How to prevent Online Auctions from Auction Sniping?

In online auctions, bidding is undeniably a fun-filled game that requires plenty of strategies to be fulfilled. However, while there are pros, this activity comes with cons as well.

And, one such thing that needs undivided attention is auction sniping. In simple words, it is referred to a practice of where a person waits until the last moment to place a bid to prevent other participants from competing and increasing the price.

Basically, it is carried out both manually and through special, auction software. Often, auction sniping results in a product being sold at a much smaller price that would have been higher otherwise.

Thus, it poses substantial issues and problems for auctions. Fortunately, there are a few methods that are helpful enough in preventing online auction sniping. Let’s find them out in this post.

Auction Sniping from Buyers’ Perspective:

Before this can be claimed as a winning strategy for buyers, there’s a lot to consider. Accordingly, the strategy says that the bidder is sure of the real value of the product. This turns incorrect in a majority of cases.

Without having a basic price to be compared with, one can never estimate the correct value. Secondly, it’s assumed that the sniper bid will always be higher than other bids.

Talking about why people like to go with it is because:

• There is a variety of low maintenance, inexpensive software available that can take over on your behalf
• There is always a better chance that the bidder will be buying something at a lower price

Basically, the buyers consider it better to bid just once during the end of the auction rather than bidding several times from the beginning. With sniping, the psychology says that the bidder gauges others’ bidding.

And, when the price doesn’t upsurge much, the sniper can finally make the bid and get the product. The primary selling point here is that the ultimate price is far lesser than what the price could have been if the sniper wasn’t there to prevent incremental bidding.

At the end of the game, from the sniper’s perspective, it’s all about playing a smart game.

Auction Sniping from Sellers’ Perspective:

Lastly, what works for buyers in case of auction sniping is the sore point of the seller that the price is at its lowest. By not publicizing the amount that the sniper is willing to pay, the auction fails to reach true potential.

While the loss may not be extremely high, but the concerns of sellers always remain valid.

How to Avoid Auctions from Sniping?

Enable Overtime Bidding:

In case a bid is placed during the last moments of the auction, allow an extension for a specific time period. This enables other bidders to get an opportunity to give the tough competition to sniper and prevent from automatic winning.

Therefore, your products get a fair chance to fetch an adequate price. Moreover, overtime may also result in fierce wars that increase the final price beyond expectations.

However, this method isn’t completely faultless. Snipers may wait until the very end of the extended time to make the final bid. Thus, you’ll have to consider all the aspects beforehand.

Integrating Captchas:

By allowing buyers to enter the captcha before buying, you get to accomplish two things. First, the time needed to bid is delayed by a few seconds. You may also put an expiry time on the captcha to prevent auction snipers from getting into the auction.

Second, automated software get thrown out of the entire auction process with captcha.

Put Buy Now Button:

Putting in a Buy Now option may deter snipers as this means that another person may come and buy the product for a set price. But sometimes, this button is only available until somebody bids for a product.

Therefore, snipers get to place a minimum first bid and then snipe at the end. Keeping this in mind, it would be recommended to have the Buy Now button available until the expected price has surpassed.

Set Minimum Bidding Number:

Another way to prevent snipers from entering your auction could be setting a number of bids that a buyer must put to be an eligible bidder. Although this may discourage a lot of bidders; however, it’s considered one of the best ways to dishearten the spirits of those who’re looking forward to just messing around.

Provide Auto-bidding Chances:

Offering an opportunity to bidders to use auto-bidding may prevent sniping. This one is a type of absentee bidding that is used throughout online auctions wherein bidding is carried out automatically by a system.

A bidder may specify a maximum bid that he/she is willing to make and the computer outbids others until the maximum price is beaten. But throughout this process, other participants remain unaware of the auto-bid.

In case somebody sets the maximum bid to a higher amount, it’s unlikely for a sniper to outbid. This is mainly because the sniper will be setting just a slightly higher bid than the current one and lesser than the maximum auto-bid amount.

Offer Incentives for Early Bidding:

Being a seller, you may offer a discount to the earliest bidder who has bid the highest. Though deciding upon the incentive could be a bit difficult, but it may prove out to be worth it to discourage auction sniping.

Conclusion:

At the end of the day, auction sniping may just be well for a seller when it comes to studying their auctions better. This will be to assess how much they’re losing out to extra-smart sniping activities.

Who knows, you may discover that the results are not too bad. Alternately, this study may also give you insights into the bidding practices that you can use for your advantage.

However, it shouldn’t encourage you to ignore sniping altogether. If you think you’re unable to make a satisfactory amount through auctions, implement the above-mentioned tips and prevent snoopers from getting into your auction.