EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
General => General Technical Chat => Topic started by: apelly on February 18, 2014, 04:17:58 pm
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I got sniped out of a boat load of flux tonight. Just by not being prepared:
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=695675147 (http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=695675147)
If it was one of you guys, what say you share 500ml with me? I'll even give you your $2.50 back!
Failing that, perhaps someone can recommend something that doesn't cost $200/litre?
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Couple of packets of el cheapo rosin flux from China mixed with IPA?
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Confused....you got sniped out of winning with a bid of $2.50 :o Surely a higher bid on your part would have been more realistic ? Maybe I am reading this wrong but I tend to bid in the last few seconds as that is how to win items on these auction sites without instigating a bidding war.
e*ay and such like are not auctions in the normal sense of the word. It has ended up more like a sealed bid system. To win items you have to adapt to teh difference.
As a seller, I set a realistic start price and anything more is a bonus :)
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Yea... I was following the "make your own flux" thread. I just thought this would have been better. The only reason I didn't auto-bid up to $50 was I have some archers brand flux that eats tinning for breakfast.... It's the only thing ever that's required me to have a tin of tip tinner... I wasn't sure if it was an age thing, and the flux in that auction looks plenty old!
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Confused....
Fair call. See previous post.
Also, I feel like a twat now. (totally my own fault.)
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As you state, that Flux container is marked up as early 1990's.....that is very old. Who knows what state the contents are in.
I was not being mean in my response, I just couln't understand how you got outbid at such a low end price. I have completely missed auctions that I had intended to bid on so we are all human.
Personally I would prefer to find a 100ml of nice quality new flux than a litre of old and potentially knackered stuff so don't lose any sleep over this :)
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Next time, use bidbud.co.nz to place your bid :-)
Wasn't me, I'm in chch.
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bidbud.co.nz
You're joking! This is the second time this week I've learned about a sniping tool. After hearing about esniper I specifically googled for some trademe equivalent and came up empty.
Ah well. You live and learn. Thanks for the heads up sleemanj
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You might want to see if you can get a bottle of MG Chemicals Rosin (835) (http://www.mgchemicals.com/products/solder/fluxes/rosin-flux-835/) (they sell bottles in 125ml, 1L, and 4L sizes).
FWIW, Mektronics in Australia carries it (125ml size). (http://www.mektronics.com.au/solder-wire-fluxes-wick/liquid-flux-flux-gel/mg-chemicals-liquid-rosin-flux-100ml.html#.UwQelWeYZaQ)
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Unless you're on a 33k modem i dont see how you could have been snipped.
That auction used auto extend, so you had 2min to put in another bid.
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I was out, and using my phone. I was interrupted and I fumbled my keepass password, so by the time I had my shit together it was too late. Even though I was actively watching it at the time.
In short; I was a twat. And now I'm a twat in public too. :-DD
At least I learned about bidbud.
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heh
autobid is your friend
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autobid is your friend
The auction house has all your data on a server like name, autobid_maxvalue,...
The auction house has a % on the reached selling price
The auction house ...
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Next time, use bidbud.co.nz to place your bid :-)
Thanks for the tip. Only took two years:
https://www.bidbud.co.nz/1226826170 (https://www.bidbud.co.nz/1226826170)
Don't even need it anymore. I'll only buy 4 containers and I'll give most of it to my HAM club. I guess the rest will get relisted, in case anyone else is interested.
(https://trademe.tmcdn.co.nz/photoserver/full/529377806.jpg)
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Step 1, determine how much you want to pay for the item.
Step 2, put that bid into the ebay/whatever platforms auto bid system.
Now it is sure you pay only what you think it is worth and no more, if someone else thinks its worth more they can have at it. The psychology of keeping the price low throughout the action will not lead to lower prices, the only way to lower prices is if people don't bid. By not auto bidding at your realistic valuation you're just helping the snipers maintain their false market (they'll tell you not to auto bid so they can keep getting lower prices).
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(https://trademe.tmcdn.co.nz/photoserver/full/529377806.jpg)
Well, I'll be, you actually CAN have too much flux :-)
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Step 1, determine how much you want to pay for the item.
Step 2, put that bid into the ebay/whatever platforms auto bid system.
Now it is sure you pay only what you think it is worth and no more, if someone else thinks its worth more they can have at it. The psychology of keeping the price low throughout the action will not lead to lower prices, the only way to lower prices is if people don't bid. By not auto bidding at your realistic valuation you're just helping the snipers maintain their false market (they'll tell you not to auto bid so they can keep getting lower prices).
I have to disagree on that being a good strategy.
Follow the above advice and:
Step 3 - an incremental bidder comes along and bids a few $ at a time, a bunch of times, then gives up a few dollars short of your max bid.
Step 4 - thanks to step 3, you win the auction, but pay a much higher price you would have had you waited till the last moment and sniped.
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Step 3 (alternate) - Incremental bidder(s) come along and bid the price up beyond what you were willing to pay. You don't get the item.
Bottom line - am I willing to pay, say, $100 for a given piece of equipment? Yes. Would I much prefer to get said piece of equipment for, say, $25 or $30? Absolutely. I'd be a fool to say otherwise. Am I more likely to get it, and for less $$, if I wait till the last moment and don't give the incremental bidders a chance to bid it up or start a bidding war with me? Also yes. For a seller, snipers are teh suxors. For a buyer, it's the only way to go, IMO.
-Pat
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Step 5: Don't buy one man's toxic waste. Unless you are sure you can turn it into gold.
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Bottom line - am I willing to pay, say, $100 for a given piece of equipment? Yes. Would I much prefer to get said piece of equipment for, say, $25 or $30? Absolutely. I'd be a fool to say otherwise. Am I more likely to get it, and for less $$, if I wait till the last moment and don't give the incremental bidders a chance to bid it up or start a bidding war with me? Also yes. For a seller, snipers are teh suxors. For a buyer, it's the only way to go, IMO.
