Sniping on ebay..how does it work.

gus

Do a lot of you guys use it ? I buy a lot of stuff from ebay. With things like a 77mm polariser (i cant get the mac to 'learn' that i spell it with an S) i just use the 'buy it now' button because its a set price & i want it straight away in new cond.

But im talking out the other things we buy like antiques/parts etc. How do the sniping sites actually work ? Do you give them your max price & they sit silent until the last 5 seconds & then gazump the last bid ?

I mean if you are willing to pay $100 for 'X' then how can this sniping help? I mean if the other bidder is just using ebay proxy & puts $110 in..your knackered.

So whats the idea behind it ? Ive googled it & really didnt get a definitive answer.

Art Scott

You are correct......you tell it what your highest bid is and it waits until the time you tell it to bid (last 5 sec or whatever) and it bids if someone has already out bid or ahs a prox of anything over your limit as you put it "YOUR KNACKERED"......I do not find it worth the trouble and have used them to absolutely no sucess.....personally I just give my max bid or my most used way is the BUY IT NOW......I only bid if I need the rush of constantly watching and bidding a liitle here and there just to watch the bid go up....just got a reatail boxed brand new 320gb seagate drive (internal) for $70....no bid just bought it....new "c" drive on its way.......


Just saw an aussie bungie jumping video....youse is crazy to b-jump in a river full really big crocs that danged thing nearly ahd his arse.....:D

gus

Art Scott wrote:

Just saw an aussie bungie jumping video....youse is crazy to b-jump in a river full really big crocs that danged thing nearly ahd his arse.....:D

Ha..i hadnt seen that before. Thats funny.

Mate honestly our far north is possibly.. a bit like your deep south [wink] The rules for anything just dissipate the further north you go. Thankfully i live 6 hours south of the 'croc line' so thats one less thing that can kill me about the place.

tks about the sniping also mate...im cool about it now.

Andy

I've been sniping for years, I use auctionstealer.com

Sam

I have learned a secret which has saved me thousands of almost worthless US dollars. I normally charge $19.95 for the downloaded version, and $39.95 for the premium leather bound edition, but, and this is a big but, if enough D-Grinner's post here asking for it, I will post it at no charge.

Sam

gus

Sam wrote:

I have learned a secret which has saved me thousands of almost worthless US dollars. I normally charge $19.95 for the downloaded version, and $39.95 for the premium leather bound edition, but, and this is a big but, if enough D-Grinner's post here asking for it, I will post it at no charge.

Sam

Sam how did i possibly allow the thought to pass me by that you wouldnt have a recalcitrant (which is usually my area of expertise) input on this subject.

Andy will spot the $39.95 for me & the next 100 d/grinners to send you a spamy PM.



.

photodoug

sniping pays off three ways:

1. stops you from getting in a bidding war.
2. does not indicate your interest in the auction...keying others to up thier bid
3. allows you to bid your highest amount and forget....you get notified later if you won or lost.

www.esnipe.com

gus

photodoug wrote:

2. does not indicate your interest in the auction...keying others to up thier bid

I think for me ...thats the big main thing...which as you mentioned turns into a bidding war. Tks Doug.

Whats brought this about is that i have an old house & being an elect i know all too well the cheapness & subsequent over pricing of modern house hold light fittings. I want old solid good quality fittings for it.

A few days ago i won a 1938 hanging light fitting that was un-used & was given to some one as a wedding gift & wrapped up in the newspaper with those dates. Also has a card for the wedding gift.

I want to use every advantage to win stuff like that.

bham

See what time the bidding ends. Don't bid until the last few minutes, but be prepared to refresh constantly. Any bidding any earlier is just meaningless in my book.

Pick any item that is ending in 10 minutes that seems to have 6 or more bids and seems to be selling at a very reasonable price and sit and watch. (constantly refresh) and then review the final bid.

Also realize that if item XYZX is selling for $12 but the person currently winning the bid has actually entered a max bid of $25, then all the bids for anything between 12 and 25 don't actually show up in the review of the bidding. But if you watch a item for sale and the winning bidder name isn't changing but the $ value on the bid is continuing to go up a dollar or two at a time, those are all bids from other that only make the winner bidders winning bid higher.

I have been in some feverish bidding wars for some Sunpak camera flashes. They looked like potential good deals. A won a few that were good deals, lost a few good deals, and stop bidding on a few that just got to high to risk buying a used item vs getting a new one. The more you want an item the harder it is to stop bidding. I also suggest you set a max dollar on an item that you want way before bidding, before you get caught up in the excitement of trying to win. You can regret paying to much for something, just to win it.

gus

bham wrote:

See what time the bidding ends. Don't bid until the last few minutes, but be prepared to refresh constantly. Any bidding any earlier is just meaningless in my book.

Thats precisely what the sniper programme does for me..set & forget.

bham

That's probably who I was in the bidding war with a snip program. It happened in the last 30 seconds. After going to the auctionstealer site I see it usually does it in the last 3 - 15 seconds.

claudermilk

Yup, I usually have a couple of browser windows open & just set up a couple of bids, then wait for the last couple of seconds to bid. Sometimes works, sometimes not. On a couple of things my brother & I really needed for a project, we were both set up & on the phone. PO'ed some other guy who tried to snipe us.

darkdragon

The other side of the fence.
As someone who sells things on ebay....I HATE sniping programs and personally feel they are in the gray area of ebay "legality" and definately not fair.

As a buyer, I have never used a sniping program or site simply because I don't think they are fair to the seller. I do feel that "by hand" sniping is fine and is all part of the bidding war/etc.

jfriend

gus wrote:

Do a lot of you guys use it ? I buy a lot of stuff from ebay. With things like a 77mm polariser (i cant get the mac to 'learn' that i spell it with an S) i just use the 'buy it now' button because its a set price & i want it straight away in new cond.

But im talking out the other things we buy like antiques/parts etc. How do the sniping sites actually work ? Do you give them your max price & they sit silent until the last 5 seconds & then gazump the last bid ?

I mean if you are willing to pay $100 for 'X' then how can this sniping help? I mean if the other bidder is just using ebay proxy & puts $110 in..your knackered.

So whats the idea behind it ? Ive googled it & really didnt get a definitive answer.

I guess I do what is called "manual sniping".

I do my homework on similar items that have previously sold and figure out what the max I'm willing to pay is. The key is to really figure that out for yourself. If you bid for an item at $x and you don't win the auction and you will say to yourself that you should have bid higher, then your max bid is really higher. If you bid $y and win it at that bid and then feel like you overpaid, then your max bid should be lower.

Then, I wait until just about a minute before the auction ends and if the bidding hasn't already exceeded my max bid, I bid my max bid. If nobody has bid higher than my max bid, I'll win the auction at $1 over the highest bid so far. If someone else has bid higher than my highest bid, I will not win the auction. Either way, I'll feel good about it. If I don't win the auction it's because the price got out of line with what I've seen other similar items going for so it's good I passed on this one. If I do win it, then that means I bought it for less than what similar items have gone for so I got a decent deal.

The idea behind bidding this way is that you don't contribute to a bidding war except at the very end and you will often win against casual bidders who aren't watching the end of the auction and haven't really bid their max bid.