Thread: I'm so sick of sniping software!!!

Thats the trick!! to get you drooling over something you never considered buying before that moment, and then when you win you feel more confident to try again and when you lose you get even more determined to win the next item. and so it goes until you have to declare bankruptcy or you learn a little self control.
my ex never learned the self control part. by the way, my ebay name is mechanobaker and anyone who wants to bid against me, well, that's fine by me.


Mark

You have two options with sniping. Either place the max bid you are willing to pay, meaning if you get beat it was more than you were willing to spend, or just don't use ebay. I generally don't bid on items until the last minute or two, but I don't use software, I do it myself. I've seen numerous items go well above what I intended to pay, and so I never bid at all. And I don't want to contribute to a price being driven up by bidding early in the auction.

RT

I like sniping software, and frankly I don't see anything unethical or unfair about it. Its just bidding on an item through a second party.

For me, I like it because I won't get involved in bidding wars. It ends up saving me time and money as I just set my bid and forget about it. If it gets beat, then it gets beat and I don't worry about it.

As for free software I don't know of any (but would appreciate it if someone did ). I guess you could just snipe an item yourself waiting until there's about twenty seconds or so left before you put in your bid.

There was a thread on here not too long ago about a free internet based sniping program. It sounded easy to use, and if I ever have the free cash to give into my RAD (and Gary doesn't put anything nice up) I will be using it. I also fear dirving up the price over value by bidding too early.

I do all of my sniping IRL but it´s sniping nonetheless.

I use a sniping program (esnipe) regularly. As for the ethics, sniping is basically equivalent to a sealed bid.

Sniping systems provide a lot of useful features if you're gonna be doing much bidding on ebay:
1) reduces my exposure to shilling
2) I can fiddle with my bids without running afoul of ebay's rules
3) keeps me out of bidding wars
4) prevents others from finding out what I'm bidding on until it's too late
5) group bids (bid on X items until you win one)

Yes it's annoying to lose an auction at the last second, but the reason it hurts is because you're counting your chickens before they hatch and you did not bid the maximum you were willing to pay. The problem with bidding your maximum is that it's distressingly common to wind up paying nearly your maximum because of shill bidding, or because bidders are attracted like flies to items with other bidders on it, or because bidders are specificially searching for auctions *you* are bidding on.

The free software is Gixen.com. I love it.

The main thing I use it for is to make sure I don't miss any bargains. If I see something I think might be a good buy, like a mis-marked razor, I'll set a pretty low snipe bid. The other day I got three DEs for $2 plus $2.50 shipping, because they were marked as "straight razors." Or I might set a $10 or $15 snipe on a razor that looks like a good newbie blade. If I don't get it, that's OK because that's the most I was willing to pay.

Charles, I had the same experience as you when I was bidding early. I'd end up losing by $1 or less, and it's infuriating. If it helps, the winning bidder probably put in a much higher max bid, and a bidding war would just have driven the price up $5, $10 or $15.

I agree that bidding early just contributes to a higher final price. Whenever I've done that, someone almost always outbids me in the final day, and then things get ugly...

Just my experience,
Josh

I'll second JoshEarl's recommendation for http://www.gixen.com (AND IT IS FREE)

Of the 5 razors I have won through eBay, I have snagged them using Gixen. And it is convenient that I dont have to sit around and watch the auction end. I just set my max price and it does its thing.

I have lost quite a few razors with Gixen as well, just by not setting my max bid price high enough to outbid the competition.

With a 3rd party bid sniping program you get no guarantees that you will win, or that it will even place your bid for you.


Give it a try Gawker, just throw your bidding morals out the window for just one auction.