Question:
Here we go again. — Laurie "The point at issue is not whether Maine and Texas may now talk to one another, but rather whether they have anything significant to say." Henry David Thoreau , reacting to the news that Maine and Texas had been connected by telegraph lines
Why doesn’t ebay extend the end of auctions until X number of minutes (say 2 or 5) goes by without any bids? Sellers would win because they would realize higher
prices. Buyers would win because they would have a fair chance of bidding. Ebay would win
because higher prices would mean higher revenue. The only losers I can think of would be
snipers. Am I missing – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – something here? Wayne
Response:
No it isn’t. In the real world an auction finishes when the auctioneer is satisfied there are no more bids to come. It does not finish because it’s tea-time. Yahoo offer a 5-minute extension after the last bid as an option to sellers. This makes sniping pointless.
Bingo… and that’s why it’s a bad idea… a person not sniping equals one lost bid. The theory that people will bid earlier only holds water if in fact people make their best bid (i.e. a liberal proxy bid) earlier in the auction… experience thus far suggests that most bidders are very conservative, even when bidding "their maximum". So far as I can see, sniping mainly benefits buyers. the only time sellers benefit is if they’re lucky enough to get two snipers having a shot at the same time.
If I get even one sniper, and the bid price gets raised by only a few cents, that’s still better than not getting any sniper. The idea of proxy bidding one’s maximum is a way of dealing with the static end time, and [theoretically] a good preventetive to losing to a snipe. If you take away both of those elements, one loses the entire basis for the proxy bidding system in the first place, and bidders will still continue to bid in very small increments. -Tim K.
Response:
Why doesn’t ebay extend the end of auctions until X number of minutes (say 2 or 5) goes by without any bids? Sellers would win because they would realize higher prices. Buyers would win because they would have a fair chance of bidding. Ebay would win because higher prices would mean higher revenue. The only losers I can think of would be snipers. Am I missing something here?
That’s assuming one big thing… that people would continue to place bids at the end of the auction repetetively, driving up the price by one, two, three, or however many bids. Is it really reasonable to expect that people will just keep bidding indefinitely? In fact, if anything, I think you’ll stifle bidding with this scheme, as there will no longer be any real sense in sniping… and that amounts to a lost bid. The only people you’ll see bidding in the last few minutes–and making the dynamic end time even relevant–will be those who only find your auction in the closing minutes. As we’ve covered in previous threads regarding this very issue, no matter what artificial methodologies you employ to attempt to draw higher bid prices, people only get so much money in each paycheck, and ultimately can only afford to spend so much on eBay auctions… even if you could drive up prices on some, then that’s money that wouldn’t be spent elsewhere. And something tells me that when push comes to shove, and people have to start budgeting their money, eBay bidding isn’t likely to get preference. -Tim K.
Response:
You have to have two or more to snipe. With only one, it’s bidding. The Drone wrote – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -So far as I can see, sniping mainly benefits buyers. the only time sellers benefit is if they’re lucky enough to get two snipers having a shot at the same time.
Response:
says… Bingo… and that’s why it’s a bad idea… a person not sniping equals one lost bid. The theory that people will bid earlier only holds water if in fact people make their best bid (i.e. a liberal proxy bid) earlier in the auction… experience thus far suggests that most bidders are very conservative, even when bidding "their maximum".
Bid extensions have been used in telephone auctions for years. There it’s not a theory, it’s fact. It works and it works well, if done right. They recognized the problem with sniping and did something about it. Once again I ask, who loses under bid extension? Buyers will not leave ebay. There’s nowhere else to go. Wayne
Response:
NOSPAM.net.invalid.net.com.gov writes snip so an extension is based on a wrong premise. Duhh? The wrong premise is this: an extension will cut sniping. But why would it? An extension that no one knows about won’t garner any more bids except by pure chance. The snipe still stands as a bid, so where is the advantage for anyone?
