I have been on ebay for the past few years now and I'm addicted. i use it for price shopping and comparing. i have purchased 2 vehicles off of it, I love it! no haggling, no fussing.
I needed a stock radio for a little ford ranger I run around in. i found one and I saved to favorites, it had a couple of days left on it. well the magical moment came and i was at computer drinking str8 tiqula and smoking unfiltered camels, I was in the zone, i was ready to win! I do this on all auctions I wait until the last 6 seconds and usually win. not always but usually. well i won the radio for $15.
I got an email the next morning from a women that said what I did was a disgrace and was not good "ebay etiquette". I responded back and ask what I had done, i was nice. She replied that what I did was called "sniping." once i googled this I had to agree with her...yep thats what I do. I did reply to her that why in the hell would i run the price up of something I wanted just for the sake of being nice. AFTER ALL IT IS AN AUCTION, HIGHEST BID WINS. thats why their timed huh? great concept. I really had no idea this was so BIG.
How do you guys bid on auctions? I have often looked at auction and wondered shy someone would bid $1 on something that has 5 days left on it! maybe its just me, I dont see anything wrong with it
Posted by Tim Rieck (Member # 1699) on :
There is absolutely nothing wrong with what you did. And actually there is software available to do it for you so you don't have to even be at your computer when the auction gets near the end.
Posted by Dana Blair (Member # 951) on :
That's how most auctions are won. Even at a regular type auction, how many times does the auctioneer say "going twice" and someone else jumps in with a much higher bid. That's why on a timed auction you can set your maximum bid. That way if someone tries to snipe it they have to bid even higher to get past your maximum. I have won and lost both ways on eBay. It's part of the process. If she wanted to make sure that she didn't get sniped, she should have had a higher maximum. There is no "good eBay etiquette".
Posted by George Perkins (Member # 156) on :
I've done the e-bay thing a number of times. I lost out on some items early on due to sniping and my general lack of knowledge regarding the whole process. It's all part of the game. I never bid on something until the last minute. Nobody serious does. I also use the automatic bidding process. Neither process is a guarantee of a win either. The highest bid is always going to win. Whoever sent you that e-mail just hasn't done much e-baying.
Had somebody entered an automatic bid that was higher than yours, your six second tactic would not have worked.
Posted by Jon Jantz (Member # 6137) on :
I never bid on an item until the last 8-10 seconds. Perfectly fine to do that. Yeah, it's called sniping, but it's way to get a decent deal. Maybe not the 'nicest' thing to do, but I ain't rich enough to be too 'nice'. It's all part of the game.
I sell a lot of items on Ebay, and lots of other people do the same thing to me.
Wish there wasn't that feedback thing so you could tell this woman how stupid she is... if she doesn't like the way Ebay works, she should be having garage sales instead.
Edited: George, When I first started typing my response, your post wasn't there yet. So I didn't read your message first... not trying to repeat you... hehe.
[ April 13, 2008, 12:42 PM: Message edited by: Jon Jantz ]
Posted by Mike Pipes (Member # 1573) on :
Offer to sell it to her for $20.
I don't use online auctions and even *I* know this is just how it's done.
Posted by Kissymatina (Member # 2028) on :
ebay etiquette? wow. Didn't know there was such a thing. Whodathunk it?
It's an auction with a set end time, highest bidder at the end time. It's not tell me what you'll pay & when I find a price I think is acceptable, I'll sell it to you.
Obviously, she's never been to a real auction or has no clue how the real world works. I'll bet she manually places every single bid she places too because she can't figure out what they mean when they ask for your highest bid.
Posted by Alicia B. Jennings (Member # 1272) on :
I feel the same wasy. I always wait till the last seconds. In fact i don't even place any bid till the last seconds. I don't want to bring any attention to the item. Let some other mamon pay too much.
Posted by Deb Fowler (Member # 1039) on :
It's the name of the game with Ebay. She's going to figure it out when she writes the other million letters to the others that hold out too. Well, at least she is voicing her opinion according to what she perceives. She's probably just inexperienced, and truly felt she was in the right. Like I said, it's her way of searching for what she will find out ultimately. My kids call me out on things too when they feel they're in the right and I can't really call them ridiculous, just inexperienced, but I am glad that they questioned me when they had a view they didn't agree with. (They are learning to be a little more polite and diplomatic in their comments though as they mature).
Posted by Russ McMullin (Member # 5617) on :
That's a cool story. She must have really wanted that darn radio!
It's funny she would call sniping bad Ebay etiquette. The only reason Ebay would discourage sniping is to avoid a technical difficulty that might keep you from bidding at the last second. Otherwise, they couldn't care less. I don't see a need to telegraph my intentions to bid on something, so I generally wait until the very end, like most people.
She'd better learn to start sniping, or she's going to end up disappointed most of the time. LOL.
Posted by Sonny Franks (Member # 588) on :
Maybe I'm just a mamon, but what the heck is a mamon???
