I was 3 seconds away from winning this frame:

https://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MEDW:IT&ih=007



Now can someone tell me, would it have been a deal?

I wanted to built it up into a nice light weekend racer. It would have been my first build.

Did I miss out on a deal? I was outbid by a dollar fifty

"Be the sniper, Danny ... "

Don't hate the player........hate the game...

I feel your pain, I lost a nice TET frame yesterday too...my fingers just couldn't up my max bid fast enough and I lost it by 33 cents!

what do you guys think though, would it have been a deal? I'm still new to this bicycle obsession and I don't have a enough knowledge about prices of things. Would $120ish be a good deal for that frame? It's the right size for me ...

It's easy to think you lost by a dollar fifty, but you might have been outbid by $500.00. Only the buyer and eBay security would be able to tell you.

I like sniping, because it helps take the emotion out of bidding. I find something I like, decide what it is worth to me, set that amount in my sniper, and walk away. If I win, I win, if not, there will always be another one.

Nah, hold out for steel!

I don't find sniping objectionable, either. Besides, it's part of the "eBay experience" (https://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/outbid-ov.html). If you want to stand the best chance of winning, bid as close to the end of the auction as you can, assume there will be last second snipers, and always, always bid the maximum you're willing to pay. You may still be outbid. But, if not, their proxy bidding system will only bid as little of your maximum bid as it needs in order to win.

I agree to hold out for steel, a nice butted steel bike in similar condition I believe would be definitely worth the 120. that bike has really ugly rear dropouts.

I think whoever won the bidding got a good deal. Then again, I see quite a few Guerciottis on eBay like this one. Keep your eyes peeled and another will show up before too long. The fact that it's a large frame should help to keep your cost down when you do find one (fewer bidders). BTW, if you haven't already done so, you might want to set up a saved search for "Guerciotti". Then eBay will email you once a day when it finds matches. You may also want to do a worldwide search on eBay, which is what I do.

I snipe. If I didn't snipe, I'd have to quit ebay entirely. If you can ebay without sniping, you have my respect; but please don't expect me to follow your admirable example.

If you don't snipe, but want to know how, I suggest www.esnipe.com, but no doubt there are others.

A friend gave me this...

Place your bid anytime.
Your bid amount just has to be the MOST you would ever possibly pay for that item.
Then add $100.

It's worked every time.....I call it the "sniper killer"!

Good luck bidding!

I agree. This is an early Alan Aluminum frame, so for me I wouldn't regret losing it to another bidder.

Hold out for a nice steel frame.

So you were essentially aluminum foiled.

So sorry (for the joke).

Someone. Anyone. Please. Tell me what the difference is between going with a sniping program/service or simply entering in a max bid through ebay.

Usually, if there's something I want, I figure out how much I'd pay for it, say this frame for $120. Now $120 is too even a number that probably someone else is also willing to pay. So my max bid would be something on the order of $127.51 to cover a bit of overage, plus the next incremental bid ($2.50) over that amount. Then, if I lose, it was truly more than I was willing to pay, usually by enough of a margin that I don't feel bad about it.

Are people worried about seller socks bidding the price up or something?

As opposed to sniping, where your price is entered last and there's a flurry of last minute bidding. Same automatic entry, just different timing or something?

I've won plenty of stuff and even got some deals using my max bid strategery. Come across something, "Oh, that's nice, I'd pay $xx.xx for it," enter my max bid, walk away. Check after the auction ends and see if I won it.

Bidding over what you really want to pay for something in the last minutes of an auction is a sucker's game--you see it all the time at live auctions as well. Noob mistake.

Sniping is just laying down your max bid in the last minute or so of the auction, as opposed to doing the same earlier. You don't need a program or a service or anything to do it, just enough dedication to be at your computer at the right time.

As a buyer, it's in your best interest to put down your max bid as late as possible in the game. Basically because, when you lay down a bid it lets other interested parties know that there's competition for the item, and the earlier you do so, the more time they have to scrounge around behind the couch/etc for a bit of extra cash so they can set their max bid higher than they would have otherwise (and potentially outbid you).

(Conversely, as a seller, it's in your best interest to get some low bids going early, so the interested people scrounge around and bid higher.)

This would be true IF the other buyer knows what my maximum bid is... to assume that there will be no competition means entering a low sniper bid... which could lose anyway. I occasionally get my winning bid bumped up at the last minute by unsuccessful snipe attempts, and sometimes get beat... Either way, I bid as much as I was willing to pay. I either get it, or it was too expensive.

Also, because I bid as soon as I am sure I want an item, I know that many people who bid early, only bid a token amount, hoping that nobody else bids and they get a real steal. I often bid my max (say $50) with another bid already in for the starting bid (say $0.99) and then I become the high bidder at $1.24 (or whatever the first increment is).