The advantage is that if a buyer wants to go on-line around the end of an auction, he can respond to a late bid. It seems axiomatic to me that snipers snipe because they see it as advantageous to them – in other words, they get the item for less. If that is so (and I can’t see any other reason for doing it) then the corollary is that it is disadvantageous to sellers. It is also disadvantageous to other bidders. One of the advantages of auctions is that its open nature gives everyone a better idea of the market price. Suppose someone has something rare to sell that I rate at about 1000 USD (for the sake of argument). Were I wanting to buy it, apart from wanting it and having the money, I would also like an idea of what I might get if I eventually re-sold it. If you /know/ that one or more other people have bid high (say 1200), it would give me more confidence to increase my bid knowing that others consider it to be worth more and I might get that sort of price when I decided I wanted to sell it. If somebody else has bid a few seconds before the end, I can’t respond. The upshot is that I’m bidding blind so I will tend to keep my bids down. A particular case arose with one of my own sales (start 160 USD, NR.) Nothing much happened for 9 days, 23 hours and 50 minutes. Then loads of bids (in smallish increments of about 20) with the highest two bids in the last minute. The loser ended up bidding 0.50c less than the winner. Had he known and had a chance to respond, he might have nudged it up another 5 (and so might the winner have done in turn). That might sound like I’m after every last buck (which, if I’m selling, is nice) but it’s not the main reason I’d prefer extensions. I just think it would be a fairer way of doing things for the seller as well as all the bidders – particularly with less common, higher value stuff. I would also suggest it were the seller’s choice. Not everyone would want it so good luck to them. I just don’t understand why eBay can’t offer it as an option. Well, that’s what I think. — Peter
Response:
Once again I ask, who loses under bid extension? Buyers will not leave ebay. There’s nowhere else to go.
Oops, apparently you missed me in your poll of all buyers 
. I’d probably go. For one thing, there are plenty of other places to go (I’m interested in acquiring particular items, not participating in an auction, and there is no shortage of acquisition opportunities), and for another thing, I’m not buying a thing I can’t do without, so even if there weren’t any place else to go it wouldn’t matter much. I don’t monitor auctions–I snipe, semi-snipe, or use Buy It Now, and one of my main goals is to minimize time spent. While obviously there are buyers with different approaches, I think that I’m representative of a significant segment. I use eBay when it’s the easiest way to acquire something I like. If you make it harder, I’ll get it elsewhere or do without it. We’re talking seriously elastic demand here . Obviously this approach won’t matter for popular items with plenty of thrill-of-the-chase fans. However, there are plenty of items in my area of interest where I’ve either been the only bidder or my bidding considerably altered the final price. I think that a lot of specialized bidders have the same effect and the same approach, and auction extensions would result in a consequent loss of revenue for some kinds of sales. Sure, to most sellers it won’t matter the slightest if I live, die, or renounce all worldly possessions. But to some I suspect it will, and I think it’s a mistake to consider all auctions and buyers the same in the face of significant diversity. Deborah Stevenson
Response:
Why doesn’t ebay extend the end of auctions until X number of minutes (say 2 or 5) goes by without any bids? Sellers would win because they would realize higher prices. Buyers would win because they would have a fair chance of bidding. Ebay would win because higher prices would mean higher revenue. The only losers I can think of would be snipers. Am I missing something here? Wayne
Response:
I can see eBay offering such an option, for an extra fee. The question becomes: how many would complain? And if you saw such an auction, would you bid? Kris Why doesn’t ebay extend the end of auctions until X number of minutes (say 2 or 5) goes by without any bids? Sellers would win because they would realize higher
prices. Buyers would win because they would have a fair chance of bidding. Ebay would win
because higher prices – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -would mean higher revenue. The only losers I can think of would be snipers. Am I missing something here? Wayne
Response:
Personally, I don’t like the idea. How much time do you need? The time is the time is the time.
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -I can see eBay offering such an option, for an extra fee. The question becomes: how many would complain? And if you saw such an auction, would you bid? Kris Why doesn’t ebay extend the end of auctions until X number of minutes (say 2 or 5) goes by without any bids? Sellers would win because they would realize higher prices. Buyers would win because they would have a fair chance of bidding. Ebay would win because higher prices would mean higher revenue. The only losers I can think of would be snipers. Am I missing something here? Wayne
Response:
Personally, I don’t like the idea. How much time do you need? The time is the time is the time.
