to in some cases.

If you snipe, you prevent the "Damn, I should've bid $5 more" folks from bidding $5 more. Sniping an auction gives less information to your competitors, real or shill. Bidders are not always rational actors. They do not realize what their actual break point is.

There are some bidders on an ebay auction that will keep bidding up until they are the highest bidder. If you put a max bid in with a few minutes or more to spare then such bidders will have an opportunity to keep bidding in increments until they eclipse you, at a figure they did not realize they were going to have to bid -- and you're giving them time to figure that out by bidding your max early. And even if they don't eclipse you, you're giving them time to react to your ceiling bid and erode what would otherwise have been a much better price for you.

That's why I do it. I don't want the people I'm competing with for a card to have any information about what I am planning to bid until it's too late for them to respond with a higher price than they initially thought they were willing to pay.

Obviously this works to keep prices lower across the board. If sniping was profitable to eBay, they would build it into their software. You can safely assume that they don't encourage sniping because it loses them money. Thus, sniping is bidder friendly.

I understand the idea that bidding hard early is probably not a great idea. It draws attention to the auction and may feed the flames of bidding. (Unless you think you are just going to run others off the track altogether with your exuberance.) I like to throw in early bids just so I get regular reminders. (I know most auctions have some variation of a watch list.) I agree there is little point in pumping the gas too early, but seems to me that if a seller has decided that I won't take less than x for my item, a sniping serving will do nothing to deter that.

Two additional points I think
 

1. I say long live the snipers, for without them I would likely be living in a house of cardboard eating EBTs for breakfast.

2. No one has mentioned the "double snipe".
Suppose there is a $10000 card that two bidders feel they absolutely positively have to have in their grimy little hands.
Both bidders place snipes well above the $10000 value to "insure" that they will prevail.
Bidder A snipes at $25000 and Bidder B snipes at $30000.
Bidder B wins the card for $26000.
He better not be looking to sell it in the near future.
I'll bet that "Sniper's Remorse" isn't all that uncommon, but seldom confessed.

For these two reasons I refrain from using sniping services.

"In the world of baseball card auctions, if you lose an auction, you break even.
In your favorite casino, if you lose, you are in the red."

And in example #2 above, if you win, you lose.:D

You are pushing on an open door, nobody disputes that. But you seem to think that is the ONLY reason somebody shills, and it isn't. People shill to run you up, for one thing. They can't do that if there is no max bid to run up. And as Paul just said, putting your bid out there gives others more opportunity to outbid you.

That's true. I treat that behavior like a "hidden reserve." Can't be helped.

I snipe because it is convenient for me. I think it would be great if no one else sniped :)

Is there any way that ebay could block snipping software if they really wanted to??

Sure, for a while. Just increase the captcha checks to every bid. It would annoy the live bidders, but minimize the sniping programs.
Why else would a non-owner/consignor want to run you up if you place your high bid early? They have the same card and want your new high price to be in VCP when they sell their card.
This is part of the rationale why all those 1950s HOF rookies in PSA 7-8 climbed 300% last spring/summer, and then bottomed out.

Not sure what's so hard to understand about sniping. It's convenient, and it maximizes your benefit. I don't know if I've seen anyone claim it eliminates 100% of shilling... but sniping can never hurt you IMO... like you said it can't get rid of the "hidden reserve" shillers, but if you paid less than or equal to what you were willing to pay then it's a win

Sniping is convenient. Gavelsnipe is free and other services are cheap. I snipe on almost all of my ebay stuff.

I snipe on most everything because I don't want to have to be around when a lot of auctions are closing. Whatever the time. I snipe high amounts on stuff I really want and may fall victim to the double-snipe as Frank described but that's part of the game. I also snipe lowball numbers on stuff that I don't really need but would like to have at a certain amount. I don't win many of them but I do win some. It just makes things more convenient and I don't forget about auctions. I've not experienced many technical issues where a snipe isn't placed but I'm sure that exists out there sometime. I can't imagine why ebay wouldn't like snipe services because, ultimately, they get people bidding on things one way or the other.