Ebay Auctions.... Final 15 Seconds

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Posted By: Jim VB

We're really talking about a couple of different things here. One is "sniping" and the other is using a snipe service.



"Sniping" is merely entering your best bid at the latest possible time. What Rand described as his procedure is "sniping." He just chooses to do it manually. This usually works fine, assuming you don't want multiple items that are closing at times very close together. Sometimes a seller will use a program to load all their auctions to close at the same time. This makes it hard to snipe them manually. Also, the whole time zone thing makes it impossible for some (me, for example) to stay up late enough to bid on items that close at 2:00 or 3:00 AM.





There is no doubt that "sniping", in some form depresses prices for the sellers, because some people will not enter their maximum bid in an auction. They enter a high enough bid to be "winning". If you snipe, they don't have time to react and bid again.





Once you establish that sniping is the best way to go, the next logical step is using a service to do it for you. These services eliminate all (well, most) of the problems I mentioned.


Edited to add - What is the record for most consecutive posts by the same poster? (non-Dorskind Division)