@
Invicted These rules do suck as a bidder, but they are far more fair in the end. With the way forum auctions work, they make dragons go for what they are really worth. Without these rules, dragons would frequently sell for far less than they could have/should have/would have.
Reserves are also a common thing on ebay that are looked down upon in FR auctions, so that affects it.
Also, do you have an FR tumblr?
@
Invicted These rules do suck as a bidder, but they are far more fair in the end. With the way forum auctions work, they make dragons go for what they are really worth. Without these rules, dragons would frequently sell for far less than they could have/should have/would have.
Reserves are also a common thing on ebay that are looked down upon in FR auctions, so that affects it.
Also, do you have an FR tumblr?
If anything I think Ebay is the unusual one! In NZ we have a comparable website called TradeMe, and it has an inbuilt snipe-guard feature (a small one, though - I think a bid automatically extends the auction time by like 5 or 10 minutes).
Another difference is the FR auction house is not actually an auction house. It's a marketplace. There's no option there for people to bid on items so it has to be done in the forums, where full control is shifted to the seller with no inbuilt processes to support the auction. So, sellers naturally do what is best for them.
You better believe that if you don't ping the person you outbid, I as the seller sure as heck will! Lol :)
If anything I think Ebay is the unusual one! In NZ we have a comparable website called TradeMe, and it has an inbuilt snipe-guard feature (a small one, though - I think a bid automatically extends the auction time by like 5 or 10 minutes).
Another difference is the FR auction house is not actually an auction house. It's a marketplace. There's no option there for people to bid on items so it has to be done in the forums, where full control is shifted to the seller with no inbuilt processes to support the auction. So, sellers naturally do what is best for them.
You better believe that if you don't ping the person you outbid, I as the seller sure as heck will! Lol :)
An auction without a snipe guard gives an advantage to people with a similar timezone to the person auctioning something off. Who wins an auction should be dependent on who is willing to pay more, not who gets lucky.
An auction without a snipe guard gives an advantage to people with a similar timezone to the person auctioning something off. Who wins an auction should be dependent on who is willing to pay more, not who gets lucky.
I see the frustration if you're looking at it from the buyers perspective. The pings and snipe guards set in place means you won't be able to get an item as cheap as you may have hoped. If auctions ran without those though, I'd imagine the SB would be fairly high.
I've not had the chance to really participate in many auctions, but when I have I normally just go in with the mindset of 'this is how much it cost in the AH, if I can get x amount below that price then I still did well'
From the seller perspective I'd definitely set things in place for me to earn as much as I can. At the end of it the auction is still a sale for me and I'm hoping the competitiveness of those bidding drives prices higher, allowing snipe guard allows for more bids, pinging the current highest bidder is something the seller would probably do themselves anyway as well.
With your comparison to Ebay (I've never used the site myself) it seems like things are in favor of the buyer. It's the opposite case on how things are set up on FR seeing as the seller probably isn't out to give people an extremely low deal. A lot of other auction sites (like Penny Auctions for example) do implement time extensions until a certain point, or formal auctions go until no one bids.
Edit--
I also feel like the time limits to auctions aren't really a hard time limit but more a way of telling people "Hey it'll be over by around this date"
I see the frustration if you're looking at it from the buyers perspective. The pings and snipe guards set in place means you won't be able to get an item as cheap as you may have hoped. If auctions ran without those though, I'd imagine the SB would be fairly high.
I've not had the chance to really participate in many auctions, but when I have I normally just go in with the mindset of 'this is how much it cost in the AH, if I can get x amount below that price then I still did well'
From the seller perspective I'd definitely set things in place for me to earn as much as I can. At the end of it the auction is still a sale for me and I'm hoping the competitiveness of those bidding drives prices higher, allowing snipe guard allows for more bids, pinging the current highest bidder is something the seller would probably do themselves anyway as well.
With your comparison to Ebay (I've never used the site myself) it seems like things are in favor of the buyer. It's the opposite case on how things are set up on FR seeing as the seller probably isn't out to give people an extremely low deal. A lot of other auction sites (like Penny Auctions for example) do implement time extensions until a certain point, or formal auctions go until no one bids.
Edit--
I also feel like the time limits to auctions aren't really a hard time limit but more a way of telling people "Hey it'll be over by around this date"
As someone who lives in the literal opposite timezone of most users on the site, I actively ask for snipe guards if none is set up. There are plenty of dragons I've bid higher on, which is better for the seller, because they were willing to do a snipe guard. As a buyer and someone who'd never have a chance otherwise, I love snipe guards and support them. =)
Also, on Ebay, they have those automatic bidder things that you can buy from the site itself---That is in a way a snipe guard in and of itself, only a grown-up version.
As someone who lives in the literal opposite timezone of most users on the site, I actively ask for snipe guards if none is set up. There are plenty of dragons I've bid higher on, which is better for the seller, because they were willing to do a snipe guard. As a buyer and someone who'd never have a chance otherwise, I love snipe guards and support them. =)
Also, on Ebay, they have those automatic bidder things that you can buy from the site itself---That is in a way a snipe guard in and of itself, only a grown-up version.
