SimonCelsa wrote: ↑12 Mar 2024, 4:45am
Yes, but surely you would still have 'won' it without the sniping software if you had just entered your maximum bid at the outset??
That's not how auctions work though. If I'm selling an item I have a rough expectation of what it'll fetch cos I've done my research, looked at similar items etc. Let's say I reckon it'll go for £20.
I put it on at a starting bid of £5 - that encourages people to look and to think it's a bargain and there'll usually be a few "placer" bids at £5 / £6 or so - people staking their place in the auction.
Then it'll sit there for a few days with no bids as everyone watches and waits. Maybe a new bidder will come along and go for £6.50. In the last few hours the bids will creep up and it'll go from maybe 5 or 6 bidders down to 3, down to 2 and then those 2 will engage in a bit of bluffing and one-upmanship. Neither wants to go and stick a bid of £30 on cos that's a waste of money if they can get it for £18. So there'll be a bit of brinkmanship and it comes down to the last bidder standing in the final few seconds.
In fact if I saw someone stick a bid of £30 on it straight away, I'd assume it was some sort of troll or bot - someone wanting to screw with an auction. ebay are fairly hot on that sort of thing and will quite often just cancel the bid, especially if they've detected that bidder doing similar elsewhere or if it's someone new or someone with mixed feedback. Or they might assume it was shill bidding (the seller getting a mate to bid artificially high to inflate the price) which is a big no-no and can result in your own account being suspended while they investigate.