Absolutely agree - but with one qualification.... "For a seller, snipers are teh suxors." - not of you have two (or more) of them. Then. the snipers can be the saviours.
Snipers, at least, will put in a far more realistic amount than 'nibble bidders' - and remember (for eBay auctions at least) the winning bid value is not determined by the highest bidder ... it is determined by the second highest bidder.
The difference between a sniper and a nibble bidder is this:
- A sniper will bid for a win and hope for a bargain.
- A nibble bidder will bid for a bargain and hope for a win.
Who is the more canny?
Those who put their maximum bid in days before the end of an auction are just asking for nibble bidders to push up the price - but if a sniper chimes in at the last moment, then the nibble bidders will have just been wasting their time.
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Bottom line - am I willing to pay, say, $100 for a given piece of equipment? Yes. Would I much prefer to get said piece of equipment for, say, $25 or $30? Absolutely. I'd be a fool to say otherwise. Am I more likely to get it, and for less $$, if I wait till the last moment and don't give the incremental bidders a chance to bid it up or start a bidding war with me? Also yes. For a seller, snipers are teh suxors. For a buyer, it's the only way to go, IMO.
Absolutely agree - but with one qualification.... "For a seller, snipers are teh suxors." - not of you have two (or more) of them. Then. the snipers can be the saviours.
Snipers, at least, will put in a far more realistic amount than 'nibble bidders' - and remember (for eBay auctions at least) the winning bid value is not determined by the highest bidder ... it is determined by the second highest bidder.
The difference between a sniper and a nibble bidder is this:
- A sniper will bid for a win and hope for a bargain.
- A nibble bidder will bid for a bargain and hope for a win.
Who is the more canny?
Those who put their maximum bid in days before the end of an auction are just asking for nibble bidders to push up the price - but if a sniper chimes in at the last moment, then the nibble bidders will have just been wasting their time.
I guess I agree with the religious argument comment. I have used both strategies, with so far as I can tell equivalent outcomes. But maybe that is because I don't understand all the rules. The second highest bidder? I am not sure what you mean by that. The only thing I know that applies is EBay's rule that the first of equal bids wins. This is a benefit for automatic incremental bidding because the date you set your high bid counts as the time of your final bid. Means that if an incremental bidder and a sniper have equal values for an item, the incremental bidder wins. I have benefited from this. A defense against this for both types of bidders is to pick an "odd value" for your limit. Not $100 but $103.15 or whatever.
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But it has become quite a religious (based of faith not fact) thing to go on supporting "snipe" bidding. Since you cannot know who is interested or how much any one person will pay or when they will make their bid, predictions about the outcome are faith based. All anyone can know is how much they are prepared to pay.
Where is there any difference here between sniping and any other forms of bidding?
All sniping can achieve is to reduce the available window for slow typists or those with a slow internet connection to respond.
Rubbish. The idea of a snipe is to reduce the window so that even someone who has gigabit internet and types faster than you can speak won't have a that chance.
Or perhaps most usefully to save those with a psychological predisposition from exceeding their value limit in a bidding frenzy.
I'll give you that one.
Snipe bidding sites have removed any advantage that may have ever had.
Utter crap. Live sniping, by someone who knows what they're doing will still out-do any sniping site. They are, however, useful for people who want to be lazy about it.
Effectively making an autobid limited by a persons estimation of the value, only doing it at the last possible moment.
So? This is bidding.
But if someone put a higher bid than you, then you will not win the auction regardless. Nothing else matters.
That is true - no matter when a bid is placed during the auction.
As with all religious debates this one too will not ever be settled.
What is there about this that is a "religious debate"? Nothing.
Your use of the word "faith", perhaps? You might want to think that - but the fact is, faith has nothing to do with it. The amount of ANY bid is a function of what the other participants are willing to place. That's not faith - that's just another unknown.
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The second highest bidder? I am not sure what you mean by that.
If the highest bidder sets their maximum at $100 and the second highest bidder set theirs at $35, then the auction will be won by the person who bid the $100 .... but they will win it for only $36. This is the second highest bid amount of $35 plus the "bid increment" for that value range - which is $1. This is the type of scenario that a sniper hopes to encounter.
The only thing I know that applies is EBay's rule that the first of equal bids wins. This is a benefit for automatic incremental bidding because the date you set your high bid counts as the time of your final bid. Means that if an incremental bidder and a sniper have equal values for an item, the incremental bidder wins. I have benefited from this.
True - but these situations are not the norm.
A defense against this for both types of bidders is to pick an "odd value" for your limit. Not $100 but $103.15 or whatever.
Yes. I do this all the time.
The most exciting success for me was bidding on a 20" CRT monitor (it was quite a few years ago) when the bids were under $100 with 10 seconds to go - but then 7 snipers jumped in. I won with a bid of $167.67 - beating out the second highest bidder who put in $167.00.
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With a feedback of over 4000 on eBay I have to say, with some experience over the years, early bidding has always cost me as people either get carried away trying to find out how much you have bid, or just increase the bids a few times and give up (out of devilment ?) They are not serious bidders willing to pay a fair sum for an item. I do not use automated bidding. I always place a small bid to show interest as some sellers will pull the auction if no interest is shown. I then bid my maximum in the last 10 seconds to avoid a silly bidding war. I win some, I lose some. I have had some excellent deals and paid much less than the maximum I bid in the last seconds of the auction. You cannot get away from the fact that last seconds bidding is the norm on eBay, it is accepted, and you get a rush out of such when bidding.
If I sell, I set a start price with which I am comfortable to sell. Anything more is a bonus. I never run 99p auctions with no reserve. Those who do may be trying to save listing costs, attract attention to their auction or may well be inexperienced. A seller who lists at 99p is not truly in a position to complain about last seconds bidders. He/she may set the start price and if the item is worth that price, a bidder will buy it. Some sellers hope for bidding wars. Experienced buyers know to avoid such and bid late.