No it isn’t. In the real world an auction finishes when the auctioneer is satisfied there are no more bids to come. It does not finish because it’s tea-time. Yahoo offer a 5-minute extension after the last bid as an option to sellers. This makes sniping pointless. So far as I can see, sniping mainly benefits buyers. the only time sellers benefit is if they’re lucky enough to get two snipers having a shot at the same time. I spent more hours than I care to think about e-arguing about this with eBay support. To their credit they did reply at length but I feel they countered my arguments with non-sequiturs rather than addressing any of them. The upshot is that they are disinclined to even think about it and so we are stuck with either putting up with it or trying elsewhere. — Peter
Response:
NOSPAM.net.invalid.net.com.gov writes snip quote Several problems: I don’t think so. Why extend the auction because there aren’t any bids? Yahoo did this, and rthey had to put a stop to it. I’ll take your word for that, the last thing I bought there had a 5-minute extension after the final bid. The point is to extend it for a few minutes (2-5) after the final bid to give others a chance to respond to bids made by others near the original end time.
What I meant (and didn’t put well) is that Yahoo had the ultime extension: if it didn’t sell, you could relist forever for free. If there are no more bids, sellers won’t see any higher bids. And the auction will stop in 2-5 minutes. Buyers need a "fair chance" at bidding? What happened to the buyers during the normal auction time? Their (maximum) bids still stand.
So where’s the problem? If any bidder’s max bid stands, why extend the auction? If you are proposing this as a counter to snipers, then you will also have to find a way to let the other bidders know that the auction’s being extended. How will Ebay do that? They won’t. With this feature, sniping will become less prevalent so more people will place their bids before rather than at the end time. The auction will therefore end at the end time. If someone bids within a few minutes of that end time the auction will end a few minutes after that. It is very unlikely that any auction would go on for more than (say) 20-30 minutes after the published end-time and only if people are on-line increasing their bids.
If the extension won’t mean anything to other bidders, then sniping will continue. If an auction is set to end at, say, 4:00pm, and a sniper extends the auction for, say, 5 minutes, but no one knows about it, the snipe is still good. How will this cut sniping? What you are missing is the nature of online auctions. They differ from live auctions in that the bidders aren’t physically at the auction, Gosh, well I never.
That’s what I thought. so an extension is based on a wrong premise. Duhh?
The wrong premise is this: an extension will cut sniping. But why would it? An extension that no one knows about won’t garner any more bids except by pure chance. The snipe still stands as a bid, so where is the advantage for anyone? — Peter
Bill Funk bfunk1 on Ebay
Response:
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Why doesn’t ebay extend the end of auctions until X number of minutes (say 2 or 5) goes by without any bids? Sellers would win because they would realize higher prices. Buyers would win because they would have a fair chance of bidding. Ebay would win because higher prices would mean higher revenue. The only losers I can think of would be snipers. Am I missing something here? Wayne The joy and challenge of a fixed deadline would be gone, lowering prices, interest, and participation. What if a real auctioneer said "Let’s wait another hour or so to see if anybody new comes in and bids"???
In a real auction, the auctioneer keeps the auction open until all bids have been placed. He doesn’t set a time limit to keep people from bidding. The highest bid wins. People keep bidding until the highest price has been realized. They don’t turn down the lights then say, "OK, after I turn the lights back on, the first person to bid on the next item will win it." (Optical snipers) If some buyers don’t like this ending, where are they going to go? Yahoo? They’ll have to live with it. Eventually, they’ll come back. They have no choice. Ebay has a monopoly on online auctions and can dictate whatever policy they so desire. Wayne
Response:
snip Sure, to most sellers it won’t matter the slightest if I live, die, or renounce all worldly possessions. But to some I suspect it will, and I think it’s a mistake to consider all auctions and buyers the same in the face of significant diversity. But no-one’s suggesting /compulsory/ extensions.
And I wasn’t suggesting they were. I was just pointing out that the stated notions that buyers wouldn’t leave as a consequence and they couldn’t have any negative effect are not necessarily true. I can absolutely see why the idea is appealing, however. Deborah Stevenson
Response:
says… Thank you, Richard, for pointing out so fluently where the big flaws with the dynamic end time are. The only people who will be affected are the snipers, who will no longer be able to place a true snipe, and will thus have less reason to do so.
One would think that is so in theory, but in the real world, it can work if done right. I’ve participated in those telephone auctions with bid extension endings. Telephone auctions are very similar to internet auctions except they cost more (long distance calls). The system works. Of course the trick to making it work is that the item being auctioned has to be something desirable. Collectors will go to the ends of the earth to acquire what is desirable to them… or to keep their rivals from getting it. Consumer goods won’t cut it. Wayne
Response:
One would think that is so in theory, but in the real world, it can work if done right. I’ve participated in those telephone auctions with bid extension endings. Telephone auctions are very similar to internet auctions except they cost more (long distance calls). The system works. Of course the trick to making it work is that the item being auctioned has to be something desirable. Collectors will go to the ends of the earth to acquire what is desirable to them… or to keep their rivals from getting it. Consumer goods won’t cut it.