Mostly hiatus-ing. PMs are the easiest way to contact me at the moment, but expect lots of time for it to get noticed.
Snipe away. In the AH - and let the rest of us have a civil auction without burnt feelings, drama, and the frustration of staying up at 3 a clock in the morning to bid on something, just to have it sniped last second with a one cent increase.
Who needs a calm, stable, stress-free life anyway rite?
Snipe away. In the AH - and let the rest of us have a civil auction without burnt feelings, drama, and the frustration of staying up at 3 a clock in the morning to bid on something, just to have it sniped last second with a one cent increase.
Who needs a calm, stable, stress-free life anyway rite?
[quote name="Invicted" date=2016-03-04 19:10:56]
No other online auctions work like that
[/quote]
Depends on the website, actually! Our Finnish Huuto.net extends auctions by 5 minutes if people bid when it's about to end, so that keeps people from 'stealing' auctions to some extend. Sure, I like how eBay works as well -- when you're the one sniping auctions, that is. Whereas when you're the one losing them to snipers, it's not so enjoyable anymore, I think.
Other than that, I live in Finland. Most people here on FR are located on the other side of the globe, so auctions have a tendency of ending at.. not so favorable times for me, if you catch my drift. So personally, I very much prefer having snipe guards here, because then I can relax a little bit, at least. I already stress so much about partaking in auctions, so..
Invicted wrote on 2016-03-04:
No other online auctions work like that
Depends on the website, actually! Our Finnish
Huuto.net extends auctions by 5 minutes if people bid when it's about to end, so that keeps people from 'stealing' auctions to some extend. Sure, I like how eBay works as well -- when you're the one sniping auctions, that is. Whereas when you're the one losing them to snipers, it's not so enjoyable anymore, I think.
Other than that, I live in Finland. Most people here on FR are located on the other side of the globe, so auctions have a tendency of ending at.. not so favorable times for me, if you catch my drift. So personally, I very much prefer having snipe guards here, because then I can relax a little bit, at least. I already stress so much about partaking in auctions, so..
Here's a comparison that is close to FR. I'm big into board games, and a popular site is
boardgamegeek.com, where people use the 'geeklist' function sometimes to sell used games by auction.
Like FR, the site is not an auction site and each seller makes their own rules for their auction. The common rules are pretty similar to how most FR auctions go- min bid, min increment, BIN/AB for each item in the list. Snipe guard can be in there too, though not usually called that. Another tactic to prevent sniping is "auction ends sometime between X and Y". That last one makes more sense when you're selling many different things like on a geeklist, unlike on FR where you're selling one or two dragons.
Here's a comparison that is close to FR. I'm big into board games, and a popular site is
boardgamegeek.com, where people use the 'geeklist' function sometimes to sell used games by auction.
Like FR, the site is not an auction site and each seller makes their own rules for their auction. The common rules are pretty similar to how most FR auctions go- min bid, min increment, BIN/AB for each item in the list. Snipe guard can be in there too, though not usually called that. Another tactic to prevent sniping is "auction ends sometime between X and Y". That last one makes more sense when you're selling many different things like on a geeklist, unlike on FR where you're selling one or two dragons.
I like both snipe guards and pings. I actually always hope the snipe guard will be 24 hours in case it ends at a time not convenient to myself.
In the end, it's better for the seller, too. If I knew I could snipe an item last minute, I'm not going to bother bidding for it. I'll just wait until the very last moment and slide in a bid so I get the item cheaper. That doesn't help in the seller in any manner, and it's frustrating and unfair for other buyers.
The only thing I don't like on auctions are reserves. In my opinion, you should set the price at the very minimum you want the item to go for. Reserves are just a cheap ploy and I refuse to ever bid on an item with a reserve - either here, on ebay, or anywhere else. I really, really don't like them.
I like both snipe guards and pings. I actually always hope the snipe guard will be 24 hours in case it ends at a time not convenient to myself.
In the end, it's better for the seller, too. If I knew I could snipe an item last minute, I'm not going to bother bidding for it. I'll just wait until the very last moment and slide in a bid so I get the item cheaper. That doesn't help in the seller in any manner, and it's frustrating and unfair for other buyers.
The only thing I don't like on auctions are reserves. In my opinion, you should set the price at the very minimum you want the item to go for. Reserves are just a cheap ploy and I refuse to ever bid on an item with a reserve - either here, on ebay, or anywhere else. I really, really don't like them.
Snipe guard and pings ensure that bidders are competing fairly against each other and not using an auction mechanic (that doesn't exist in real live auctions) to get something cheaper than it would otherwise sell for. E-bay makes it's money on the vollume of auctions. The set end time is for their benefit, not the seller's. Snipe guard might make some auctions run longer. Personally, I wish they'd do that anyway just to kill off sniping as a thing.
Snipe guard and pings ensure that bidders are competing fairly against each other and not using an auction mechanic (that doesn't exist in real live auctions) to get something cheaper than it would otherwise sell for. E-bay makes it's money on the vollume of auctions. The set end time is for their benefit, not the seller's. Snipe guard might make some auctions run longer. Personally, I wish they'd do that anyway just to kill off sniping as a thing.