If eBay disliked the last second bidding they could easily have a system that either closed the auction at random in the last 10 minutes, or that extended the auction for 2 minutes after each bid received to allow counter bids. They do not do this because they know many of us enjoy the game of last minute bids and the flurry of activity that occurs in the closing seconds of the auction.
I say again .... the seller sets the start price. I have little time for sellers who whinge that an item sold undervalue when they set the start price too low. On occasions I have won a £100+ item for the maiden 99p starting bid. I have often felt guilty and sent an additional 'top up' payment but I have never received a thank you for such. I no longer worry. I have also had several sellers either refuse to send the item, claim to have posted it and not, or stated that it is lost/damaged so cannot be sent. There will always be the odd issue when using eBay but in my case I have been very grateful that it exists and I have had some great deals over the years.
If bidding against me on something I want, You will not see me bid more than twice. Once at the start and once at the end. To outbid me you will have to bid higher than my unknown last seconds bid, simple as that. I have bid £350 on a thermal camera recently and the nearest bid to me was only £127. There was the real opportunity for a higher bid but no one went for it.
Fraser
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Next time, use bidbud.co.nz to place your bid :-)
Thanks for the tip. Only took two years:
https://www.bidbud.co.nz/1226826170 (https://www.bidbud.co.nz/1226826170)
Don't even need it anymore. I'll only buy 4 containers and I'll give most of it to my HAM club. I guess the rest will get relisted, in case anyone else is interested.
Even 4 containers, say ~16 litres is a crazy amount of flux. :scared:
Now many lifetimes of Flux is that ? :o
If you're embarrassed with too much I'd be interested in a few hundred mils of it.
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I like the auction format where the auction keeps going until bidding stops for 10minutes. More like a real auction.
Not sure if anyone actually pointed this out, but www.trademe.co.nz (http://www.trademe.co.nz) (the linked site where this thread began) has this feature.
Auctions stay open until 2 minutes after the last bid.
Sniping sometimes still works though - on auctions which finish at odd times, and/or less popular stuff where other bidders might forget to be online.
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But it has become quite a religious (based of faith not fact) thing to go on supporting "snipe" bidding. Since you cannot know who is interested or how much any one person will pay or when they will make their bid, predictions about the outcome are faith based. All anyone can know is how much they are prepared to pay.
Where is there any difference here between sniping and any other forms of bidding?
All sniping can achieve is to reduce the available window for slow typists or those with a slow internet connection to respond.
Rubbish. The idea of a snipe is to reduce the window so that even someone who has gigabit internet and types faster than you can speak won't have a that chance.
Or perhaps most usefully to save those with a psychological predisposition from exceeding their value limit in a bidding frenzy.
I'll give you that one.
Snipe bidding sites have removed any advantage that may have ever had.
Utter crap. Live sniping, by someone who knows what they're doing will still out-do any sniping site. They are, however, useful for people who want to be lazy about it.
Effectively making an autobid limited by a persons estimation of the value, only doing it at the last possible moment.
So? This is bidding.
But if someone put a higher bid than you, then you will not win the auction regardless. Nothing else matters.
That is true - no matter when a bid is placed during the auction.
As with all religious debates this one too will not ever be settled.
What is there about this that is a "religious debate"? Nothing.
My answer to that is the first thing I said. "But it has become quite a religious (based of faith not fact) thing to go on supporting "snipe" bidding. Since you cannot know who is interested or how much any one person will pay or when they will make their bid, predictions about the outcome are faith based. All anyone can know is how much they are prepared to pay."
Your use of the word "faith", perhaps? You might want to think that - but the fact is, faith has nothing to do with it. The amount of ANY bid is a function of what the other participants are willing to place. That's not faith - that's just another unknown.
Isn't that essentially my entire point?
You've stripped apart my argument into a bunch of pieces devoid of the surrounding supporting sentences and context and apparently not understood any of them. Even restating the very point I was making.
My post was crafted somewhat carefully to make my case. Dissecting it as you have into disparate sentences and phrases is to fail to attempt to defeat it on the broader idea it attempts to convey.
If this thread goes as I expect it too, just based on past experience, it will become clear to the independent reader that the sniping debate is largely a religious debate. Facts will be scarce or non-existent and opinions defended vociferously.
1. I addressed your points one by one - in order and without censorship. Sorry if that annoys you.
2. Your isolation of "sniper" bidding as being the form of bidding requiring "faith" is patently - and quite obviously wrong. If you truly want to use the word "faith" then it applies to any form of bidding. Perhaps the most appropriate use of the word "faith" is not in the mechanism of bidding - but in using a platform like eBay in the first place.
3. Claiming something is religious doesn't make it so... but you seem to like doing that sort of thing. Then again, maybe this is an expression of your own personal religious beliefs.
4. Sellers may not like snipers - but the fact of the matter is, a buyer is under no obligation to pay any more for an item that they have to ... and if they can find legitimate means to do so, then they have my blessing (even if that means they push the bidding up against my own bids). Snipers will always push up prices - sometimes quite dramatically.
5. Buyers who whinge about snipers beating them at the last moment have only themselves to blame. They obviously did not put in their real maximum before the auction ended.
I fail to see anything more religious in this than opening up a store selling TVs. The mechanics of it are straightforward.
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Step 1, determine how much you want to pay for the item.
Step 2, put that bid into the ebay/whatever platforms auto bid system.
Now it is sure you pay only what you think it is worth and no more, if someone else thinks its worth more they can have at it. The psychology of keeping the price low throughout the action will not lead to lower prices, the only way to lower prices is if people don't bid. By not auto bidding at your realistic valuation you're just helping the snipers maintain their false market (they'll tell you not to auto bid so they can keep getting lower prices).
