Ebay sniping software

[brianmoooore]

Absolutely mothing to do with electrics, but was wondering if anyone on here knows anything about this kind of thing.
Bought a mini tractor with several attachments off of ebay last night. I placed a single bid 4 seconds from the end of the auction, and was surprised to see my bid accepted at just 65p short of my maximum, at £4465.00. Then was then a strange bit of numbers flashing on my screen, followed not by the usual green "you won this auction" or the red "you didn't win this auction", but by an ebay message saying "we are trying to determine who won this auction". Refreshed the page a few times, and after a minute or so, I got the green "you won" as normal.
Looking at the bid history, the last bid before mine was an automatic one at £4365.00, placed about 35 seconds before mine.
£4465.00 is not an outrageous price for what I've bought, but neither is it the bargain I was hoping for.
The question is, does 'sniping' software exist for seller to use? Something that can somehow probe my maximum bid, then place a bid almost exactly £100 below it, so forcing my bid to my maximum. Software that bids up until it's winning, then retracts the last bid, although no retractions are shown in the bidding history?
Or am I just being paranoid?

 

[UNG]

I remember my grandfather telling me "all you need is two idiots for a good sale".

Back in the 80's and 90's me & my business partner at the time went to a lot of auctions, tender and private treaty sales around the country and quite often a lot of what we bought we already had a customer for it, over a few years we built up a good relationship with some of the auction houses and did some good deals where the cost of running an auction or tender sale would not be cost effective although moving the entire stock of 2 electrical wholesalers does take some moving

One I always remember was an auction in Stockport there was about 10 bundles of 15mm copper pipe listed in separate lots and two bidders took the price well above the trade price that the plumbers merchants next door were selling it for, add in the 10% buyers premium and they paid well over the trade price and rather than take the stand on offer on some extra lots they bid on each one and bid well over again

The thing with any auction is not being drawn in by that common auction disease Bidditis I've seen it quite often that a few people get it into their head that they must have the lot at any price and a bidding war starts

 

[LukeD]

Or as a client of mine says .."Always have something sold before you buy it " .He is ranked in the top 3 experts in The world his part of the of the Antiques Business .Now retired and consulting .The money he earned in the 80'90 etc was ridiculous . He never ever liked "holding stock" .

 

[mainline]

Been amazed to discover that sniping software costs money! Last time I used it was about 20 years ago and they were all free.

That gives me an incentive to write a free sniping program but have a backdoor where I can tell it to bid on my items remotely

 

[nicebutdim]

One I always remember was an auction in Stockport there was about 10 bundles of 15mm copper pipe listed in separate lots and two bidders took the price well above the trade price that the plumbers merchants next door were selling it for, add in the 10% buyers premium and they paid well over the trade price and rather than take the stand on offer on some extra lots they bid on each one and bid well over again

There's something very satisfying about watching people do this and, when they're finished, winning the next lot for a pittance and standing on for the rest.

 

[freddo]

Bidding at the last minute reminds me of an ebay listing from some years ago. It was a pre war TV. I remember the seller getting very angry because there were over 100 users watching the listing but only 1 or 2 bids. IIRC The TV sold very cheaply as the seller ended the listing days before the finish time. By doing that it must have lost him thousands of pounds. Total madness. I thought it was common knowledge that most of the bids land in the last few seconds!

Shill bidding on the other hand is illegal and you you can be fined up to £5000 in the UK.

 

[mainline]

Bidding at the last minute reminds me of an ebay listing from some years ago. It was a pre war TV. I remember the seller getting very angry because there were over 100 users watching the listing but only 1 or 2 bids. IIRC The TV sold very cheaply as the seller ended the listing days before the finish time. By doing that it must have lost him thousands of pounds. Total madness. I thought it was common knowledge that most of the bids land in the last few seconds!

Shill bidding on the other hand is illegal and you you can be fined up to £5000 in the UK.

One of the things that bugs me is when a seller puts a reserve price on an item that you're willing to pay a good price for, but they won't reveal what that reserve price is, so unless there are at least two bidders willing to pay it doesn't sell as the reserve price is never met.

 

[UNG]

One of the things that bugs me is when a seller puts a reserve price on an item that you're willing to pay a good price for, but they won't reveal what that reserve price is, so unless there are at least two bidders willing to pay it doesn't sell as the reserve price is never met.

If you are putting a reserve on something then you may as well make the reserve the auction starting starting price IMO

 

[brianmoooore]

One of the things that bugs me is when a seller puts a reserve price on an item that you're willing to pay a good price for, but they won't reveal what that reserve price is, so unless there are at least two bidders willing to pay it doesn't sell as the reserve price is never met.

If I'm the last or next to last bidder, I contact the seller and try to do a deal outside of ebay.

 

[mainline]

If I'm the last or next to last bidder, I contact the seller and try to do a deal outside of ebay.

I have been recently been trying to buy a camper van to take my mother-in-law for day trips as she is on her last legs.
They are making ridiculous amounts of money.
So after days of weeding out the scammers and the silly overpriced, damaged or bad history ones I see one that suits on flea bay up on bids but had a reserve, i message the seller asking what his reserve was and could he give me the reg.
He sent me the reg number and said, “you will just have to bid you know what it is worth”
I explained to him that because I didn't know what the reserve was, I could be wasting both your and my time, as it maybe more than I want to pay.
The other thing being it's going to rely on another bidder making that reserve as I could bid a million on it, but the next highest bidder may only bid a £1, so it doesn't make the reserve and hence I wasted 3 days having to check.
Anyway, it didn't make his reserve and I can't be bothered to deal with him now anyway.
What he should have done is set his starter bid, it's much better then all around.

I did find one, but missed it by an hour.
A middle-aged friendly couple they dropped £2000 on the price, the guy gave them a deposit of £20 and is now trying to get a loan.
I offered them £500 more if he lets them down.

 

[nicebutdim]

If you need a certain price, then start the auction thereabouts or just stick it up as 'buy now'. The whole appeal of auctions to most people is the possibility of getting a bargain. If I see 'reserve not met' I'll often walk away, unless it happens to be something I want and will bid my max - when it's invariably relisted, I'll bid that max each time it's relisted for no reason other than to annoy the seller.

The really daft part of reserves is the cost - ebay charge 4% of the reserve price up to a maximum of £150.