ePay

From: Stephen Dauphin <ai705_at_osfn.org>
Date: Mon Oct 26 13:07:30 1998

On Mon, 26 Oct 1998 david_a._vandenbroucke_at_hud.gov wrote:

> I've taken the position that I'm going to deliberately ignore the
> snipers. I usually bid on the first day listed. I ask myself, "What
> is the maximum I'm _really_ willing to pay for this?" and that's what
> I bid. I get outbid on the last day (I don't track it more closely
> than that) fairly often, but it means that the high bidder is paying
> more than I would, and I can't argue with that. As often as not, when
> I'm outbid, my disappointment is tinged with relief: "Did I really
> bid _that_ much? What was I thinking of?"
>

Well I guess I may as well chime in on this lovely off-topic subject.

Yes, I snipe at least 95% of the time. It is the only way to achieve a 70
or 80 % success ratio. Ill-described auctions or stuff out of favor and
snipe at the end.

I believe Ebay just made a recent change that negated the use of most
automated software snipe helpers. I don't know what the scheme was, but
somehow the software hooked into Ebay code and made things more certain.
Anybody have an idea what this was about?

One can still script an auto-dialin with an accurate clock on your own
machine or just manually snipe.

I have never relied on any automated solution.

Sniping is not 100% certain either. It still is possible to submit a bid
late, to not be at a useful machine at a key moment, to simply forget, or
to be outbid anyway (more of a trend lately).

Rather than looking at sniping as a "bug", perhaps it should be
considered a "feature". There are scavengers in all ecosystems. I
guarantee you the powers at Ebay probably consider sniping to be an
asset. If they got rid of it, bid traffic would be 20 or 30% lower and
prices overall (complete total) might actually be lower. Perhaps sniping
is one of those key reasons why Ebay has grown so large.

I have a much longer note in the can on the subject of Ebay, which I am
still polishing up and will post in a couple of days. Hopefully I can
include enough on topic material within to justify its size.


                                          -- Stephen Dauphin
Received on Mon Oct 26 1998 - 13:07:30 GMT