I have to disagree on that being a good strategy.
Follow the above advice and:
Step 3 - an incremental bidder comes along and bids a few $ at a time, a bunch of times, then gives up a few dollars short of your max bid.
Step 4 - thanks to step 3, you win the auction, but pay a much higher price you would have had you waited till the last moment and sniped.
-or-
Step 3 (alternate) - Incremental bidder(s) come along and bid the price up beyond what you were willing to pay. You don't get the item.
Bottom line - am I willing to pay, say, $100 for a given piece of equipment? Yes. Would I much prefer to get said piece of equipment for, say, $25 or $30? Absolutely. I'd be a fool to say otherwise. Am I more likely to get it, and for less $$, if I wait till the last moment and don't give the incremental bidders a chance to bid it up or start a bidding war with me? Also yes. For a seller, snipers are teh suxors. For a buyer, it's the only way to go, IMO.
-Pat
It doesnt matter if an "incremental bidder" comes through and bids it up, I'll incrementally bid on auctions for the lols. Sniping only works when you try and convince people not to bid up front and hope they will fail to snipe (bad connection etc) or forget to. If someone wants to pay more than you do for the item they will win the item, just by putting their actual maximum bid in, sniping does nothing to stop that, unless you try and convince them not to bid.....
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I research prices and figure out what I consider a good deal for something, then bid exactly that much close to the deadline. If I win, then great - I got a good deal. If I lose, then no biggie, it wasn't a good deal anyway. I always bid close to the ending, why bid early? It just drives up prices since a lot of people have absolutely no concept of how much they're willing to pay for something. Bidding late also lets me go from one auction to the next until I get what I want at a good price. Otherwise I'd have to bid on ten auctions and might end up with five of something I only want one of, or none at all - and not know until 5 days later.
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How is the supporting evidence unknowable? I've seen it repeatedly myself. When I first began buying on e-bay, I would naively put in my max bid days before the auction ended. I'd then get to watch as either incremental bidders eeked the price up slowly or as snipers bumped it at the last moment. Sometimes I won, more often I lost. Losing to the snipers is a no win situation - they were willing to pay more than I was, end of story. Had I sniped the same bid, I still would have lost. With the incremental bidders, I would up paying more than I otherwise would have, especially if it was only one other bidder.
Scenario 1 - you bid your max early, and there is a single incremental bidder. Item starts at $25. You're willing to pay $90. You bid $90. Chippy the incremental bidder comes along and decides he wants the item. It shows 1 bid, and a $25 price. He bids $27; your bid increments to $28. He chips up to $30; ebay bumps yours to $31. He goes $35, yours jumps to $36. He goes $40, $45, $50, $60 and finally quits at $75. Your bid now stands at $76. No one else bids. You win the item, for $76.
Scenario 2 - I see the item and decide to snipe. Chippy comes along, decides he'd like it and puts in his $30 bid. He's the high bidder at $25, and has no reason to go any higher, so he doesn't. I wait till five seconds are left, and bid $90. I'm now the high bidder at $31, and Chippy, even if he's watching, doesn't have time to react and bump his bid. I win the item for $31.
I'd rather pay $31 than $76. Wouldn't you?
Scenario 3 - once again, max bid early, same $25 start price, $90 max. Chippy once again bumps it up to $75. You're still winning. A sniper comes along, sees a bunch of bids and that it's way up at $76 and decides to bid $100. You lose at $91.
Scenario 4 - Same starting situation, but you decide to try sniping. Chippy bids $30; the item shows 1 bid at $25. The same sniper comes along sees little activity - only one bid. Decides to try for a bargain, and rather than bidding the $100 he would have bid when it was at $75, decides instead to only bid $60, as it looks to be going cheap. You snipe with your $90 bid, and though you bump into him, you still win at $61. A bit pricier, but better than losing out.
I personally, as a buyer, can see no downside (other than the inconvenience; I've not been inclined to try a sniping program) to sniping - only up sides. I may not win a LOT more auctions, but in the long run am most likely to pay less overall than those who place max bids and let the chips fall where they may.
I actually suspect that a lot of incremental bidders don't fully understand how e-bay's proxy system works which is why they chip away like they do, placing small incremental bids up to their max, and as such will stop incrementing as soon as they see they have the winning bid. If no one has bid on something, then they'll stop at one very low one.
FWIW.
-Pat
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It doesnt matter if an "incremental bidder" comes through and bids it up, I'll incrementally bid on auctions for the lols. Sniping only works when you try and convince people not to bid up front and hope they will fail to snipe (bad connection etc) or forget to. If someone wants to pay more than you do for the item they will win the item, just by putting their actual maximum bid in, sniping does nothing to stop that, unless you try and convince them not to bid.....
I'm not suggesting that sniping will win an auction if someone else (early bidder or sniper) is willing to pay more. It won't. It will, however, lower your cost if there is only one other (incremental) bidder in play. You bid auctions up for lols. Strange idea of fun, but ok. How does that work if you're the only bidder? Doesn't Incremental bidding only work if there's a bid already placed to increment against?
-Pat
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It doesnt matter if an "incremental bidder" comes through and bids it up, I'll incrementally bid on auctions for the lols. Sniping only works when you try and convince people not to bid up front and hope they will fail to snipe (bad connection etc) or forget to. If someone wants to pay more than you do for the item they will win the item, just by putting their actual maximum bid in, sniping does nothing to stop that, unless you try and convince them not to bid.....
And I'm perfectly willing to pay my max bid on something - if I wasn't why bid that high? But. If there's a no cost technique that may, even one out of twenty times, enable me to pay LESS for what I'm trying to buy, WHY WOULD I NOT USE IT whenever possible? :-// :-// :-// |O
-Pat
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How does that work if you're the only bidder? Doesn't Incremental bidding only work if there's a bid already placed to increment against?
If you are the only bidder on eBay, you will only pay the Starting Price.
