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Welcome to My Sniping Tutorial!

Sniping is UNFAIR! Or is it?

"Snipers take advantage of the clock." True. All the auctions end at a preset, stated time. If only snipers could see what this time was, and place their bids accordingly, then this would be unfair, but that isn't the case. The fact is, you don't even need to have a clock synchronized to eBay's time to effectively snipe; all you need is a watch with a second hand.

"Snipers use special software." Sometimes. So can you. Sniping software is available to everyone. It isn't inside information known only to the Elitist Gang of Snipers (EGOS--of which I am proud member #019). We don't have special decoder rings that only we can use in order to get this software. Some sniping services are even free. I typed "auction sniping" into Google and got about 17,800 hits. You can't tell the difference between a snipe done by a service and a manual snipe anyway. I have seven-second manual snipes, and seven-second machine snipes, and you can't see which is which. In fact, I usually snipe closer to the end of the auction manually than I do using vrane.

"Snipers prevent a 'reactive' bid." This is true. So what? If the user had read the eBay tutorials, and let the proxy system do the work for them, they wouldn't need to bid "reactively." You can bid to the very last nanosecond if your proxy is high enough, and the best-placed one-second snipe can't do anything about it. Also remember that snipers can't bid "reactively" either. The sniper gets one shot. The eBay tutorials aren't in a secret spot, known only to snipers. They're in clear, easy-to-read English. The proxy system is explained. The bb's are here to help anyone who asks. We don't eat very many babies.

Follow-up: "Snipers cost sellers money because no one can come in and bid after them." Possibly true to a certain extent, but this argument presupposes a lowballing proxy. If your proxy is your true max, then the seller gets more money because our bids duke it out and the high bid wins. Not to mention sniper wars, where two or more snipers are vying for the same item. Also, the only bid that costs the seller money is the bid not placed. It is not the sniper's responsibility to subsidize other peoples' poor bidding styles. If a person can't figure out what the widget is worth to him without my bid, that isn't my fault. And think about it for a minute. The sniper places his max bid. The lowballer places a bid that is less than his max. Who is really costing the seller money?

"Snipers place ridiculously high bids, knowing that they can't possibly be outbid by a proxy at that price." From my experience and from what I've read on the boards, the "nuclear snipe" is largely a myth, altho I have seen it happen a time or two. Snipers bid what they are willing to pay, for the most part. At the same time, no one says that a "nuclear proxy" would be "unfair" to a sniper, or a nibbler. Also, see "Sniping costs sellers money," above. The two are kind of mutually exclusive.

"A sniper figured out my proxy and placed a bid one cent above it and yanked the widget out from under me." Snipers are not psychic. We don't have special powers. We don't know your proxy. If you bid early, then we can research your bidding pattern and see what it might take to beat you, but all the research I've done on previous bidders hasn't changed the amount I bid; it just gave me reassurance that I actually had a chance to win. Items are always won by one increment, or less. Wins by one cent are rare, coincidental, and sweet.

"I was the high bidder all week and then a sniper came along and stole my widget." The widget was never "yours." eBay knows no "dibs." If you needed it that badly, you should have proxied more. Lowballers win every once in awhile if no one else is interested in the widget, but a reasonable snipe will beat a lowballer every time. And should.

"Snipers always win." Not true. Lots of times we lose to previous well-placed proxies. It isn't the last bid that wins, it's the highest. Heck, sometimes we don't even bid because the price has already gone up over our max, but you never hear "My proxy beat off a sniper who never even bid!" But it happens all the time, to me, anyway.

So, with all that in mind, why is sniping "unfair," if the rules and tools are there for everyone, free of charge?

"All right, I guess sniping isn't unfair. Why is it the best way to bid?"

Lots of reasons. First, it's a good deterrent for shillers (sellers who bid on their own auctions or have friends do it for them). A shiller can eat up an early proxy bid, leaving you at or near your maximum. Shilling is illegal, but unscrupulous people do it anyway. However, they can't shill a bid that isn't there.

Second, it prevents nibbling. Inexperienced eBayers (and experienced eBayers who should know better) often nibble up a bid looking to beat out your proxy. This can be annoying, but there isn't anything you can do about it. Except snipe.

Third, it prevents somebody using you as a "personal shopper." You've gone to all the trouble of searching for the item; you don't need some lazy person searching your bid history to see what you're bidding on because they collect the same thing and are too shiftless to hunt it down themselves. There are also people out there known as "enemy bidders," who will follow you around and bid on the same widgets you do, not because they want them, but because they don't want you to have them, or they want you to pay out the nose for them. This sometimes occurs if you've been a little outspoken on the eBay bulletin boards on some controversial issue.

Fourth, a seller can make changes in an auction nearly right up to the end, even if it has bids. If you wait until the final few seconds to bid, all the revisions are in. You can base your bid on the final auction page, instead of a description that may have changed materially since the beginning of the auction.

Fifth, it prevents you and your money from being tied up in an item for a week. Remember, even if you are outbid, if the overbidder retracts or is cancelled by the seller (it happens) and you become the high bidder again, you are still responsible. If you wait until the last second to bid, you will already know if the item has gone over your maximum, and you can move on to another one with a clear conscience.

