Myth # 11: Snipers must have inside information. How else could they top my bid by only a dollar?
Those who don’t understand proxy bidding are quick to jump to conclusions. They’ve bid $75.00 for an item, and lose to a sniper by “only” $1.00. They kick themselves because, if they’d bid only a few dollars more, they surely would have won. However, snipers usually don’t have inside information and they usually don’t outbid you by a dollar. When your $75.00 bid loses to a $76.00 bid, it’s a good bet that the winner did not bid $76.00. The winner might have bid $85.00 or $850.00, or $8500.00. It doesn’t matter. The proxy bidding system will apply only enough of the maximum bid needed to take over the top bidding spot. You only think you lost by $1.00.
So don’t regret not bidding $77. A bid that’s a few dollars higher might not have been enough. Bid your maximum, and if you lose, you can feel good about outsmarting the dummy who overpaid.
Myth #12: Sniping isn’t fair!
In general, sniping is viewed negatively only by the snipee. There's nothing "wrong" with it, as it's entirely within the eBay rules that every bidder must abide by. Sniping is no more unfair than not telling your opponent in Monopoly that they forgot to collect $200 when they passed GO, or "the hidden ball trick" or the Yankees signing Alex Rodriguez because they can afford to. Things that are perfectly legal upset some eBayers because they didn't think of them first, or weren't able to use the same rules to their own advantage. I saw a newsgroup posting that went something like this:
“Newbie question -- I get the impression there are bidding bots out there pumping up auctions at the last second. And I do mean second. I just lost another auction with two other bidders in the last 15 SECONDS of the auction. This happens to me all the time. I'm really getting suspicious that anyone can get a fair shake on EBay. I also notice if my bid is pretty low, miraculously at the last minute a phantom bidder comes along and jacks the price up to what a reasonable person might expect to pay. Perhaps it's the seller with a phantom identity?”
It’s no wonder that those who have been sniped think they’re being cheated. They’re not. Sniping is playing by the rules. You’ll discover more reasons why sniping is OK with the exposé of the next myth.
Myth # 13: Sniping costs sellers potentially higher bids.
The eBay-oriented newsgroups are rife with both sellers and bidders who think sniping should be banned. Both kinds of eBayers ignore two things: there isn’t any easy way to prevent sniping, and, most importantly, doing so would change the nature of eBay so much that more harm would certainly result than any projected “good” to either group.
In practice, eliminating sniping (assuming it could be done at all), wouldn’t achieve the desired end of increasing the amount of bids. It’s more likely that the net result would be to reduce in number of bidders for any particular auction specifically, and eBay in general. All the proposals for auction extensions operate on the fallacy that if sniping were eliminated, snipers would miraculously be transformed into ordinary bidders who would place their bids well ahead of the auction end, thus helping to elevate prices.
That’s not the way eBay works. The real reason most snipers bid late in the auction because they feel it helps them get bargains at the expense of novices who don't understand how proxy bidding works and who place bids for less than the amount they are really willing to pay. Others bid because they enjoy the thrill of the snipe.
Once you remove the opportunity for bargains and take away the fun, snipers will either leave eBay, bid on fewer items, or bid the lower, bargain, price they were thinking of anyway. Why would a sniper want to pay more? Items on eBay are almost never unique, and rather than pay extra it’s smarter to wait for another day, and another example of the same item. Once you've lopped off a huge chunk of potential bidders who would have sniped, seller prices would tend to be lower, not higher.
And for those buyers who think sniping is unfair, would eliminating sniping make eBay more fair? Of course not. Sniping now does seem to favor those who have taken the time to learn how proxy bidding and sniping works, because they understand the rules and use them to their advantage. They bid the actual amount they are willing to pay, and do so late in the auction.
Eliminating sniping would give an unfair advantage to newcomers who need endless chances to amend and correct their bidding mistakes. It’s like giving lazy adults water wings so they can paddle around in the pool with veteran swimmers. What’s fair about that? Newbies who are offended by sniping eventually learn how eBay works and become snipers themselves. Those who don’t catch on quickly and leave eBay forever in a huff probably wouldn’t have become long-term customers anyway.
The powers-that-be at eBay are smarter than you think. They recognize that eBay is successful because of a fragile dynamic that’s been created, possibly by accident. In its current incarnation, eBay attracts lots of sellers because they feel they can get good prices for their goods. The site attracts lots of buyers because they feel they are getting bargains. Changes that aid one group or another at the expense of another upset the balance. Be careful of what you wish for: you just might get it.