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How do I avoid snipers on my eBay auctions?

Selling my stuff via auction on eBay used to be really fun, but now everyone waits until the very last second to bid, which means that I have this constant anxiety that my products aren't going to sell at all and then, just before the timer runs out, there are suddenly a flurry of bids. I'm sick of it. eBay isn't any fun any more because of all these snipers. How do I avoid having them ruin my auctions??

Dave's Answer:

While I completely understand your issue with snipers (people who bid at the last minute in the hopes of getting a great bargain by preventing others from counter-bidding and raising the price of the auction), I am surprised at your hostility towards the practice on eBay!

The way I figure it, as long as the auction ends with a successful bid that's higher than the reserve, you've accomplished your goal of making money through your eBay sales. It's not as fun as watching a week-long drawn out bidding war between a few buyers, as your item goes up, up, up, in price, but I would suggest that this still happens today, just in a much more compressed period of time at the very end of the auction.

By the way, I think that one way you can get a sense of whether people are going to "snipe" your auction by looking at the "Watchers" column in your My eBay view. Here's what I see with my recent auction, for example:

Click to see full-size view

You can see here that in less than 24 hours (they're 7 day auctions) I've picked up four watchers for the mixer and 3 watchers for the inline patch, my two higher ticket auctions. I could say "oh man, they're going to wait until the last second and end up getting a better price on the item by sniping" but instead I see it as "hurray! People are paying attention and I bet at least one of them will go wild bidding up the price in the last few hours".

If you check the eBay help system, you'll find that they say "Placing a high bid in the closing seconds of an auction-style listing is called “sniping” within the eBay Community. Sniping is part of the eBay experience, and all bids placed before a listing ends are valid - even if they're placed one second before the listing ends. To help avoid disappointment, ensure that the maximum bid you enter on the item page is the highest price that you're willing to pay. The eBay bidding system automatically increases your bid up to the maximum price you specify, so entering a higher maximum may help prevent you from being outbid in the closing seconds of a listing."

Sniping isn't a violation of any rules on eBay, and with the rise in slick sniping tools like BidRobot.com, I think it's rather inevitable that this practice will just increase in the future too. On the other hand, these sniping sites do recognize that the practice is at least a bit controversial. BidRobot, again, from its help FAQ:

"Do sellers hate last-minute-bidding? Many do. For one thing, sellers are unable to gauge the interest in ongoing auctions because last-minute bidders are delaying their bids until the flurry of bids at very last moment. For another thing, last minute bidding often forces sellers to sell items for less than what they would like. There is nothing a seller likes more than to see a several day long bidding war at the expense of several bidders. In the early days, sellers unsuccessfully lobbied eBay to prohibit last minute bidding. Some sellers understand that while BidRobot may keep the prices of items down, it also attracts last-minute bidders who might not otherwise bid for an item. Whether sellers like it or not, last minute bidding wins more auctions and is here to stay."

I have to echo that last line: if you are going to continue as an eBay seller, I think it's just inevitable that you're going to see more effects of sniping software on how auctions transpire and the closing price. I can't possibly see how it can be avoided, frankly. Sooo.....

Hope your auctions all end well nonetheless, and do remember that's really why you might want to have a reserve price or consider starting your auctions at a higher opening bid, to circumvent the "bargain hunter snipers".

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Categorized: Auctions and Online Shopping (Article 6812)
Tagged: auction snipers, automatic bidding systems, bidrobot, ebay auctions, sniping
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Comments

As a buyer the one thing that bothers me is the really low opening price, but a high reserve. I just leave the auction rather than worry with it.

Posted by: KC at September 6, 2006 8:47 PM

Personally I always use snipe tools to bid on auctions 3 seconds before the close. As a buyer, the last thing you want to do is get into a bidding war with another buyer. I setup my bids often days in advance and it serves two purposes. 1. It stops you getting carried away bidding more than you would want to just because you want to win and 2. You often get the item cheaper because you have avoided the bidding war in the first place. Is that fair on sellers? Of course it is. It's an auction and that's the risk you take. If you can take it you should be looking elsewhere to sell your goods.

Posted by: Philip at September 7, 2006 3:31 PM

As a buyer, I guess I am considered a sniper. It's really raises the blood pressure. Quite a high. My husband uses a sniper program that puts a bid in during the last few seconds. It's just smart buying. Why bid once during the duration of the auction...just to have someone bid over you...then you have to raise the price again on yourself. I guess a good rule of thumb is to bid your maximum that you want to pay...early or sniper. I have three noobs right now in a bidding war on a bracelet. Gotta love the uneducated.

