Why the last second bid....................

[John V]

I've used Gavelsnipe without a problem. I'm curious, why use a fee-based service?

[egbeachley]

Why I use a sniping service.

About 8 years ago I bid around $200 for a nice item. It was at $20 or so with 10 minutes remaining. A new bidder bid $30 and was outbid by me, of course. Then he put in $40. Then $50. Then $60 and so on until he was the high bidder at $205 when he stopped and won it.

If I sniped, he would have probably stopped at $30 and I would have won it at the next bid increment (assuming no other bidders).

And the reason you often win at your exact price is because of the bid increments. If you put in a bid of $40.27 and another bid comes in at $40, you win it at $40.27 even though the bid increment is supposed to be $1.

[GrayGhost]

A friend on the board here turned me to Gavel Snipe a few months back, and I love it. Just set it and go. Then, if you have second thoughts you can always up your snipe or cancel it, as long as its not w/in a few minutes of auction close. I don't recall the exact time.

[ALR-bishop]

I use snipes in case I end up in the same hotel as Doug

[Zach Wheat]

Originally Posted by egbeachley

Why I use a sniping service.

About 8 years ago I bid around $200 for a nice item. It was at $20 or so with 10 minutes remaining. A new bidder bid $30 and was outbid by me, of course. Then he put in $40. Then $50. Then $60 and so on until he was the high bidder at $205 when he stopped and won it.

If I sniped, he would have probably stopped at $30 and I would have won it at the next bid increment (assuming no other bidders).

And the reason you often win at your exact price is because of the bid increments. If you put in a bid of $40.27 and another bid comes in at $40, you win it at $40.27 even though the bid increment is supposed to be $1.

Ed, I agree and this is another reason I submit last second bids for items I want. I was purchasing some business software a few weeks ago. I researched final auction prices from previous auctions. There happened to be a dozen sellers listed on eBay all at reasonable prices. I put in reasonable max bids and was out bid in the last minute on all of them. Finally, I decided to manually snipe one of the auctions. I chose an auction that ended at an odd time and won the auction for less than my max bids on the previous auctions and ended up saving perhaps 10%.

MWheat

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by John V

I've used Gavelsnipe without a problem. I'm curious, why use a fee-based service?

I can't speak for Gavelsnipe but I know with Justsnipe (the one I use), the free version bids with 8 seconds left but the fee-based version bids with about 2-3 seconds left. In other words, the fee-based ones reduce your chances of getting outbid by another sniper.

Tabe

[T206Collector]

Originally Posted by Tabe

I know with Justsnipe (the one I use), the free version bids with 8 seconds left but the fee-based version bids with about 2-3 seconds left. In other words, the fee-based ones reduce your chances of getting outbid by another sniper.

I seriously doubt that a snipe with 8 seconds left leaves someone with enough time to put in a manual response in those final seconds. There is no added advantage to sniping any earlier than 8 seconds, because all of the sniping beyond that point will have been pre-set regardless of the snipe with 8 seconds to go.

[glchen]

Quicksnipe, which is free, allows you to snipe with 3 seconds left (although they recommend 5 or greater). What's the fewest that Gavel snipe allows?

[slidekellyslide]

Originally Posted by glchen

Quicksnipe, which is free, allows you to snipe with 3 seconds left (although they recommend 5 or greater). What's the fewest that Gavel snipe allows?

I've watched auctions end that I have a snipe set with gavelsnipe and it always bids at right about 10 to 8 seconds left.

[glchen]

The only problem that I've had with Quicksnipe is that there was one time where the snipe did not fire, and the reason was something like "Unknown System Error." I would have won the auction if not for the misfire. I have placed hundreds if not thousands of snipes, and this has only happened once, so it's not a big deal. However, if there is an auction that I really, really want, I try to make sure to place a bid manually also at around 5-8 seconds just in case. I also remember reading in a thread about a user who changed his ebay password, and forgot to correspondingly change this on this snipe account, and therefore lost an auction that way.