It’s a nifty trick you can use as well. I always bid slightly higher by 1 increment in case two bidders clash.
For example don’t bid at $50, do $50.50 (next increment). Secures a win whenever you clash.
Most likely coincidence in my opinion. I know what it means to be frugal because money sometimes can be difficult for some of us in the hobby. The “couple of dollars above my max” part is most likely because their max bid is actually much higher and they just won the bid. For example.
You bid 25.00 on an item.
Someone else bids 27
Someone bids 50
The person who bid 50 won’t have to pay the $50 price, it’ll just show up as $28 or something similar.
I like to think of it as this way, “How many coffees above my max am I comfortable going with?”
For me, the answer is usually 2 or 3 generally. So I’ll always leave my snipe bid at that amount.
I also like to imagine the psychology of certain listings - I know that a listing with 2 or 3 bids after a week doesn’t have a lot of attention, so people are unlikely to bid much higher than their current max - I’ll bid higher in those circumstances last minute. I have no evidence for this outside of observation, but the thought process helps me win more than I lose.
With listings with multiple bids, I usually have a “comfortable max bid” and then a “reach max bid” as a backup.
The last few years, I’ve also made it a priority to place boundaries on listings, so if a bid reaches past something I’m uncomfortable with, I accept that it’s no longer accessible to me.
But yeah, losing auctions can be frustrating. Best to learn, adapt, and see what you’re able to work with. Best of luck!
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I will usually consider what the max is I’m willing to bid, then add 10% or so to that. Because usually when I do lose to a snipe, I’m thinking “well shit he only beat me by $xx, I would have been willing to pay that to win”
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What’s wrong with sniping software? I use them all the time
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The reason I snipe is because you didn’t put your max bid in the first place. I have my max bid. If I put my max bid right away you might reevaluate your position and pay more. I remove that competition by sniping.
Another reason why I snipe is because shills or nibblers like to run up auction prices to your current bid. I don’t give them the chance to do that. I’d rather win for less than my max than at my max if that makes sense. It’s getting a good deal.
A third reason for sniping is that it removes your own emotions from the process. There was a card I wanted that rarely comes up for sale at auction. It only has really high BIN prices but the 2-3 auctions a year that do appear will historically go for significantly less. A good example is Ancient Mew corrected. Its BIN prices are 1.5-2x+ more than previous auction prices.
My snipe was over 2x the last auction (which was before COVID) and what I felt comfortable paying. I still lost. Had there been more time I might had bid even more just to have the card. I have been FOMOing a couple cards because I’m genuinely afraid they’ll be 10x the price in the next five years, but I’m not too certain either so I’m not going to offer 10x right this minute.
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All good points, there are advantages to sniping. Here’s some points for the other side -
You can’t deny that sniping gives an unfair disadvantage to non-snipers because they either have to put their max bid upfront or commit to being at their screen when the auction is near end. Anyone uninformed/ new to eBay bidding is at a loss. Notice that eBay doesn’t have a snipe option itself, I’m surprised they allow third party software to take control in this way. I’d ideally like to see eBay put a big “place snipe bid” button like Buyee does. I agree that if everyone sniped auctions may end lower.
haha I know this feel allll too well lately 
If you are not sniping with your highest bid then you are doing it wrong, period.
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Even if sniping softwares didn’t exist, those people would still have to use one of the approaches you describe (because sniping would still be a thing). Nothing would have changed for you, the only difference would be that everyone else would have to waste their time too
Sorry if I sound harsh, but I think your case is built on bitterness rather than a rational view on the snipe-bid strategy
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I like the idea of an honorable 1 vs 1 bidding duel, Clint Eastwood style. But if an important item is ending somewhere in Ohio when it’s 4 am on a weeknight here in Europe, I’m taking every help I can get.
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If you are really this bothered by snipers on ebay, then ebay auctions are not for you. In an anonymous auction setting over the internet like ebay it is impossible to have a 1 v 1 bidding duel. It is not how the system is built. Sniping on ebay has been around longer than sniping software so it will always be part of it.
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Hearing what y’all said and using my own logic I have eased my original concern about sniping software -
I was afraid that software would always put $1 above the current bid regardless of your max. The fastest bidding software would usually win (as long as it is backed by a higher max bid than current bid). I now know this is false, the software always puts in your full max bid. Imagine how low auctions would end if this was the case!?!
My only remaining issue is equality of opportunity for everyone, even those who are out-of-the-know about sniping software (explained more in my previous post). Everyone waste their time waiting for a manual snipe or, better yet, no one waste time and integrate auto-snipe into eBay. @nevyn I appreciate your straight-forwardness and I assure you this concern is not out of my own bitterness of being a non-auto-sniping dinosaur. It’s a concern for the eBay community.
Anywhoo it’s just my opinion, let’s keep it light-hearted, fun, and respectful.
Meanwhile, me, at 4 am:
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Yeah, sorry if I was a little too straight-forward or downright rude. Sometimes my inner keyboard warrior takes over and write stupid things. In the end I just want to help you out and to understand how the sniping softwares work. It’s nothing wrong with bidding manually, infact I do it myself just as often as I use Gixen.
Anyway, I wish you good fortunes in the bidding wars to come. May you win them all (unless it’s against me) 
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It’s a super neat system. It’s similar to a Vickrey auction with some small exceptions. Before eBay it was only really economists who had championed this sort of “paying the second highest bid” auctions, but in setting up the site forever ago the data showed that it ended up being a better system for everyone in the end. My strategy if I want to win an item is to put an insanely high bid super early on to discourage people testing the water. Once they see the price jump 20-30 dollars and they still aren’t the high bidder, they usually move on.
Please avoid bumping threads that are over 2 months old
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