I really think that recent Ebay marketing (the thrill of the hunt) has captured the spirit of sniping... It isn't that sniping gets you a better deal, but it sure makes you think that you earned it.

I almost always do as suggested above, and bid an uneven amount, just to keep it interesting. Someone else did the same on a bike I recently bought, because my final price was $98.76 which was not my maximum bid. This would drive Monk crazy, but I am fine with it.

And technically it is not to your advantage to bid late... since if there are 2 bids of the same amount, the first one wins.

Also, I have received an email to "stop bidding, I really want it" and all that was happening was the person kept bidding small increases, and my proxy kept outbidding them.

I have nothing against snipers, as I think everyone should bid however they enjoy bidding, I just think they are fooling themselves if they think it gets better deals.

This is exactly why I snipe.
If l lay down my max bid right off the bat, it seems the newbies will nick away at it a dollar at a time until they finally best it. I just wait till the last second and come in with the sledge hammer. They don't get the chance to "peck" at me that way. If the bid advances past what I'm willing to pay for the item, I just don't bid, and haven't lost anything.

Sniping works in auctions were the bidders do not unconditionally bid the max that they are willing to pay. Because their bidding is conditioned on how many previous bids there are, the starting price, etc it is best for the sniper to hold their fire until the last second to avoid provoking a bidding war against these types of bidders.

A mass of bidders like you, Little Darwin, are the bane of snipers Because your bid is not conditioned on anything besides what you are willing to pay, the auction time, start price, end time of the auction, how much money there is under couch, phase of the moon, etc etc cannot be used to the sniper's advantage. Fortunately, many bidders aren't as smart as you, and this is why sniping works

I do enjoy the thrill of the hunt sometimes (although rarely), but all I can say is best of luck to all C&V members in their bidding. It can only help to keep classic and vintage bikes and components out of the hands of the "Phillistines".

You bid $100 more than you are willing to pay? I am glad it worked for you so far but...

I have often loss auctions because I was not willing to pay $100 more. If I did it your way, I would have won a lot more auctions, but have also paid $100 more than I was willing to pay.

No, I snipe and I enter the max I am willing to pay. If the auction goes over that, then that is ok. I snipe for the same reason as mentioned above, it doesn't beat other snipers, it beats the newbie that bids the minimum increment. I do believe it has saved me money. If the newbie is willing to pay $50 for an item and I am willing to pay $51, I will win. But if I put my max in early, I will pay $51. If I snipe and the newbie is waiting at the pc ready to put the minimum increment, then I might only pay $25, because it doesn't give the increment bidder enough time to enter more bids up to his $50 max.

I also like the "no emotion" part of it. I don't get carried away by the bidding and bid more than I wanted. I see an item that I want. I put the max price down in a file. Start esniper and esniper does all the work for me. Another great thing about esniper is the quantity setting. I was looking for a rear derailer and there were a few that I liked. I entered them all in the file with the max price for each one and set the quantity for "1". Esniper will bid your max for each auction when you tell it to, if you win, it stops, if you don't it will go to the next auction. I think the rear derailer that I won was the third auction on a list of about 5. Oh, and I won it while sitting at a bar on Friday night. I came home and saw that I won.

How about when you do an Ebay search and this comes up in Completed Listings:

https://cgi.ebay.com/Battaglin-vintag...QQcmdZViewItem

I just made a lot of Yosemite Sam noises.

How did I miss it...HOW???

Not likely. The $1.50 is only the amount that the winning bidder will have to pay above and beyond your highest bid. More likely that the sniper bid exactly what he calculated he would need to bid to outbid everybody else, based on how badly he wants that item.

For what it's worth, I always snipe, because it's the only sensible strategy. Beginners always seem to think that if they top the previous bid, they're winning the auction.



Nonsense.

The auction winner is the one with the highest bid when the auction closes. If you want to win auctions, you decide how much you want that item, and how much more you're willing to pay for it than the other guy. Those bidding wars between newbies, where each one keeps trying to outbid the other in $5 increments, (or $10 increments, or $25 increments) only show that the bidders don't understand eBay auctions.

Example: You and some other newbie are outbidding each other in $5 increments on a bike that's worth $250. So one of you-- let's say it's you-- is at $95. Do you really think that I can't bid $250 on it, just because you're at $95? Or let's say it's worth $250, but I really want it. Do you think I can't bid $300 on it at the last second, just to make sure that I outbid everybody else?

Now, if you do believe that I can do this, WHY would you engage in a bidding war with some other newbie, and think that just because you placed the higher bid, you're in line to win the auction?