[meteorite-list] The Sniper Mentality

From: Jerry Flaherty <grf2_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 23:32:55 -0400
Message-ID: <D7DCA772E814456FB75F69E50D187293_at_ASUS>

I have sniped and won and sniped and lost but I have and will continue to
snipe whether it's effective or not. It's just a strategy one of many.
Jerry flaherty

--------------------------------------------------
From: "John Hendry" <pict at pict.co.uk>
Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2010 10:08 PM
To: "'Richard Kowalski'" <damoclid at yahoo.com>
Cc: <Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] The Sniper Mentality

> Richard,
>
> I always use sniping services for bidding and my reasoning flawed or
> otherwise is as follows. There exists a category of bidders that do not
> bid
> their maximum and leave it at that, but like to continuously monitor the
> auction for the duration and outbid others when they lose highest bid.
> This
> sometimes reaches a frenzy of bid and counterbid in the last 30 minutes,
> and
> this behaviour seems more related to beating the competition than an
> incremental strategy that will cease as soon as they reach the maximum
> they
> have in mind. Here is somebody admitting this...
> http://ask.metafilter.com/47433/Psychology-of-Auctions
>
> So I don't really want to add to the liquidity in any auction with bidders
> like this that start out looking for a bargain and end up in a competitive
> fiscal pissing match. If I have a bid in well before auction end at my
> limit
> I risk provoking bidders like this to bid beyond what they originally had
> in
> mind as eBay will continuously outbid them to my maximum. If I snipe an
> auction with my maximum in the last 6 seconds I can rest assured that I
> haven't provoked any people to bid beyond their maximum and perhaps beyond
> mine.
>
> Regards,
> John
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
> [mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] On Behalf Of Richard
> Kowalski
> Sent: March-17-10 4:58 PM
> To: meteorite list
> Subject: [meteorite-list] The Sniper Mentality
>
> This mentality, waiting until the last few seconds before bidding, is
> something I just don't get. Maybe someone can explain it to me.
>
> I bid for lots on ebay just like I do when I bid at a real auction. I set
> in
> my head what I believe the value of an item and what I have available in
> my
> budget to bid for that item. I then bid that much and no more. If I get
> the
> item, great. If not, someone wanted it more and we're willing to pay more
> for the item...
>
> While I will sometimes raise my ebay bid a little before the end of the
> auction, I really don't understand the idea of sitting there and in the
> last
> second or two, to try to jam in bids high enough to win the item.
>
> Do snipers really want the item or are they just trying to screw others
> out
> of the item? Are they just trying to get the item at a lower price,
> thinking
> that their competitors will just rebid again, upping the price?
>
> I see this on meteorite auctions every so often, but much more often on
> the
> Daguerreotypes I bid on. The reason I was reminded of it was a lot I just
> lost out on. There wasn't just one sniper, but two. The both bid at the
> exact same time, 2 seconds before the auction ended...
>
> As I said, it doesn't mater that I lost the lot. It went for more than I
> was
> willing to pay, so I wouldn't have rebid even if I could.
>
> Possibly someone can explain what is gained by bidding like this instead
> of
> just bidding what you think it's worth and letting it go for that...
>
> I'd really like to see ebay eliminate this foolery. It'd be pretty simple.
> Any bids that occur within one minute of the closing time of the auction
> automatically resets the end time by 10 minutes, or 30 minutes. The
> snipers
> games are eliminated and the dealers (and ebay) gets more profits because
> the auction remains open for the bidding to continue to higher levels.
> Just
> like in a real live auction.
>
> Thanks
>
> --
> Richard Kowalski
> Full Moon Photography
> IMCA #1081
>
>
>
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Received on Wed 17 Mar 2010 11:32:55 PM PDT