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Todays’
rambling is going to cover something that every ebay bidder has
probably encountered, and that is auction sniping! If you have ever
gotten caught up in the bidding frenzy of an auction, then you have
probably watched intently during the last few minutes of the
auction, only to get out bid with a few seconds left and not have
enough time to place another bid.
You vow that this will never happen to you again, so next
time you wait till there are only 5 seconds left in the auction, and
you hit that bid button thinking you are finally going to get it,
and your jaw drops when you see that another bid came in one second
after you placed your bid. You lost it again!
When
online auctions first started out people would do exactly what we
talked about above. They would wait to the last minute to bid and
try to snipe the item away from other bidders by being quicker on
the keyboard. However as times have changed so has the technology of
auction sniping. There are now online services that provide
automated sniping programs for users. You can identify what auction
you want to bid on, and then put in your maximum bid price, as well
as a lead-time for the bid to be placed. So if you set the time to 3
seconds, then the program would sit there watching the auction, and
when there are 3 seconds left, it will automatically transmit your
maximum bid to ebay where the ebay proxy bidding system will take
over.
I
have used these services quite a few number of times with perfect
success, and at the same time it has ticked off a lot of other
bidders especially when my bid comes in with only 1 second left in
the auction. There are a couple of drawbacks to using these
services, the first is that they usually charge for their services
and the other drawback to this type of bidding is that you must
register your ebay ID and password with the sniping service. If you
are dealing with a legitimate service this is not an issue, but
there are scam services out there so you must be careful. The
service I use and recommend is listed on our web site www.buckaru.com
under Free-Stuff, since it will allow you try the service for 3 free
snipes before you start getting charged for its use. The fees are
generally very small and only are charged if you win the auction.
Ebay
discourages this type of bidding, but they are powerless to do
anything about preventing it. So I say, if it is going to help you
out then just do it! The important thing is to make sure you only
put in the maximum price you want to pay for the item. Then if you
do get out bid, you really do not care. You may be asking how you
can get out bid if your bid comes in, in the last second. The answer
is the ebay proxy bidding system. If a previous bidder has entered a
bid that is significantly above the current high bid, it will only
register slightly higher than the current bid on the item. Then when
another bid comes in, the ebay system will compare it to the high
bid. If the new bid is higher, then the price will be adjusted to
just above the previous bid. If the new bid is not higher than the
previous one, then the price will be moved to just above the new bid
amount, and the previous bid will still have room to adjust upward
if another bid comes in.
Also
at this time I would like to mention that our web-site www.buckaru.com
is finally up and running, with a lot of good ebay information on
it. You can also read some previous news articles about our ebay
business, and find out information about our upcoming ebay course.
Check it out and let me know what you think. Also please let me know
if you would like me to comment on any particular aspect of ebay
selling. We welcome your comments, and encourage readers to submit
their requests for articles.
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