No Reserves- Suspecf Shills Sometimes.

ebay (and presumably Yahoo and other online auction sites) auctions often (usually?) see the most active bidding in the last few minutes of the auction. If a coin is in enough demand, the auction will not be determined until the last few SECONDS since some bidders will snipe an auction, meaning they're using a website or onboard program to submit a last-second bid. The object is to let an auction's current price "sit" with the highest bidder thinking s/he has it won, but the sniper putting in a higher bid at the last second that doesn't give the next highest bidder a chance to respond. The way around a snipe is to submit the highest amount you are willing to pay for a coin OR to submit a snipe of your own and let the computers fight among themselves to sort it out.

While there is a fair amount of shilling on ebay, this usually happens earlier in an auction to drive up the price closer to what the seller wants to realize and to stimulate or initiate a bidding war or frenzy. It is not to a seller's advantage to have a shill win his/her auction for obvious reasons. While I'm sure it happens, second-chance offers as a result of shilling creates a lot of extra work on the part of a seller and a shill could be readily identified unless it's a "private" auction.

I use snipes on many coin auctions in which I want the coin, but don't want to start a bidding frenzy to drive the price up. This is particularly effective where someone has listed a coin with too high a start price or has a Buy It Now option which is also too high to attract attention, but the actual value of the coin is below market or book value and has no bids. Again, if I were to place an open bid on such a coin, others would see the bid and think I know something they don't, so bid against me; this is what I try to avoid with a snipe.

As far as a low start price, many of us, myself included start out very low and let the auction go up to a coin's market value. I start most of my auctions at 99 cents, almost always with no reserve no matter what the coin is actually worth, even if book value is in the thousands. I know the demand for my coins is out there, so I just put them out there, knowing that they'll be bid up to what the coin is worth. There's always a few scary days when the bids just stop at way below what I want, but almost invariably, the last minute bidding and snipes will drive up the price.

One other comment: if you expect an email from ebay telling you that you've been outbid, don't count on it coming in a timely manner, e.g., within seconds of being outbid. ebay's response system just isn't that fast. If you receive such a message, it might be several minutes or, more often hours before such a message works its way through the system.

These are generalities; for every rule, there's an exception.

internet shopping is always "fishy" to me.
I haven't used e-bay yet, but I bought quite a lot items from a similar page in Turkey. It's all the same; everyone waits for the last minute. Some may decide to use auto bidding option because many auctions are arranged to end sometime like 4 am (must be some kind of a seller strategy)

I would like to mention another thing I sensed a "smell".
I buy an item, a coin of a set or any other thing. The seller e-mails me and asks if I'm interested in the rest of the coins/notes etc. If I were, he'd put them for sale too.
Once I made the mistake to say I am interested. Next thing; I get myself a new competition on the bid for the similar coin. The price gets 150% what I paid for the previous one, and I give up.
Every now and then I receive same offers, I do not let the seller know if I'm willing to get the others.

However, sellers put coins from a set one by one or lets say in partitions. so when the same person buys more than one, they increase the start price for the next coin.
Since not many people sell coins from the same set, they usually get some extra with this method

quote:

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Originally posted by toast

Bidding in the last minute of an auction is called snipeing (for some reason). But this is the way most people bid to avoid having a bidding war with another buyer.

One way to see if the winner was a shill bidder is to look at that buyers feedback. If the buyer is buying from different sellers then he's probably genuine. I have seen Shill buyers win more than 10 auctions all from the same seller and not have any feedback. (yes, it could be a possibility the buyer only likes one ebay seller and doesn't leave feedback and out bids everyone till the price is reached).

Seeing the item relisted from the same seller is also a clue, or getting a second chance offer. (but it could also mean that the sale has fell thru).

One good thing about coin collecting, if you miss out on one coin, there will be another one up for auction soon. It's a balance of how long your willing to wait and how much your willing to pay.

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Shill bidding and sniping are only just two techniques for obtaining an advantage for either the buyer or seller. Shill bidding is at least against ebay's (and other auction houses') terms of service if not completely illegal while sniping is an accepted technique (although not by everyone). Sniping has been around a long time in floor auctions, but has come into its own on online auctions where automatic proxy auctions are utilized and a sniper can't be seen by other bidders.

Similar to sniping is last minute bidding on auctions which have not yet received any bids; this would be by someone who doesn't want to use a sniper program or site. The idea of both is to not give other bidders a chance to top a bid.

Timing is everything.

And toast, you got that right: with very few exceptions, if there's something wrong with an auction, let it go. Another will come along.

Fred

habiru, I just looked over your auctions. You have some very nice coins! Will you be posting any more Morgans or Flying Eagle cents? For the latter, I'm looking for an 1858/7 FE. Morgans, I take 'em any way I can get 'em.

One thing I do to encourage bidding on my ebay sales is start off a listing at 99 cents no matter what the coin's book value and let it bid up to its "natural" or market value. I don't know if this would work on Yahoo with its lower viewer size. If I have a coin for which I really need to get a minimum value, I'll put a reserve on it, but I usually don't have to do this with a high demand coin.

Jayson, my sniper SnipeSwipe places my snipe between one and three seconds before the end of an auction http://www.snipeswipe.com/index.html . The only defense is an opposing snipe higher than my snipe also submitted in the last few seconds. My satellite connection is about mid- DSL speed and takes 14 seconds to recycle (refresh/reload) an auction.