Associate
I use Just Snipe and find it very good have won all auctions i have used it on (5 to date).
I have use the free membership which give 5 free snipes a week.
I have use the free membership which give 5 free snipes a week.
Auction Snipers
- Thread starter Universal
- Start date
Soldato
I use EZ Sniper on the recommendation of feek. It really is excellent. Out of 9 auctions i've used it on i've won 8, and the one i lost i bid seriously low on. Excellent IMO.
Soldato
I use Auctionstealer. It snipes with fifteen seconds to go so I only use that on stuff I'm not fussed about losing.
I prefer manual sniping. A two-second snipe is extremely satisfying.
I prefer manual sniping. A two-second snipe is extremely satisfying.
Caporegime
never seen the advantage of ever using one, not even with the posts above do i think they are worthwhile.
ElvisFan said:
i thought i was the only one lol! i just wait till there is a minute left (with my maximum bid in mind) keep refreshing every 10 seconds till there is 10 seconds left and ill put my maximum bid in and hit buy. say if my maximum bid i have in mind is £10.00, i put in £10.60 so anyone else who has set a round figure of £10.00 or £10.50 is still beat by my bid.
Associate
jaxon said:
Same here
I use the open source JBidWatcher, a java application that doesnt send off your eBay details to a third party and doesnt cost.
Ok so it relies on 1) Your computer being on and 2) your net connection being quick enough but it's worked everytime for me so far!
Got some bargains off it too!
Ok so it relies on 1) Your computer being on and 2) your net connection being quick enough but it's worked everytime for me so far!
Got some bargains off it too!
Caporegime
I don't use ebay but if i did, i wouls use some funny figure like 10.61, just in case someone bid with a round figure and that 1p will win me the auction.
Permabanned
Another one here! I got my camera that way for £103.01 (£250 in Argos at the time)ElvisFan said:
Started at £99.99, one other bidder, he'd obviously bid £102.01 on the non-rounded numbers basis. I guessed he hadn't bid more than £110 or so so I bid £117 at the last second and won. Which was nice
Commissario
Ahh, but if I'd put on a snipe bid for £120 to be sent just a couple of seconds before the end, you'd not have seen it until it was too late so I'd still have won!
It's all down to the golden rule of auctions of setting your maximum bid and sticking to it, which a lot of people don't do. They'll bid and rebid over and over again, often going above what they actually wanted to spend.
K.
It's all down to the golden rule of auctions of setting your maximum bid and sticking to it, which a lot of people don't do. They'll bid and rebid over and over again, often going above what they actually wanted to spend.
K.
Soldato
//off topic
i wonder what will happen to ezsniper if ebay introduce a CAPATCHA on the bid form
e.g:
i wonder what will happen to ezsniper if ebay introduce a CAPATCHA on the bid form
e.g:
Commissario
It'll kill any kind of sniping, even manual sniping to an extent.
K.
K.
Suspended
What's a CAPATCHA?
It sounds like something you hear in a bad gangster film:
"Hey, Jimmy. Back off or I'll fire this CAPATCHA, capeesh?"
Edit; Dammit I swear that picture wasn't there when I posted
It sounds like something you hear in a bad gangster film:
"Hey, Jimmy. Back off or I'll fire this CAPATCHA, capeesh?"
Edit; Dammit I swear that picture wasn't there when I posted
ElvisFan said:
I don't think I could trust a sniper program - I would want to know if I had won or not there and then.
Mind you they ensure that you get sleep though - was up all hours the other night waiting for a bid to end, the only thing is with manual sniping is that it does get the old aldrenalin going! My heart was beating so loud!
Ha ha
BB x
Permabanned
True. And if the other bidder had bid that amount previously I'd have lost too, because if he hasn't got time to stick another bid on, neither have I. I just used a bit of psychology, thinking about what his max was likely to be and this time it worked. Doesn't always work but heyho, some you win, some you lose.Feek said:
I learned my lesson about bidding frenzy at the local liquidation auctions, e.g. an extension cable, £19.95 clearly marked on it, going for £26+VAT+commission (~£34.) I do get annoyed at people bidding silly money on something that's not worth it - especially if it's something I wanted to get for next to nothing.
Soldato
Anyone use Biet-O-Matic ? its a free software and came reccomended. Not sure though, just started using it.
That's true, but it depends on the maximum bids set. The main weakness I can see with sniping software is that it doesn't suit my buying technique. If there's something I want, I decide what the maximum I'm prepared tp pay is, and I bid that. If it goes over that because someone's prepared to pay more, so be it. They obviously wanted it more than I did.Feek said:
If you set you sniping software to more than my maximum bid, you'd win anyway because you'll pay more than I will. Once I set myself a maximum, that's it.
But, to be honest, I don't use eBay more than VERY rarely, so I'm no expert. The only times I've used eBay is when something comes up that I can't get elsewhere. So far, that's been a small handful of out-of-print books (I'm a collector).
And, so far, I've yet to lose a single one of this handful of auctions. Why? I guess I wanted the book more than anybody else.
The other disadvantage, in my view, of sniping services (as opposed to local software) is one you've already pointed out .... handing over account details and password. I know these services are widely used and reputable but, none the less, personally, no way in hell am I doing that. Not a chance. If I lose out on something as a result, so be it. This is, of course, an entirely personal reaction.
Precisely. I've seen some astonishing bids in real-life auctions too. Computer equipment, for instance, bought at vastly over-inflated prices. On one occasion, I watched a dozen ex-demo HP printers sell for about £850 each. After the auction, I went about 3 miles down the road to an authorised HP dealer and bought the same machine, brand new, for £650. What on earth these people were doing paying what they did is beyond me.Feek said:
But psychogically, auctions are dangerous for the novice, precisely for the reason you gave. Bids are in small increments, and it's very easy to add just one, then another, then another small increment to your bid. Before you know it, you've gone way over your maximum and bid far more than you intended. This applies, I guess, to eBay, but (in my view) is FAR more prevalent at real auctions, where a good auctioneer can hype a couple of novices into a bidding war and build excitement for exactly this purpose. It's the whole auction atmosphere that is seductive, especially is people think they're getting a bargain.
And, in a real auction, a novice bidder has to avoid getting caught up in a bidding war with the auctioneer taking bids off the wall. For those that don't know that term, if an auctioneer sees a noob bidding with enthusiasm, he'll often invent bids (known as off-the-wall bids) to push the noob further and further (and increase the auction house's fee, of course). This practice, while entirely legal, is rather unethical.
So, the noob gets pushed too far and eventually drops out, if the auctioneer miscalculates and goes too far. The auctioneer is then stuck with a no-sale. So, a few minutes later, someone from the auction house approaches the noob and says that the winning bidder has been unable to complete the transaction, so would the noob like the item at their last bid price? More often than not, the noob even falls for this stunt too, and says yes, because the approach generally occurs soon enough after the auction that the reality of the overbidding hasn't yet sunk in.
Of course, this technique is hard to do on eBay, though there are some similar tricks that a seller can use.