OnlineBiddingFrenzy.com - Should eBay block "sniper" bidding?

Should eBay block "sniper" bidding?

Many people reckon that "sniper" bidding on eBay is fundamentally and anti-competitive practice that harms sellers by not allowing an item to realize it's true market value, and harms buyers by creating an uneven playing field. Any auction process should be open, transparent and fair to all. Any practice (or technology) that defeats this should be discouraged and prevented.

Public Comments

i don't know what it is.. but i doesn't sound too good.... lol
I don't know about the economics of it, but I hate it. 1 Minute left and there's no way he shoulda got that ugly, wooden-dog wine bottle holder.
They changed it now - if more than one person bids like in the last minute or something the auction is extended like 2 minutes to throw off sniping programs.
Yeah. They should do something about it, and im sure they will do it soon.
its a software that pretends to be a person you cant really track it
No. I do not see the difference between me sitting at my keyboard and placing a bid 10 seconds before the bidding closes and sniping. Sniping is nothing more than a program that calls up the bidding page, fills in your userID and password and the amount to place a bid. What is the difference between you in person or the program? Either way, your userID is filled in, your password is used and an amount is specified. It just happens at the last minute. How can that be anticompetitive? If you want an item, place a bid. If I see a bid made higher than I am willing to pay, I'm NOT going to snipe it from you, how can I? I am not willing to pay that much! How does that make it such that an item fails to reach it's fair market value? Sniping is transparent and fair to all. You could sit by your keyboard and bid. Some people prefer to let automation do the walking. So, explain these things to me, how does sniping make the playing field unfair? How does sniping make it so the item does not reach fair market value? How are buys and sellers being harmed? If Ebay somehow comes up with a way to stop sniping, how is Ebay to know WHO is doing the typing so it can block a snipe but NOT block a person? The people who are vocal in their complaints are the cheapskates who want a bargain and whine about it when they don't get it. The whiners are not willing to place the fair market value as a bid. If they did, everyone else, snipers included, would be outbid and they would get the item. No, they want the lowest price they can get and they are not willing to pay the price and blame their stinginess on sniping. The whiners are the ones who place a $10 bid on a $40 item which opened at $1 and then whine when someone snipes with a bid amount of $20 and then the item is closed at $11. Oh, how I SO hate whiners... There is nothing unfair about placing a bid at the last minute, whether done by automation or in person.
No I think that sniping a bid is the only way to get it at the lowest possible price without it getting bloated beyond its retail value. It is bad enough that most of the sellers seem to be bloating the shipping when they sell products as well things like charging 20 dollars shipping on a CD that would cost them under 2 dollars to mail via USPS. I can tell you something about ebay though you might not realize or want to hear. I know for a fact that they were offered a program that would seriously stop or slow down the amount of shill bidding going on there. They were offered this software from one of their own developers. That developer was told not only that they would not consider adopting a software like that but if the developer decided to market it on their own eBay themselves would ban the use of such a product. There are literally thousands of sellers out there with multiple accounts biding on their own items to raise the prices to the level they want for the product. When they end up winning their own bid they put in positive feedback on themselves on both accounts as well. No money goods, or services actually changes hand. While that is a felony in the United States ebay sees it as the higher a product sells for the more they make from the sale.
Let's remember that 'auctions' on Ebay aren't really auctions at all. If they were true auctions, a listing would end when there are no more bidders, or no higher bids. As it currently operates, when the auction listing ends, the highest bidder at the time, or the person who placed the earliest and highest bid, is the winner. Sniping only works if there isn't an earlier, higher bid, so there's really no difference between using sniping software and sitting at the computer bidding during the last few seconds of an 'auction' listing. I can't see how sniping software "harms sellers by not allowing an item to realize it's true market value" - running timed auctions is what does that. Auto-extending auctions when they get bids in the last couple of minutes would make the process a lot fairer. Sniping is convenient for a lot of buyers because it means they don't have to be tied to their computers when their watched items end. I'd rather sell to someone using sniping software than have my item end unsold.