I will definitely agree with you there… if you’re selling in a niche market of collectibles, etc, then the system could definitely be advantageous. My thinking was of the more general case on eBay, being any of a number of miscellaneous item types. The other crucial element to making it work, though, would be to make sure your auction ending time was one where all of your interested parties could reasonably be online at the end…. 2am would probably be a bad ending time, for instance. But yes, if your item is truly desirable, I can see how you might get a few extra bids this way. -Tim K.
Response:
"Onsale" used to have automatic time extensions on their auctions, and I hated it. Auctions could go on and on for hours, and I just didn’t have time to watch. After the first few times, I gave up bidding on items on Onsale. I’m sure that e-bay has to constantly balance "what sellers what" against "what buyers want". Neither group, buyers or sellers can exist without the other. If they alienate buyers, even if it is good for sellers, that could be a big problem as auctions would close for less money because of fewer buyers. Maybe a compromise position of a short extension of say 2 minutes per bid, up to say a total of 10 minutes would be workable. Bryan — Remove the "X"s Thanks!
Response:
The point generally ignored by people who propose these extentions is that the only group helped are people who are sitting at their computers, waiting for the auctions to close. Who is this group primarily composed of? Does the word "snipers" sound familiar to anyone? So eBay is supposed to extend auctions so that snipers can have the opportunity to raise their bid if they are outbid? This would tend to discourage people from bidding early and bidding their max, wouldn’t it, since a sniper would always have another shot to keep raising the bar a little further till they outbid the prior winning bidder by one bid increment?
Thank you, Richard, for pointing out so fluently where the big flaws with the dynamic end time are. The only people who will be affected are the snipers, who will no longer be able to place a true snipe, and will thus have less reason to do so. I’m still amazed to hear the repetetive argument about how a dynamic end time would "solve the problem of sniping". But, if nobody snipes, then no auction would ever be extended anyway. The benefit (to the seller) of an extended auction only exists if in fact a very late bid (i.e. a snipe) takes place at all… but this same system would also discourage individuals from sniping, and thus to imply that such a system would be of benefit seems a bit of a circular argument. The second point ignored by people who want to screw around with a part of the system that’s working relatively well, is that this isn’t a live auction. If you want a live auction, you put everyone in a room, commence the bidding, and have them bid till they get tired or run out of money. Until you can do the equivalent of doing that online, you can’t make online auctions the same as live auctions, because the dynamics are entirely different.
Very well stated. -Tim K.
Response:
But how would those other bidders know the auction has been extended? So far, this has not been explained, and it would seem that the concept of extended auctions hinges on the idea of the other bidders somehow knowing they’ve been outbid.
Not only that, but I think in order for an automatic extension to work, it would have to be significantly longer than just a few minutes… even an hour would likely not suffice. What good is an extension if the bidders don’t have sufficient time to go back and place another bid? -Tim K.
Response:
Simple, they’d be notified just like they are notified when the auction ends by eBay. Of course, since those can take anywhere up to two or three days at times, you’d have to extend the auctions by that much to make it have much effect, plus a day or two for people who don’t live by their computers waiting for an email. The point generally ignored by people who propose these extentions is that the only group helped are people who are sitting at their computers, waiting for the auctions to close. Who is this group primarily composed of? Does the word "snipers" sound familiar to anyone? So eBay is supposed to extend auctions so that snipers can have the opportunity to raise their bid if they are outbid? This would tend to discourage people from bidding early and bidding their max, wouldn’t it, since a sniper would always have another shot to keep raising the bar a little further till they outbid the prior winning bidder by one bid increment? The second point ignored by people who want to screw around with a part of the system that’s working relatively well, is that this isn’t a live auction. If you want a live auction, you put everyone in a room, commence the bidding, and have them bid till they get tired or run out of money. Until you can do the equivalent of doing that online, you can’t make online auctions the same as live auctions, because the dynamics are entirely different. Richard Ward – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – <snip But how would those other bidders know the auction has been extended? So far, this has not been explained, and it would seem that the concept of extended auctions hinges on the idea of the other bidders somehow knowing they’ve been outbid. <snip Bill Funk bfunk1 on Ebay
Response:
Bid the MAXIMUM you are willing to spend. You won’t lose unless someone else was willing to place a HIGHER maximum…whether it was one day or one minute or one second before the end of the auction. CASE CLOSED. No it isn’t. As I said elsewhere, it’s possible bidders might increase their maximum if they see a higher level of interest. If this sounds implausible, I can see it happening for two reasons. It might convince them that their original thoughts were optimistic and it might convince them that (when the time came) re-sale prospects were better than they first imagined.
