Level the playing field on Ebay auctions, Part Deux
Written: Apr 07 '07 (Updated Apr 08 '07)
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Many thanks to the category lead, Joubert, for adding this to the database.
Many people have bid on an Ebay item only to lose to an overbid with 5-10 seconds left on an auction. Years ago, I cursed my luck, figuring that people were sitting at their PC bidding against me. Then, I discovered that snipe services existed, that would place bids on your behalf, near the end of an auction.
Snipe services do work, and they minimize the amount that the winning bidder pays. Ebay publicly says that the best way to win an auction is to bid the highest amount you want to pay. The reason why they support this is that non-snipe bids maximize the income for the sellers. Competing bidders incrementally bid higher to see what the max is for the bidder already there.
Snipe services keep a different bidder from responding to your bid. However, they do not mean that you will always win. If your high bid is less than someone else’s high bid, you will lose. So, you have to snipe bid the highest you are willing to pay. Even then, you win some and you lose some. However, if your snipe is higher than anyone else’s bid by the bidding increment, you will win. So, when sniping, it’s very important to determine your maximum and be comfortable with it. If you lose an auction because your snipe bid was not high enough, it is too late to say “I should have bid more”.
I reviewed a free snipe service, Auctionstealer.com about a month ago. I highly recommended that service for the 3 free snipes they permit per week, on auctions that you want but are not willing to buy a snipe for.
This service, Auctionsniper.com, is the best service I’ve found for purchasing snipe bids. You can purchase in $5 increments. They charge 1% of the final auction price if you win, with a minimum of $.25 and a maximum of $9.95. You get 3 free snipes for a trial and you also earn 3 free snipes when someone else joins and uses your email address as a referral. Balances can be added using credit cards or Paypal.
The bidding interface is very easy. Just enter the item number and the amount to bid and you are ready to go. You can also put a link in your toolbar so that you can invoke the service while you are using your browser to surf Ebay.
You do not have to be online when the auction ends. Auctionsniper does all the work, once you have scheduled a snipe bid.
As a paid-for service, Auctionsniper.com has an additional feature: bid groups. This feature lets you group certain auctions together that do not end at the same time. AuctionSniper will keep bidding on auctions until the specific number of wins is achieved. This works great if the same item is up on Ebay two or more times. In essence it makes bidding on the auctions that end later contingent on whether you win the earlier auction. I have used this once in a while and it has worked well.
While auctionsniper uses the user’s ebay password as he user password, it has a very good reason: it has to have the password to place the snipe. Auctionsniper is Verisign secured and reports membership in the Better Business Bureau’s online reliability program.
Auctionsniper recommends a snipe period of no less than 5 seconds before auction closing. I have been using them for several years, setting my snipe bid to hit at 5 seconds before auction close, and have never had them fail to place an “in the money” bid.
They also offer insurance as a lower cost alternative to USPS insurance. I have not purchased the insurance service.
Using AuctionSniper, since March 1, I have won 9 auctions and lost 4. The 4 I lost were when my snipe price became less than the minimum bid on the auction as of my scheduled snipe time.
The one con is that $10 fees (on items costing over $1,000) can be hefty. If you are going to be placing a number of bids on high-value items, you might consider a subscription service like Auctionstealer.com, where you can get a subscription that covers unlimited bidding for a particular time period.
Thanks for reading. God bless!
Please check out my related reviews:
Auctionstealer.com
Half.com beats the heck out of buying and selling at college bookstores
How to buy a decent musical instrument on Ebay
Buildabear.com
Circuitcity.com
Ebates web portal
Sheetmusicplus.com web store
Nashbar.com Online Store
Music123.com
Performancebike.com Online Store
Walmart.com
Recommended:
Yes
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