As a seller, that's the way the game is played. I dont care to see zero bids all week...but I cant fault people for smart bidding...especially when I do the exact same thing!

Posted by: Noelle at November 14, 2006 8:59 PM

I also snipe. YOu have to or you won't win anything worth winning. That is the thing. There is no other choice. One way ebay could end this is to give sellers an option (with an additional fee) to add a auction extension. Allow any bidder who have bid in a designated time period to continue bidding. Then, when no additional bids have been made, the auction closes. For example, Bidder 1 bids on an item with 2 minutes left. Bidder 2 ups the bid with 1 minute left. Bidder 3 comes in and tries to snipe at 30 seconds... the auction does not close. Bidder 1 or 2 can come in and bid for 2 more minutes (or whatever designated by seller). When 2 minutes has passed with no additional bids then the auction closes. This is like a real auction. An real live auction will not close while a last minute bidding war is going on. Problem solved. Seller makes more money possibly. Thus ebay makes more in fees by the additional fee for listing with this service and the additional % from the higher sale.

Posted by: tv at March 28, 2007 9:12 PM

For the first time i think I will snipe as an Ebay buyer.... Those of you Ebay buyers who snipe with 3 seconds remaining in an auction, is there a sniping site you have found to work better than others?

Posted by: Tribeca Tech at March 31, 2007 5:49 PM

There is a fix I can think of. Why doesn't eBay have a random finish time where the auction will finish *somewhere* in the last hour. For example if an auction is listed to finish at 7:00 pm it might finish at 6:05 or it might go til 6:59.

People would have to bid earlier to be sure their bid would register and snipers would be much less effective.

Posted by: Pat McLaughlin at May 7, 2007 8:51 PM

Hello! I agree so very much with the OP. I stumbled across this while looking for another auction site that does not allow sniping. I have heard they exist and am hoping to find a good one. I have been with eBay as both a buyer and seller since 1998. That is a long time. I have watched it evolve, volunteered for various things over the years and even made true friends that carried over into my everyday life. It has been a wonderful experience but like the OP said, it is not fun any longer. I have a 100% pos feedback and have shipped all over the world. Before the snipers and the sniping software an auction was enjoyable. It was sort of like a competition that brought several strangers together for a brief time. Perhaps I am naive, perhaps I am getting senile, but snipers have taken any joy out of it for me as well as for the bidders who do not like sniping or even know what it is. But that does not seem to concern snipers. Only the win is important. That too makes me sad.

Posted by: Andy at July 11, 2007 7:39 PM

One thing people that snipe fail to realize is on eBay it is the earliest bid that wins an auction in case of a tie.

So I bid $125 on Monday for an item starting @ $2.50
Come the last day the 4 or 5 people that have snipped the auction, must have a higher bid than $125 or the item will go to the bid that was placed the earliest in the day or the week.

Posted by: buyermahn at October 3, 2007 5:50 PM

Or better yet, why not have the auction automatically extended for ten to thirty minutes from the time the last bid was placed?

Wouldn't THAT solve everything?

And if ebay wanted to be asinine about it, then they could charge a quarter for every bid happening in overtime...

I guess it all just makes sense to ME.

Posted by: skip at January 2, 2008 4:29 PM

I think the best way to go is to put auction for 1 or 3 days only, not for 7 or 10 days like some people do.
Sniper or not, you will receive your bids within last few hours and don't need to wait and see your bids to be the same every day.
As an additional bonus for putting your item for 1 or 3 days is that you will sell your item faster.

If you are still afraid then you can put a reserve price on your auction. However, that will drive attention out of your auction to similar ones without reserve.

Posted by: eBay sniper at January 16, 2008 8:08 AM

On another position..
I personally love snipers. They actually put the price my item worth and thanks to them I'm always getting a fair value without having to put a reserve price.

I snipe myself when I buy also, because some seller do shill bidding on their auctions (and they think it's fair!) and sniping protects me most of the time from shill bidding.

Posted by: eBay sniper at January 16, 2008 8:15 AM

I have a lot to say, but ...

I have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but most of all I'd like to say thank you for all your efforts on this Web site by buying you a chai!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!