But how would those other bidders know the auction has been extended? So far, this has not been explained, and it would seem that the concept of extended auctions hinges on the idea of the other bidders somehow knowing they’ve been outbid. Don’t be so dogmatic. Not everyone thinks or behaves the same way as you any more than they think or behave the same way as me. — Peter
Bill Funk bfunk1 on Ebay
Response:
Bid the MAXIMUM you are willing to spend. You won’t lose unless someone else was willing to place a HIGHER maximum…whether it was one day or one minute or one second before the end of the auction. CASE CLOSED.
No it isn’t. As I said elsewhere, it’s possible bidders might increase their maximum if they see a higher level of interest. If this sounds implausible, I can see it happening for two reasons. It might convince them that their original thoughts were optimistic and it might convince them that (when the time came) re-sale prospects were better than they first imagined. Don’t be so dogmatic. Not everyone thinks or behaves the same way as you any more than they think or behave the same way as me. — Peter
Response:
Bid the MAXIMUM you are willing to spend. You won’t lose unless someone else was willing to place a HIGHER maximum…whether it was one day or one minute or one second before the end of the auction. CASE CLOSED. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Why doesn’t ebay extend the end of auctions until X number of minutes (say 2 or 5) goes by without any bids? Sellers would win because they would realize higher prices. Buyers would win because they would have a fair chance of bidding. Ebay would win because higher prices would mean higher revenue. The only losers I can think of would be snipers. Am I missing something here? Wayne
Response:
snip Sure, to most sellers it won’t matter the slightest if I live, die, or renounce all worldly possessions. But to some I suspect it will, and I think it’s a mistake to consider all auctions and buyers the same in the face of significant diversity.
But no-one’s suggesting /compulsory/ extensions. I’d just like the choice as to how I sell my things. If I choose to extend and you therefore choose not to bid we’ve both exercised a choice. Right now, I don’t have one to exercise. — Peter
Response:
Bid extensions have been used in telephone auctions for years. There it’s not a theory, it’s fact. It works and it works well, if done right. They recognized the problem with sniping and did something about it.
"It works well, if done right" is really the key issue…. on eBay this has yet to be observed… whether or not changing the auction format as you’ve suggested would truly change bidding patterns remains to speculate. The system of placing proxy bids also works very well, if done right… problem is, on eBay, we all know it isn’t done right. (Hence why sniping happens at all) Doesn’t give me much faith that it would be done right under a new system. Once again I ask, who loses under bid extension?
Sellers may lose under a bid extension…. let me explain my logic once more… An auction will only need to be extended if there’s a bid within the last X minutes of it’s originally scheduled time, namely a snipe. If there’s no late bid, then no other bidder will need a chance to bid again, for they won’t have been outbid in the first place. As has already been suggested in this thread, if you add a dynamic end time, you take away the motivation for a snipe. And without a snipe, there will be no extension to the bidding, and no additional bids. The way I can see how dynamic end times might be very beneficial to sellers is if multiple interested bidders were all online during the final few minutes, and initiated a bidding war. However, to make it work I think the time extension would have to be significantly longer than just a few minutes.. probably at least a few hours. Otherwise, I don’t think the chances of a second place bidder even noticing they’ve been outbid are very good. Buyers will not leave ebay. There’s nowhere else to go.
I’ll agree with that, to an extent, but I fail to see how that necessarily helps to get higher bids. Any given bidder will place their bid either during the auction with plenty of time to go, or during the waning the minutes (or seconds). Most of those within the latter group do late bidding with the hopes of getting a good price. If they lose this motivation, they’ll perhaps have to bid higher, but they can’t do so as freqently. On the average, they’ll still only have the same amount of money to spend. -Tim K.
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