Sniping on Ebay Ireland

blink496

I was looking at thread in the 'forums' forum suggesting that we have a forum for online shopping and was surprised to hear so many people querying why they were losing auctions in the last minute on Ebay.
Sorry this is a bit of a longwinded explanation of why this happens, but is well worth knowing if you want to get good bargains on ebay.
Alot of new users express cynacism at the fact the so many auctions seem to be lost in the dying seconds of the auction. This is not some sinister plot by the seller to remove his product from the auction when the price offered is too low. In fact this is usually the result of another bidders actions. Either the other bidder has configured his bid so that ebay will automatically bid for him as a proxy. This means that every bid is automatically incremented by Ebay on the bidders behalf. To use this service, you need to let Ebay know the maximum bid you are willing to make. It will only go to the maximum price if the other bidders have pushed the price that high.
Another reason that you may be losing the auction in the last seconds is because of sniping. Sniping is the use of a piece of software that allows bidders to schedule a bid to be made in the last seconds of an auction. This is perfectly legal and is great if an auction is set to end in the early hours of the morning, as it automates the bidding process, so you don't have to wait up (having said that, the proxy service achieves that same thing, its just not as easy to grasp for newcomers). Here is an explanation of this phenomenon from Ebay .
Here is another link explaning sniping and listing some commonly used sniping tools.
If I was bidding in an auction I would never bid early, as this only raises the end price. Always wait until the last seconds.

tman

i just add items to my watched items list and then bid if the price is right within the last few minutes.
bidding when there's still a few days left on the item is stupid - it just forces the price up

blink496

tman wrote:

i just add items to my watched items list and then bid if the price is right within the last few minutes.
bidding when there's still a few days left on the item is stupid - it just forces the price up

True, but trying to win a bid manually will not always work. With a sniping tool I can set the bid to execute 3 secs before the end of an auction. Theres no way you would have time to respond to that manually. Using either a sniping tool or a proxy bid is preferable to doing it manually.

Farls

tman wrote:

i just add items to my watched items list and then bid if the price is right within the last few minutes.
bidding when there's still a few days left on the item is stupid - it just forces the price up

Thats my plan of attack also...seems to work best, bidding early is just costing yourself money...set a reminder on your phone to let you know there's 10 mins left and then log on and bid...handy when your not online all day!

Farlz

vibe666

if i want something on ebay, i tend to just log into auctionshiper and place my max bid there then leave it and see if i win. that way you aren't tempted to keep upping your offer if the bids go higher than your max bid.

it also allows you to have bid groups, where you have a list of say 10 mp3 players and it will try and bid on each one as the auction ends and if it doesn't get one it moves to the enxt until you win an auction at the right price.

its really an indispensible tool. i haven't manually bid on anything for over a year, and i've never missed a snipe at the right price (over 20 buys so far).

Lemming

blink496 wrote:

True, but trying to win a bid manually will not always work. With a sniping tool I can set the bid to execute 3 secs before the end of an auction. Theres no way you would have time to respond to that manually. Using either a sniping tool or a proxy bid is preferable to doing it manually.

In my experience, a combination of proxy-bidding & manual is the only way to do it. I've won auctions inside the last few seconds. Setting your bid to execute 3 secs (for example) before the end of an auction is fine until either your connection or ebay's server has a momentary lapse in speed.Such a tactic also fails to take proxy bidding into account and you'll fail anyway since you're having to respond + your bandwidth delay vs. on-server instant calculation update + your bandwidth delay in responding again.

rubadub

I usually manually snipe, it am convinced it has saved me a lot, I have lost out on about 3 items due to a poor connection. What is the best free automatic sniping tool?