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How does that work if you're the only bidder? Doesn't Incremental bidding only work if there's a bid already placed to increment against?
If you are the only bidder on eBay, you will only pay the Starting Price.
Yes, I realize that. I'm talking about strategies for use against incremental bidders - specifically, sniping. If an incremental bidder is the ONLY bidder, he will bid just over the starting price on an auction, will have the high bid and have no reason to bid further. If I then snipe, I will get it for his bid + whatever the minimum increment is. If I place my high bid early, he will continue bidding and drive the price up. I may still win, but if it were only the two of us bidding on the auction, as soon as he makes a second bid, it has cost me more than it would if he didn't have my initial bid to go against and I simply sniped.
"Someone" (in quotes to emphasize that it's a screen name and not a generic someone) is saying that sniping does nothing to help with incremental bidders, and stated that he sometimes bids up auctions incrementally for lols. I was asking him how, if he were the only bidder, would he bid incrementally?
-Pat
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Years ago there was a DSO that I'd been looking for on our local auction site Trademe, the same one the OP appelly has used in this thread.
From my farming days I've had a good amount of "live" auction experience buying cattle and knew a few tricks to put the wind up any competition.
Start HIGH.
Bid LARGE bids up to your limit.
The pro's know these tricks and you just hope none are watching. ;)
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Scenario 2 - I see the item and decide to snipe. Chippy comes along, decides he'd like it and puts in his $30 bid. He's the high bidder at $25, and has no reason to go any higher, so he doesn't. I wait till five seconds are left, and bid $90. I'm now the high bidder at $31, and Chippy, even if he's watching, doesn't have time to react and bump his bid. I win the item for $31.
One scenario where you make a "win" and it assumes that the original bidder didn't really want the item and put in a low ball bid. You then make up a story about how they certainly would have bid more if they had the chance for some back and forth, which is entirely your concept and not able to be proven at all.
Auctions are great, if you reach a large enough audience the sale price is close to the market value. The only games are people thinking they can game the system (you can't).
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"Someone" (in quotes to emphasize that it's a screen name and not a generic someone) is saying that sniping does nothing to help with incremental bidders, and stated that he sometimes bids up auctions incrementally for lols. I was asking him how, if he were the only bidder, would he bid incrementally?
Ah, my apologies. Short answer is ... he can't.
A bidder can always add another, higher maximum. It will show as another bid - but it won't alter the current bid value.
This is a technique I have seen used where a bidder has the winning bid, but will put in another bid anyway. Other potential bidders will see the high bidder as being in front from a previous bid and that they have put in a further bid. This means that whatever their maximum was before, it is now even higher -indicating that this buyer really wants it ... and possibly putting other bidders off.
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I like the auction format where the auction keeps going until bidding stops for 10minutes. More like a real auction.
Not sure if anyone actually pointed this out, but www.trademe.co.nz (http://www.trademe.co.nz) (the linked site where this thread began) has this feature.
Auctions stay open until 2 minutes after the last bid.
http://www.graysonline.com/ (http://www.graysonline.com/) has that feature.
I use justsnipe.com mostly for convenience, as if I see something I like then I can just set a max bid and forget it. better than setting a max bid in ebay because then it just ups the interest level in the product and it's likely to go higher as a result.
I've lost more than i've won though.
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Step 1, determine how much you want to pay for the item.
Step 2, put that bid into the ebay/whatever platforms auto bid system.
Now it is sure you pay only what you think it is worth and no more, if someone else thinks its worth more they can have at it. The psychology of keeping the price low throughout the action will not lead to lower prices, the only way to lower prices is if people don't bid. By not auto bidding at your realistic valuation you're just helping the snipers maintain their false market (they'll tell you not to auto bid so they can keep getting lower prices).
Step 1. Pay $5
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Scenario 2 - I see the item and decide to snipe. Chippy comes along, decides he'd like it and puts in his $30 bid. He's the high bidder at $25, and has no reason to go any higher, so he doesn't. I wait till five seconds are left, and bid $90. I'm now the high bidder at $31, and Chippy, even if he's watching, doesn't have time to react and bump his bid. I win the item for $31.
One scenario where you make a "win" and it assumes that the original bidder didn't really want the item and put in a low ball bid. You then make up a story about how they certainly would have bid more if they had the chance for some back and forth, which is entirely your concept and not able to be proven at all.
Auctions are great, if you reach a large enough audience the sale price is close to the market value. The only games are people thinking they can game the system (you can't).
Yup. I made up a story about bidding more that can't be proven at all. Except that, well, here's an example where it recently happened to me:
http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=381826570384&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2565 (http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=381826570384&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2565)
I've been waiting to get one of these counters for quite a while now, and it seems that they only rarely show up. I was watching and planning to snipe this one, but because some friends were in from out of town unexpectedly, I was out and had to do so from my phone rather than at home on my regular computer where I know I can bid within the last five seconds and have it go through. I wasn't sure what the delay time on the phone might be, so I wound up placing my bid when there was ~25 seconds left. The bid went through 21 seconds before the auction ended. 7 seconds later, the previous high bidder began incrementing his bid. He did so five times in the remaining twelve seconds that the auction was open.
Had I followed my normal procedure of bidding in the last five seconds, he likely wouldn't have had a chance to up his bid even once; instead, what I would have gotten for $50.07 wound up costing me $69. Nearly $20 more. Please look at the bid listing and the times, then tell me how I made up a story. If he really had wanted the item and DIDN'T put in a low ball bid, then why did he start incrementing? His initial 'high' bid was obviously not as much as he was willing to pay, or he wouldn't have increased it.
There are plenty of other things I've been watching but passed on when two fools got into a bidding war early on and jacked the price up too much; if either had waited and sniped with their initial bids they'd have gotten it for much less.
-Pat
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If you're embarrassed with too much I'd be interested in a few hundred mils of it.