Posted by Steve Eisenreich (Member # 1444) on :
A Mamon is the lady that did not understand that sniping is the way to get what you want on e-bay.lol
Posted by Donald Miner (Member # 6472) on :
I bought this computer on E-bay, along with several other things, over the past few years. Every bid I place is done on E-snipe. My son in-law clued me in on E-snipe after I had lost a couple of items that I really wanted. For me, that's the only way to go.
Posted by Ian Stewart-Koster (Member # 3500) on :
I must be the odd one out here- I work out what I'm prepared to pay & how much I really want/need something, and leave it at that.
Either I get it at the maximum or something less, or I miss out. Another one will turn up in due course generally, if you miss this one. If not, then you should have bid higher initially, I feel!
I have watched several A3 scanners with auto document feeders sit at the mid $200s for most of the week, only to bolt up to over $1000 in the final three or four minutes.. Frequently it was my bid that sat there for most of the week.
Finally I did get one- a beauty- for $265- and worth about $2000 - with pci-scsi card & scsi cable- and gee it's so fast at scanning I'll probably not go back to using the old canon d2400U except for film scanning.
This will scan a document (i.e. lots of pages) at 25 pages A3 size,per minute, & convert the whole thing to pdf while you wait. It can also do OCR on it if you want.
Posted by William Holohan (Member # 2514) on :
Alicia, Mamon...mamon...You don't look like an Italian gun moll... My late mother was a lady chef and worked in an Italian restaurant...came home with many fine Italian sayings...most much crustier than mamon... (Please, no flames from the other fine Italians in the group...Just kidding with Alicia.)
Posted by Ricky Jackson (Member # 5082) on :
After losing a lot of items to people with "no ebay etiquette", it didn't take me long to discover that I *had* to snipe if I really wanted something badly. If it was something I would buy if I could get a good deal on I wouldn't bother but if it was something I really wanted, I wouldn't think of not being in for the last 5 seconds of bidding. Everyone that wins snipes; it's a simple as that. BTW, I used to have an employee that called the UPS man "santa in the brown suit" because he brought packages every week of stuff I bought on ebay. In fact, my username at one time was "junkie4ebay". I had a red star and 100% positive feedback until I bought some mustang graphics from a sign shop. I paid for it immediately but they didn't send the product. I politely emailed them and they would email back saying that it would be sent out today. I didn't receive the goods I paid for so on the last day possible to give feedback I gave them negative feedback. They lied like a rug and posted that I never paid for them. I cancelled my account and stopped buying stuff on ebay. A $15 item from a friggin' sign shop; go figger.
Posted by David Harding (Member # 108) on :
Someone needs to take that lady snipe hunting.
Posted by bruce ward (Member # 1289) on :
Ricky thats sucks about that feedback. ive been there. left negative feedback for a customer they took so long to ship. They said on their neg feedback I never contacted them with my shipping address....i counteracted on my reply as "I suppose the address on my money order was not sufficient.
no big deal he was one of those guys with 4000 rating.I am still an ebay whore. before i buy anything local i shop there first.
Posted by Russ McMullin (Member # 5617) on :
I always think of a mamon as someone who is childish and whines a lot. Not sure what the actual translation is.
Posted by Lotti Prokott (Member # 2684) on :
Mamon is an aramaic word meaning, "riches", it's greek spelling is mammon. I've never heard anybody use it as Alicia has. You can find it in the King James Version of the Bible, Luke 6:24, as, "You can not serve both God and Mammon". Other translations simply call it "money".
Edited to add, I "snipe" too.
[ April 14, 2008, 12:05 PM: Message edited by: Lotti Prokott ]
Posted by Russ McMullin (Member # 5617) on :
In Spanish, "mamón" comes from the verb "mamar" which means to suckle. Mammal and mammary are English words with the same root.
Posted by Ricky Jackson (Member # 5082) on :
So in her context it would mean "suckah" Posted by Michael Clanton (Member # 2419) on :
I'm like Ian, I usually have a good idea of what I want to pay (or sell) and I don't like all the other ebay games. If it's something I really want, I prefer the "Buy It Now" feature. I also wish people would post the reserve amount, if any, so you don't waste a lot of time. I know why they don't and all of the other tricks to keep the ebay commission as small as possible.
I recently picked up a sweet deal on a 1969 Slingerland Bass drum pedal to finish my restoration drum kit, but it took a lot of searching and waiting until I found the deal.
Posted by Mike O'Neill (Member # 470) on :
Sniping is a fact of life, and fits with ebay rules. As much as it works for you it works against you when someone else pulls the trigger. I use a piece of software called auction sentry to do the sniping for me. Saves waking up at 4am for west coast stuff... Posted by Larry Ware (Member # 7352) on :
"One Shot, One Kill" (on eBay that is)
Posted by Len Mort (Member # 7030) on :
I've bought and sold many times on ebay. What etiquette?
You either auto bid or you snipe. You win or you lose.
At a live auction, the auctioneer will always tell you there are no friends at an auction!
It's all in winning!
Posted by Tony Vickio (Member # 2265) on :
I'm a SNIPER!! Golf is the only thing that has etiquette!
Posted by Bruce Bowers (Member # 892) on :
Yeah, Tony, as long as the D.O. rule is not in effect...
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