Sniping
This is a post in process. I will probably add to it later...
Many people don't realize how much technique there is when it comes to ebay. While there are many aspects to both buying and selling, today I want to talk about sniping. For the first time ever, I used a sniping program, AuctionSniper, which is free for the first 3 wins, and fairly inexpensive thereafter.
There are many reason to snipe, among them:
Avoid a bidding war - Bidding wars often cause you to spend more money than you actually intended. Therefore you actually are going to be saving money by using Auction Sniper because you won’t rely on compulsive bidding to win an auction. Afterall, why bid prematurely? Why would you want to increase an auction's current bid price if it doesn't close for several more days? This only leads to an inflated closing bid. There is no reason to bid prematurely; it will only encourage other bidders to bid on the item.
There are various extra advantages to using a program to take care of your sniping. For example:
Ebay time is weird - Ebay is not synched with any accurate clock per se, so you have to go by official eBay Time
There are also other programs for sniping, including:
Sniperight (subscription)
AuctionStealer (subscription)
vrane.com (free)
esnipe.com (per win charges)
Comments
ebay time is right on the money afaict. my laptop syncs regularly to a time server and ebay is within a few seconds of it, if not exact.
Posted by: shaya | December 21, 2004 8:15 PM
'time' is so arbritrary -- the delta time is important (hence the usefulness of a 30$ stopwatch), and we go to great lengths to have us all the same for that, but the starting point isnt. I use this argument when shabbat starts. "Oh. its 4:10 on the VCR, its time." well no it isnt, the 4:10 posted on the sheet is based on what? the atomic clock in Co.? probably not. Is our watch synched up? No. SO here we have people comparing different things. (and OT, we all know that the time for shabbat is also rounded -- it never starts 4:10 8 seconds, and anyway it also depends on latitude/longitude of where your are standing.)
Oh well, to the right of me it's shabbat, to the left of me its shabbat, but where i was standing.... Thursday afternoon!
Posted by: Lippenhoffer | December 22, 2004 8:50 AM
Time is in the mind. Besides, a few more earthqukes and ebay will be even more off...
Posted by: Lier Mctrutherson | December 28, 2004 3:08 PM