If people are getting upset at losing auctions at the last minute then they are not using ebay correctly, it is not like a normal auction, you are meant to bid the maximum you are willing to pay. If you bid €200 only to be outbid by €201, then why should you be upset?, €201 was more than you were willing to pay, if you were willing to pay it you should have bid it.

bambam

these guys give you a free snipe eacg week: http://www.justsnipe.com/

MikeHunt

"Auction Sentry" is a good standalone app if you have a permanent connection

blink496

www.snipeville.com

vibe666

auctionsniper's ability to snipe in the last few seconds has nothing to do with your own connection at all. they use their own connection and you just put the info into their web page front end and let them take care of the rest.

saying that manually doing something yourself over your DSL connection on your home PC is quicker and more effective than a dedicated computer doing it over a high speed (10-100mbit) line is complete bs tbh.

I tried in vain to win many auctions before i found out a better way of doing it, and i honestly hand on heart have never lost an auction that's ended within my price range since using it. why would you even want to put yourself through the bother of doing it yourself when a machine can do it for you. it's free for the first 3 wins, then it's a tiny % of the winning bid, although you can earn free snipes by referring people.

mathie

http://www.snip.pl

This has helped me on occasion
M

nava

Hi

Try AuctionSniper as on my Sig , free registration and they give free snipes per user that you refer. They also have the great feature Snipe group, so you can add multiple items to the group and it will bid until you win 1 of them.

Thanks

Redrocket

could ebay randomise the ending time of an auction to prevent this?
i.e. advertise the the auction to finish in 1 minute, and randomise the ending time to be anywhere from 1 minute before and after the advertised time?

when i first started using ebay i thought they would have something like that to stop people sniping

mathie

stevenk wrote:

could ebay randomise the ending time of an auction to prevent this?
i.e. advertise the the auction to finish in 1 minute, and randomise the ending time to be anywhere from 1 minute before and after the advertised time?

when i first started using ebay i thought they would have something like that to stop people sniping

Why would they do that when snipings not illegal?
If someone bids higher than someone else (regardless of when) then shouldn't the highest bidder win? Which is exactly what sniping enables.

You can lost with a snipe just like with a proxy bid on ebay.
M

StickyMcGinty

yea, its not illegal, just clever

Capt'n Midnight

Some other on line auctions add another minute if there are any bids in the last minute for that reason. As long as someone keeps bidding it stays open for yet another minute.

Redrocket

yeah true, i suppose i thought of it as being a bad thing and then for a way to get around it... rather than thinking of it as a way of winning an auction in a cheap manner

in saying that i normally win whatever auction i bid, but if i can save a few quid by sniping all the better for me

Redrocket

thats actaully a kind of good thing capt, good for the seller
cause normal rules of auction in real life are.....
its only when people are not willing to pay any more that the auction ends...
where as on ebay its timed

rubadub

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

Some other on line auctions add another minute if there are any bids in the last minute for that reason. As long as someone keeps bidding it stays open for yet another minute.

The winner there is the seller and the auction site if they make a %.
Nothing is wrong with sniping. Just bid like you are supposed to, i.e. put down your true maximum bid, then you cannot be pissed off if you are outbid as you were not willing to pay that much. I put max bids of say €102.90. Most people bid in round numbers, somebody may go to €100 and not beat me, then they may try 101, since they were only really willing to go 100. Since they don't get it at 101 they figure my max is probably well over 100 and five up. Looking at bid histories can be useful to see how people work.

Neuro

If you are a regular eBay user you should also check out Fat Fingers.

rubadub

fat fingers is good for very common items, like playstations.

www.toolhaus.org gives you the bad reviews for sellers

Redrocket

thats funny i was searching for something and misspelled it
now im getting hundreds of results instead of 8

Headshot

hey lads i only have dial up so is there any snipe out there for the likes of me [free and slow connection] and good for bidding on phones

blink496

It doesnt matter whether you have dial up or broadband. All sniping tools are hosted on websites, not on your pc.

Try www.snipeville.com

Endurance Man

So how does this work. Should i type in a miss spelled word or what ??

blink496

bedlam wrote:

not exactly true. JBidwatcher is PC based. it also works fine on dial up sniping at 15-20seconds before the end of an auction.

yes sorry you are right..but I wouldnt use a pc based one, especially for auctions that end in the early hours of the morning.