I'll be in Rotorua around new year's eve. You have to take 8 litres and distribute it amongst the community. Apparently I own enough dubious flux to suppress the whole NZ amateur market for years.
The guy is so keen to get rid of it he wants me to take it all for my $5 bid, and he's prepared to drop it off at my place. Better that than land fill I guess. But I have no idea how to get rid of it.
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If you're embarrassed with too much I'd be interested in a few hundred mils of it.
I'll be in Rotorua around new year's eve. You have to take 8 litres and distribute it amongst the community. Apparently I own enough dubious flux to suppress the whole NZ amateur market for years.
The guy is so keen to get rid of it he wants me to take it all for my $5 bid, and he's prepared to drop it off at my place. Better that than land fill I guess. But I have no idea how to get rid of it.
Schools, maker-spaces, and HAM clubs might be interested, especially if it's free. ;D
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How is the supporting evidence unknowable? I've seen it repeatedly myself. When I first began buying on e-bay, I would naively put in my max bid days before the auction ended. I'd then get to watch as either incremental bidders eeked the price up slowly or as snipers bumped it at the last moment. Sometimes I won, more often I lost. Losing to the snipers is a no win situation - they were willing to pay more than I was, end of story. Had I sniped the same bid, I still would have lost. With the incremental bidders, I would up paying more than I otherwise would have, especially if it was only one other bidder.
Scenario 1 - you bid your max early, and there is a single incremental bidder. Item starts at $25. You're willing to pay $90. You bid $90. Chippy the incremental bidder comes along and decides he wants the item. It shows 1 bid, and a $25 price. He bids $27; your bid increments to $28. He chips up to $30; ebay bumps yours to $31. He goes $35, yours jumps to $36. He goes $40, $45, $50, $60 and finally quits at $75. Your bid now stands at $76. No one else bids. You win the item, for $76.
Scenario 2 - I see the item and decide to snipe. Chippy comes along, decides he'd like it and puts in his $30 bid. He's the high bidder at $25, and has no reason to go any higher, so he doesn't. I wait till five seconds are left, and bid $90. I'm now the high bidder at $31, and Chippy, even if he's watching, doesn't have time to react and bump his bid. I win the item for $31.
I'd rather pay $31 than $76. Wouldn't you?
Scenario 3 - once again, max bid early, same $25 start price, $90 max. Chippy once again bumps it up to $75. You're still winning. A sniper comes along, sees a bunch of bids and that it's way up at $76 and decides to bid $100. You lose at $91.
Scenario 4 - Same starting situation, but you decide to try sniping. Chippy bids $30; the item shows 1 bid at $25. The same sniper comes along sees little activity - only one bid. Decides to try for a bargain, and rather than bidding the $100 he would have bid when it was at $75, decides instead to only bid $60, as it looks to be going cheap. You snipe with your $90 bid, and though you bump into him, you still win at $61. A bit pricier, but better than losing out.
I personally, as a buyer, can see no downside (other than the inconvenience; I've not been inclined to try a sniping program) to sniping - only up sides. I may not win a LOT more auctions, but in the long run am most likely to pay less overall than those who place max bids and let the chips fall where they may.
I actually suspect that a lot of incremental bidders don't fully understand how e-bay's proxy system works which is why they chip away like they do, placing small incremental bids up to their max, and as such will stop incrementing as soon as they see they have the winning bid. If no one has bid on something, then they'll stop at one very low one.
FWIW.
-Pat
Specifically with respect to "How is the supporting evidence unknowable?". I want to say two things. Firstly there is nothing intrinsically wrong with gaming the system. I try it on too. Sometimes I win, mostly I lose. But the only strategy that guarantees a win is to bid more than anyone else. Unless you do that the outcome is unknowable.
Secondly, I want to invite you to go back and re-read what your argument states. Very very carefully. I want you to see if you ever justify some action or method based on the result you achieved. And this is the important bit, did you ever make the solid justification based on information you had certain sure knowledge of BEFORE the auction ended.
I repeat, winning an ebay auction is a game and a pretty good game. There are winners and losers in every auction. No game where one player has certanty of winning is a good game. No-one has a guarantee of winning in an ebay auction. No-one has complete knowledge before the end of the auction.
I don't know if I can say it more clearly. There is no strategy which guarantees a win other than to bid highest. With information available before the hammer falls, the outcome is unknowable.
Hence I claim it is impossible to justify any strategy after the auction completes using only information available prior to the completion of the auction.
I don't believe I ever suggested that sniping guarantees a win. It does not, nor have I ever said otherwise. What I'm saying is that overall, it can and will save you $$ in at least some of the auctions that you DO win, because if your high bid is not there, then the incrementers are not able to run the price up against YOU!
Does it work every time? No, it does not.
Does it cost anything to do it? No.
Does it save money when it works? In my experience, yes it does.
See my previous post here, where an incremental bidder given just a FEW SECONDS AT THE END OF THE AUCTION increased the cost by nearly $20. Placing the bid literally 15 seconds later may have saved me $19 in that instance.
My argument states that sniping can sometimes save you money, because if a bid is not there, incremental bidders will not bid up against it. I've cited my reasoning, and in my previous post gave a prime example if it happening due to my placing a bid only a few SECONDS earlier than I ordinarily would.
-Pat
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If you're embarrassed with too much I'd be interested in a few hundred mils of it.
I'll be in Rotorua around new year's eve. You have to take 8 litres and distribute it amongst the community. Apparently I own enough dubious flux to suppress the whole NZ amateur market for years.
The guy is so keen to get rid of it he wants me to take it all for my $5 bid, and he's prepared to drop it off at my place. Better that than land fill I guess. But I have no idea how to get rid of it.
Oh hell what have you done ? :scared:
Where are you normally ?
I've got plenty of storage space and could shift some if you need.
Either PM me or we can sort it out here.
