Every day, hapless bidders get beaten to the punch by auction
snipers who jump in at the last minute. I know how annoying it
can be, as I once had it happen to me three times in a row on
the same item! The thing is that the only people who can help
the poor bidders are us, the sellers.
The Problem.
Bidders will bid on an item and then wait for days until it
finishes, only to have someone else outbid them at the last
minute. In a traditional auction at a real auction house, this
isn't a problem at all, as the auction keeps going until
everyone has bid as much as they want to, and the auctioneer
double-checks with the classic phrase "going, going, gone".
The problem on eBay is caused by the fixed length of time that
eBay's auctions last, and the fact that they aren't extended
significantly if someone places a new bid in the last few
seconds of the auction. Imagine if a real auction house worked
that way, letting people shout "50 cents more!" at the last
second and win an item. It would simply be unfair, and many
buyers think it's unfair on eBay too.
The Solutions.
Until eBay decide to fix the problem (and by now it's looking
unlikely that they ever will), you're the only one who can do
anything for your buyers.
First off, you can encourage your buyers to use eBay's proxy
bidding system the way it was intended. The idea of the system
is that they enter the maximum they're willing to pay for an
item and eBay places bids for them automatically up to that
maximum. They're not supposed to come back and bid an extra
dollar every time they get outbid.
If your bidders are bidding high enough, then no sniper will
even come along and beat them - because they will have set the
maximum snipe level in their sniping software to less than the
normal bidder's maximum. Changing the way people use eBay is
hard, though.
One alternative is to keep an eye on who's bidding on your
auction, and cancel bids from known snipers - but this requires
you to be around right at the end of the auction to cancel their
bids. You might also want to set your auction to end sometime
when bidders will be around so that they can outbid snipers
themselves. This is good business sense anyway - most of the
bidding always takes place in the last few hours of an auction.
An easier way to thwart bid snipers is to offer 'Second Chance'
sales to bidders who get outbid by a sniper at the last minute.
This is good for you, and for them - they still get to buy the
item they wanted, and you've just made two sales: one to the
sniper and one to them.
Once you've sold your items, though, you might be upset to find
that one of them gets returned for a refund. Our next email will
show you how to turn these returns into profits!
About the author:
Kirsten Hawkins is an Ebay and internet auction enthusiast from
Nashville, TN. Visit http://www.auctionseller411.com/ for more
great tips on how to make the most from Ebay and other online
auctions.
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