You really ought to learn not to read more into what's written than what was intended.
I can't speak for Dave, but my intent was to see what he's selling to get a better sense of what type of seller he might be. I might bid or not, but the worst I would do is to add an exclusion for his seller name to some of my search strings. Excluding sellers is such a massive PITA, though, that I'd have to be pretty annoyed to go that far.
Comments like the above make it seem like you enjoy stirring the pot - everyone needs a hobby, I guess.
I have a pretty low threshhold for bullshit, so I'd probably pass by the auction of a keyword spammer regardless of who it was. OK, "probably" is the wrong word. "regulary do" is more the meaning I'm trying to get across.
And yeah, Steve getting all conspiracy-theory about why people wanted to know the eBay ID of the guy in question, tells us more about Steve than anything else.
Because the goal of a sniper is to get an item as cheaply as possible, while denying others the chance to outbid them. As a seller, I feel this costs me money.
I suppose now you're going to launch into an indignant tirade about how no, it's not like that, I don't understand, blah blah blah. I'll counter by saying that I would pay extra to list my items with an automatic extension following late bids. Bid last-second? Fine, but that extends the auction 5 minutes to let others have a chance. That way it'd be like a normal auction where the price is determined by the last person who wants to raise it, not by who has the fastest connection or who has the faster sniping service.
Go ahead, you have to, I understatnd, just don't think you'll change my mind.
Tough. If you want a certain amount, then set a price and sell it outright, rather than trying to screw the buyer by counting on "bid fever" to jack the price beyond what (thinking) people want to pay for it. You better damn well believe that when I'm "playing the auction game", I'm doing whatever it takes to get whatever it is for the lowest possible price. And so is any intelligent being. (as opposed to the knee-jerk "Aw, shit! I got outbid, better jack it up some more" crowd) If that means sniping it, then that means sniping it, and a decree from god himself won't cause me to feel even the slightest trace of guilt or shame over doing so.
It works both ways, y'see... You want as high as possible, and tough shit on the buyer if they get screwed. Likewise, I want as low as possible, and tough shit on the seller if they get screwed. An auction is about bringing those two numbers to some "middle ground" to make a transaction happen. *SOMEBODY*, either buyer or seller, is going to come away thinking some level of "I got screwed", regardless of the amount of money that changes hands in the end.
Your perogative - no question whatsoever about that. But that just plain ain't how eBay works. Get over it.
Which means you've got two options: Find someplace that works the way you want it to work (as in "not eBay") or set a fixed price and post a "for sale" message, then sell it to the first comer with that amount in hand. (Or, possibly, eat it when you get no comers because nobody wants to pay the price you set) Pretty hard to figure out, huh?
Remember that the higher the final selling prices are, the more ebay would make. So, it would make sense for ebay to set rules that would maximize its profits, that is, the total $$ amount sold that depends on final prices and quantity of items sold.
Apparently, ebay feels that not extending auctions is the best course of action for it, that allowing snipers to snipe is a good thing for eBay's commissions. Thus sniping is likely a good thing for sellers as well, since ebay's commissions are proportional to sellers' closing prices.
I do not think that a seller's sentiment that snipers hurt profits, is based on reality.
I mostly snipe or, sometimes, submit a very low ball bid first and then either snipe or just hope to win something for an outrageously low amount. Usually, I do not win anything for outrageously low prices, but sometimes I do.
LOL, and if a sniper doesn't bid? you'd be happy with the lesser amount? Yeah right. A "successful" sniper is always the highest bidder. However if the proxy bid of an existing bidder is higher than a sniper's, then the sniper fails. Sniping is no guarantee of success.
So Dave, if an item gets bid up way past it's actual value due to last minute volleys, would you say "Whoa, now, hold on -it's worth $XXX, max. I cannot in good conscience sell it for 50% more than it's worth!"? Of course not, the seller smiles real big and says "Hey, if that's what the market says it's worth, then it's worth it"
Personally, I use a snipe program to bid on things I have only a casual interest in. That lets me decide what an item is worth to me, record it in my snipe, and get on with my life. I get maybe 5% of the auctions I bid on in this way, and I get a real deal when I do. But typically those are the items I want the most anyway. If not for the sniping program I probably would not bid on very many at all. In fact, before I starting using a sniper, they typical drill was
Examine listing, decide to bid
Place bid
Observe immediate outbid by another (proxy) bidder.
I understand completely, Tom. In a "normal" auction, the price is determined by giving everyone a chance to see what the others are bidding, and the bidding ends when nobody else wants to bid. Now you're going to tell me that that's only one kind of auction, blah blah blah. Yes. I understand that. My point is, if I'm going to auction something, that's the method I'd choose to use for selling.
Someone asked me, specifically, what I didn't like about it. I answered. If that offends you, feel free to killfile me. And what's greedy about "this is my price, take it or leave it"?
But at the same time, it leaves me wondering: Since you don't sell any way but BIN, why are you bellyaching about snipers? After all, when's the last time somebody sniped a BIN listing?
(And more interesting to me: *HOW'D DEY DO DAT?!?!? I WANNA TOO!*)
If you're reading it as "jumping in your shit", well... I don't know what to say, aside from "that wasn't the intent, sorry you read it that way."
Quite frankly, I don't see very many, if any at all, better ways to say what I felt needed saying without resorting to weasel-words to do it, and that just ain't my style. On reflection, I probably could have done without the sarcasm of the "Pretty hard...", but that's water under the bridge, and I can't "rewind" reality to un-say it.
It doesn't go away just because I don't participate, Don.
Someone asked specifically what I didn't like about sniping, Don. The message is probably on your server if you'd like to review it. I answered his question.
Fair enough.
It just seemed out of character, is all. I'll say it again - I'd pay extra to list an item if given the option of "If people keep bidding on this, let them keep bidding until they're done".
Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. I once bid on a particular [car]gauge that I wanted, needed it cause I had never held one in my hand and. bidding started at a buck. I bid 11, went to 1.10. went in at the last minute and upped my bid to 90 bucks, because I had not seen one in looking for a year, and would have been pissed to have lost it. I paid 1.65. Sent the guy a 10 dollar bill and was tickled. Remember, I would have paid 90, but the other guy would only pay 1.55. You should not be mad at snipers, but at the cheap ass sob's underbidding. I mean, ever see a guy bid like 100 bucks on a Porsche, then never bid again? what was the point of that?
BTW I think BIN auctions are perfect, faster, no bs.
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