Naim NDX 2012

Scott,

As a seller I would absolutely disagree with sniping software - it makes a complete farce of the notion of an auction. An auction is where one buyer decides whether or not to increase their bid based on seeing the previous bid. Sniping software fundamentally skews an auction (in favour of buyers).

I wouldn't say I won't sell on eBay, but it's becoming less and less attractive (cost; sniping software and reports of eBay favouring buyers in any dispute being the main reasons not to), at least for anything serious like higher end Naim kit and I would like to try an alternative.

Nick

I had to google to know what this is about! I didn't realise what sniping was, nor that there was software to do. Whilst maybe software might be regarded as 'cheating' the whole theory of an aution site is place your highest bid and the site will auto id for you up to that limit, so you will get what you want if you're prepared to pay highest. Even those doing what I call brinkmanship, are only putting their highest bids in, and whoever puts highest will win, and presumably the software simply automates that, so I'm not sure how that is in buyer's favour? I've always done my bidding that way, simply in case someone has second thoughts about their maximum once they've seen that I have beaten them, but I've only ever done manually, and there is a risk of either forgetting to go in at the right time, or an Internet delay causes the bid to be too late, so I suppose that's where automation might be better, though how it works if multiple people are doing the same with the same software I don't know - sounds like a potential for a clash, with bidders missing out. I bid similarly in 'live' auctions, preferring to see everyone else (maybe) play out first before coming in, and never bid first unless the auctioneer has dropped and appears to be about to withdraw the item, because if no-one else bids that's the way to get cheapest. But then, live auctions are much more fun!

sorry, a bit of a digression here...

Damn, you beat me to it...

G

Sniping software allows a bidder to another a bid at the time the auction ends. (It's not the same as automatic bidding up the level of your maximum bid.) I daresay most people have fallen foul of such software, whether as buyer (losing out on something which you have dutifully followed till the last moment) or seller (achieving an artificially deflated sale price because no one bids in a "traditional" manner, relying instead on sniping software).

The point of an auction is that a bidder knows what the previous bid is,so that they can beat it if they wish to and have funds to be able to do so. If you allow software to send a bid at the precise time the auction ends (which in itself differs from a standard auction) then the process is skewed. I understand that there are auction sites which automatically extend the auction time by a set number of minutes when a high bid is entered at a time when the auction would otherwise have ended, which levels the playing field.

So, to be precise, the reason why sniping skews the process in favour of the buyer is a combination of sniping software/behaviour and fixed end times. The end result is that it is not a standard auction. If people use sniping software they're not bidding in the sense that I understand an auction.

Hey-ho.

+1, except I would never bid until the last minute.  It amazes me to see people bidding days in advance - just pushes the price up

And there, in a nutshell, is the problem for sellers! (Not criticising you, Dayjay, btw.)

That sounds great from the sellers point of view, as well as that of less aggressive buyers. I imagine it maximizes the bid, which after all is the point of an auction, while offering maximum fairness to all. Any hints as to names of such sites?

Can't remember. I think the police one. Search for something like auction with dynamic endings.