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Schools, maker-spaces, and HAM clubs might be interested, especially if it's free. ;D
Starting with the HAM club, I'm sure I can get most of it to a good home.
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Schools, maker-spaces, and HAM clubs might be interested, especially if it's free. ;D
Starting with the HAM club, I'm sure I can get most of it to a good home.
:-+
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Sniping and auction bidding falls squarely under gaming theory and gaming psychology. Neither gaming theory nor psychology (for whatever reason) falls under standard intuition. Don't know why - but none of the results that Dan Arieli lists in his book made any particular intuitive sense over other possible outcomes.
I don't know why people behave the way they do on eBay and don't plan to - so I came to like sniping sites because they allow me to do my research, set my price - and wait for the results email...
BTW - only been using them since about 2005-2006. Prior to that used standard bidding. Guess I started losing more back then...
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Where are you normally ?
Normally Auckland.
While I'm here; if there are any other Kiwis interested in some of this, for yourself, your club, school, whatever, you can have all you can eat for freight + a beer. But I know SFA about shipping stuff in NZ. I can probably get some cheap fastways stickers, or something similar, from a mate though.
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Where are you normally ?
Normally Auckland.
While I'm here; if there are any other Kiwis interested in some of this, for yourself, your club, school, whatever, you can have all you can eat for freight + a beer. But I know SFA about shipping stuff in NZ. I can probably get some cheap fastways stickers, or something similar, from a mate though.
Me too.
We'll hook up and sort out some dates and times via PM and I'll put a little components hamper together as a thanks.
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Where are you normally ?
Normally Auckland.
While I'm here; if there are any other Kiwis interested in some of this, for yourself, your club, school, whatever, you can have all you can eat for freight + a beer. But I know SFA about shipping stuff in NZ. I can probably get some cheap fastways stickers, or something similar, from a mate though.
Me too.
We'll hook up and sort out some dates and times via PM and I'll put a little components hamper together as a thanks.
I can turn some into beer for you apelly. Let me know when you guys get together as it would be great to meet you both in person.
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Scenario 2 - I see the item and decide to snipe. Chippy comes along, decides he'd like it and puts in his $30 bid. He's the high bidder at $25, and has no reason to go any higher, so he doesn't. I wait till five seconds are left, and bid $90. I'm now the high bidder at $31, and Chippy, even if he's watching, doesn't have time to react and bump his bid. I win the item for $31.
One scenario where you make a "win" and it assumes that the original bidder didn't really want the item and put in a low ball bid. You then make up a story about how they certainly would have bid more if they had the chance for some back and forth, which is entirely your concept and not able to be proven at all.
Auctions are great, if you reach a large enough audience the sale price is close to the market value. The only games are people thinking they can game the system (you can't).
Yup. I made up a story about bidding more that can't be proven at all. Except that, well, here's an example where it recently happened to me:
http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=381826570384&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2565 (http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=381826570384&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2565)
I've been waiting to get one of these counters for quite a while now, and it seems that they only rarely show up. I was watching and planning to snipe this one, but because some friends were in from out of town unexpectedly, I was out and had to do so from my phone rather than at home on my regular computer where I know I can bid within the last five seconds and have it go through. I wasn't sure what the delay time on the phone might be, so I wound up placing my bid when there was ~25 seconds left. The bid went through 21 seconds before the auction ended. 7 seconds later, the previous high bidder began incrementing his bid. He did so five times in the remaining twelve seconds that the auction was open.
Had I followed my normal procedure of bidding in the last five seconds, he likely wouldn't have had a chance to up his bid even once; instead, what I would have gotten for $50.07 wound up costing me $69. Nearly $20 more. Please look at the bid listing and the times, then tell me how I made up a story. If he really had wanted the item and DIDN'T put in a low ball bid, then why did he start incrementing? His initial 'high' bid was obviously not as much as he was willing to pay, or he wouldn't have increased it.
There are plenty of other things I've been watching but passed on when two fools got into a bidding war early on and jacked the price up too much; if either had waited and sniped with their initial bids they'd have gotten it for much less.
-Pat
So you've got two idiots in the same auction who think they'll get a better price by bidding late, no difference than bidding your max early. They would have left you a bargain only by not bidding so it didn't matter if they bid early or late, encouraging more people to snipe is only likely to get people caught up in the "fun" when they don't have time to consider their actions and may have increased the ending price of this auction you point to.
I've made lots of money at real auctions over the years, which is an entirely different "game". Online auctions are much simpler and lack any mystical psychology.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auction_sniping
All the rubbish around trying to learn the value of the item is irrelevant to informed buyers, they know what its worth and set their bid accordingly. You can play with the uninformed, but at the end of the day you should know what its worth to you and not play the "game" by simply bidding what its worth. Or do you haggle on every purchase you make in shops?
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Where are you normally ?
Normally Auckland.
While I'm here; if there are any other Kiwis interested in some of this, for yourself, your club, school, whatever, you can have all you can eat for freight + a beer. But I know SFA about shipping stuff in NZ. I can probably get some cheap fastways stickers, or something similar, from a mate though.
Me too.
We'll hook up and sort out some dates and times via PM and I'll put a little components hamper together as a thanks.
I can turn some into beer for you apelly. Let me know when you guys get together as it would be great to meet you both in person.
Sounds like a fine plan.
I'm pretty free and easy over the break.
I'll pop you a PM with phone and email.
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Where are you normally ?
Normally Auckland.
While I'm here; if there are any other Kiwis interested in some of this, for yourself, your club, school, whatever, you can have all you can eat for freight + a beer. But I know SFA about shipping stuff in NZ. I can probably get some cheap fastways stickers, or something similar, from a mate though.
Me too.
We'll hook up and sort out some dates and times via PM and I'll put a little components hamper together as a thanks.
I can turn some into beer for you apelly. Let me know when you guys get together as it would be great to meet you both in person.
