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| Home » Forums » Software and Services » Is sniping wrong? (Page 1 of 1) |
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Author
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Is sniping wrong?
(Read 1571 times)
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Mario Vodopivec
Points: 5 
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Re: Is sniping wrong?
« Reply #1
on: May 14, 2007, 2:08pm »
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I completely disagree with the statement above. It is wrong to make sniping a moral issue and look at the auction behaviour as "social" or "antisocial". The whole motivation behind auctions is proper market pricing, and buying / selling something at a rational price. Many business and government contracts are awarded following a closed-bid auction process, which is the equivalent of auctions in which everybody snipes.
As for your conclusions, it cannot possibly be the case that both buyers and sellers lose because of sniping. Buyers who get angry should have placed their maximum bid right away, so if they get angry, this is only because they were not rational to begin with, and they should be angry at themselves, not snipers. Sellers have absolutely no reason to get angry - for them it doesn't matter at all at which moment the bid was placed, except if they counted on irrational bidder's behaviour (bidding war), which is then not in buyers' best interest.
So sniping does not damage the community at all, it only alters rules somewhat towards more rational behaviour, which is what auctions are all about.
Mario.
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bsquared
Points: 45 
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Re: Is sniping wrong?
« Reply #5
on: Aug 19, 2007, 1:21pm »
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AuctionSplash Ltd wrote: I agree that sniping is anti-social. The reason for this is that it puts off new sellers when all the bids come in the last few seconds of an auction. My dad sells antique prints and does so at normal real life auctions. He was amazed at eBay where you item gathers very few bidders (if any) and then sells within the last 5 minutes due to late bidders/snipers. The whole eBay experience is more pleasant for a seller if they have bids coming in over the whole period of the auction.
The whole benefit for buyers in sniping is that they get the item for a lower price so this must mean that the negative for sellers is that they get a lower price.
Regards,
Trevor
www.auctionsplash.com
(we do not offer sniping)
You might have missed the point of eBay then. A seller is trying to get maximum value for the item, the buyer is trying to get maximum value for his money.
As a seller you have a hit counters and various other tools at your disposal to see whether your item is generating interest. This is the whole point of the first 6 days of a 7 day auction (IMO), rather like the cataloging of items by a sale room. Then as the auction reaches it's close the serious bidders come in and this is then akin to the a real auction in a sale room, after all an auctioneer doesn't tout for more bids for hours or days - he sells it quickly. If you aren't getting market value for your items, then you need to look at your starting bid.
Don't blame the snipers, quite often a sniper will come in with a relaistic bid and, whilst not winning the item, they will keep the other bidders 'honest' often pushing the price up a long way in the last few seconds. Therefore sniping should be seen as an integral and necessary part of the online auction process.
Bob (an unashamed sniper and Powerseller)
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jewelry4me
Points: 65 
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Re: Is sniping wrong?
« Reply #6
on: Sep 7, 2007, 12:09am »
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Hello,
For a great discussion (well, newsletter actually) on the ethics of sniping, you should check out this article:
BidSlammer sniping service newsletters
Click on "Is Sniping Ethical?" I thought it was pretty well written. They go over the pro's and con's.
Given that the article was written by a sniping site, the article is a little biased toward the pro's, but then again, in my humble opinion, sniping is mostly pro's anyway. They said: "Being a sniping service, naturally we are biased toward the positive, but we hope we have done a good job of explaining all the issues."
The cons are "it hurts sales" which is debatable. I personally would not even buy on eBay without sniping, so it's a paradox. "Poor sportsmanship" is another. Well, that's fair. ;-)
One problem I was having is that people looked at jewelry I bid on and then went to oher auctions I bid on and stole it away from me! Sniping took care of that. I can keep my interest in the auction totally secret.
If you guys disagree please don't rake me over the coals, I just though you might like the article. I hope Ebay never bans sniping.
[Last edited by jewelry4me: Sep 7, 2007, 12:17am]
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