Sounds like a fine plan.
I'm pretty free and easy over the break.
I'll pop you a PM with phone and email.
"Posts: 7000"
And thats a big number, congrats :)
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"Posts: 7000"
And thats a big number, congrats :)
Congratulations tautech,
A very fine effort indeed, which by the way does not go unrewarded, knock yourself out. :popcorn:
:-+ :clap: :)
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Where are you normally ?
Normally Auckland.
While I'm here; if there are any other Kiwis interested in some of this, for yourself, your club, school, whatever, you can have all you can eat for freight + a beer. But I know SFA about shipping stuff in NZ. I can probably get some cheap fastways stickers, or something similar, from a mate though.
Me too.
We'll hook up and sort out some dates and times via PM and I'll put a little components hamper together as a thanks.
Ha. For some reason I had the impression you were down the line somewhere.
And yes. It should be fun to catch up. I'll start another thread and see if any others are interested.
Edit: Free flux here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/auckland-beer-and-flux-xmas-get-together/ (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/auckland-beer-and-flux-xmas-get-together/)
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The guy is so keen to get rid of it he wants me to take it all for my $5 bid, and he's prepared to drop it off at my place. Better that than land fill I guess.
I guess...
But I have no idea how to get rid of it.
Sounds like a reason it ended up on trademe.
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But I have no idea how to get rid of it.
Sounds like a reason it ended up on trademe.
No doubt.
But I don't mind putting in a little effort to share it around. That's not to say a bunch of it won't end up back on trademe. We'll see how it goes.
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Disposing of chemicals in the UK can be a challenge.
I had some 12 year old stale Leaded Petrol, over 40 litres of it to be exact, that I needed to dispose of safely. When contacting the council you would have thought I was trying to dispose of radioactive waste ! Eventually I found out that the local waste disposal amenity would accept the petrol provided it was given to them in proper approved petrol cans. And they get to keep the petrol cans !
I was not keen to give away all my nice petrol cans so I approached my local garage who service my car. They have a licence for oil and fuel disposal. They have to drain car tanks when the owner has put the wrong fuel in at a garage. The licence and disposal costs is expensive but they said they would take my 40 Litres no problem. As it turned out they put it in Jerry cans for use in the Garage Kerosene heater !
Other chemicals that are uncommon in domestic situations can be a total nightmare as they are often classified as Industrial waste, for which disposal is normally chargeable at quite high rates by specialists. Sadly some total Bast*rds sometimes dump such chemicals in the countryside or pour them down storm drains where they poison the local streams, water courses and rivers.
Sometimes people give away 'out-of-date' chemicals rather than having to pay significant sums for correct disposal. I am not at all surprised to hear that the seller wanted rid of so much flux liquid. Better $5 in his pocket than $100+ for specialist disposal costs, if such exist locally.
A good find, but also a bit of a liability in terms of getting rid of it all safely.
Fraser
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I had some 12 year old stale Leaded Petrol, over 40 litres of it to be exact, that I needed to dispose of safely.
UK = 40 Litres Petrol = PhotonicInduction(Youtuber) + 40,000 Volts + 2 x 20,000 Watt Light Bulbs + Overclocked Washing Machine, over-filled with 40 Litres of Petrol
= Nice new Youtube video + big bang and a lot of smoke and some lead fumes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT5_-A0m8_U (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT5_-A0m8_U)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka4FTcPV_Co (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka4FTcPV_Co)
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Disposing of chemicals in the UK can be a challenge.
I had some 12 year old stale Leaded Petrol, over 40 litres of it to be exact, that I needed to dispose of safely. When contacting the council you would have thought I was trying to dispose of radioactive waste ! Eventually I found out that the local waste disposal amenity would accept the petrol provided it was given to them in proper approved petrol cans. And they get to keep the petrol cans !
I was not keen to give away all my nice petrol cans so I approached my local garage who service my car. They have a licence for oil and fuel disposal. They have to drain car tanks when the owner has put the wrong fuel in at a garage. The licence and disposal costs is expensive but they said they would take my 40 Litres no problem. As it turned out they put it in Jerry cans for use in the Garage Kerosene heater !
Other chemicals that are uncommon in domestic situations can be a total nightmare as they are often classified as Industrial waste, for which disposal is normally chargeable at quite high rates by specialists. Sadly some total Bast*rds sometimes dump such chemicals in the countryside or pour them down storm drains where they poison the local streams, water courses and rivers.
Sometimes people give away 'out-of-date' chemicals rather than having to pay significant sums for correct disposal. I am not at all surprised to hear that the seller wanted rid of so much flux liquid. Better $5 in his pocket than $100+ for specialist disposal costs, if such exist locally.
A good find, but also a bit of a liability in terms of getting rid of it all safely.
Fraser
Quite so Fraser.
With the likes of used oils and stale fuels a drive to the country where some tree damage cleanups are happening you'd probably be welcomed as stuff like that make good bonfire lighting aids......not to be used in confined areas of course.
We had some logging operations here and on surrounding properties, all finished just before the autumn rains but what a job it would have been to get the leftover slash burnt without some sort of accelerant.
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Disposing of chemicals in the UK can be a challenge.
...
A good find, but also a bit of a liability in terms of getting rid of it all safely.
Fraser
Yep. All of that. I was pretty sure this'd turn into a PITA, but I thought I'd risk it.
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Don't have any recommendations that would be local for any of you, but I have a chemist friend who makes quite a good living making recommendations for repurposing waste materials. Basically he looks into the waste streams from an operation and comes up with a way to convert that waste into a salable product. Most of his operations are on an industrial scale (think thousands of gallons a day), but flux is used in industrial quantities so someone probably has already figured something out for this or would if they were put onto it. Your pallet would be too small scale by itself to deal with, but would become a profitable raw material for a running operation. At the very least they would accept it for free.