Sixth, it allows you time to do all the research on the item that you need in order to come up with your final bid. You can check the seller's feedback and feedback left, ask the seller a question or two if needed, look at their "me" page, check their other auctions to see if you can buy more than one widget from them and save on shipping, etc. You can also search the web and any local sources you may have so you can figure out just how much you're willing to pay. And if the same widget with a "Buy it Now" price that's cheaper than the current one you're looking at comes along, you can grab that one with no repercussions, because you're not locked into the first one.

Remember, there is only one advantage to bidding early in an auction, and that is that, in the case of a tie, the auction goes to the earlier bidder. By adding a few odd cents to your bid, you vastly reduce the chances of tying with another bidder. However, the disadvantages to bidding early are legion.

"Are there any pitfalls to sniping?"

Yes, several. Altho this is a rare occurrence, eBay's servers do go down on occasion; in fact they are down for routine maintenance every Friday morning from about 1:00am to about 3:00am PST. Your own ISP can also go down. You can lose electricity, phone, and/or cable to your house from any number of causes. You could be unexpectedly away from your computer at the end of the auction. You could forget about the auction altogether. Your computer could break. You could experience delays in uploading your bid and lose out on the auction. The seller could end the listing early because they aren't getting any bids or they don't like snipers. Any or all of these things could cause you to miss out on an item you really want.

Also, you have to live with whatever amount you type into the bid box. If you accidently use a comma instead of a period, you could wind up paying $1000.00 for a $10.00 widget, if someone else does the same thing--or if they decide that they really want it and a nuclear bid is the way to go. Altho a misplaced decimal point is a valid reason to retract, sniping gives you no time to do so. So review the bid confirmation page very carefully, and make sure the amount it shows is the amount you want to bid; and be very careful of the amount you put in the bid box, especially on auctions from overseas. Remember, other currencies may use a comma as a decimal separator, while dollars use a period.

"OK, so I still think sniping is the best way to bid. How can I become a sniper?"

First, make a note of the ending time of the auction. I set an alarm in my PalmPilot for 15 minutes before the auction ends (to give me time to boot up the computer and log onto eBay); and, as a backup, I put a sticky note with the name of the widget and the ending time on the computer itself . Now comes the hard part...sit back and wait. Check the auction occasionally to see if the bidding has already gone over your max; if it has, you can move on to another auction. This happens to me on a regular basis. It's really no big deal, tho it's disappointing for about a microsecond.

Next, you must determine your absolute top dollar, would never ever pay more for this widget, True Maximum bid. If you would be upset if you were outbid by one cent on this item, then it isn't your maximum. Remember, you only get one shot at this, so you better make it a good one. Adding a few odd cents is helpful as well. However, resist the temptation to put in a "nuclear snipe." There may be another sniper or a proxy bidder who has the same not-so-bright idea, and you probably don't want to pay $10,000 for a $100 widget. Use the time before the end of the auction to do your homework. Check the sellers feedback, and feedback left. Look at their "me" page, if they have one. Check their other auctions; they may have other widgets you're interested in, and you could save on shipping. Ask the seller any questions you might have, and if you don't get an answer before the end of the auction, you may want to reconsider bidding. Find out what the going rate is for your particular widget. It would be silly to pay more than retail for it if you can just go down to your local Wal-Mart and buy it there. You should also recognize that there are very few "unique" items on eBay (with a few notable exceptions), so chances are that the widget will come up for auction again if you are patient. And don't forget to take shipping and handling into consideration!

OK, the ending time is close! Go to the front page of eBay and sign in. Do not use Passport to sign in. Problems with Passport are legion. Then go to your "My eBay" page and click on the auction, which you should have put on your "watch" list when you found it. Right-click on "bid history" and then click "open in new window." This should give you two windows, one with the bid history and one with the auction. The reason you watch the auction count down from the bid history page is that it loads faster and gives you a more accurate idea of when the auction is going to end. Now go down to the bottom of the auction page and type in your bid amount (did you remember the odd cents?) and click "review bid." Check the confirmation page to be sure that your bid amount is correct; if it isn't, hit the "back" button and make corrections.

Resize your windows and move them around so that you can see the high bid amount on the "bid history" window" and the "place bid" button on the bid review window at the same time. Here is where your wristwatch comes into play. No, you don't have to synchronize it to eBay's time; you just have to pay attention to when the auction is going to end according to your own watch. Hit the "refresh" button at the top of your browser when the second hand hits the 12, or when it says 00 on your digital watch. This will give you a starting point. And say, for example, it says it will end in 8 minutes, 10 seconds. Wait until you come back to that point on your watch again, and again hit "refresh." Hopefully it will tell you that the auction ends in 7 minutes, 10 seconds. In my experience, this means that the auction will end seven minutes from the time you hit the "refresh" button, not the time it takes to load the page, when the second hand gets to the 2. If it's a little off, then start hitting it every thirty seconds until you get something more consistent.

Now you have consistency, and according to your watch, the auction will end when the second hand gets to the 10-second mark. Most people recommend, for your first snipe, that you bid any time within the last minute, and as you get a little less "snipe fever" you can close that time up to within seconds of auction close. So, in the last minute of the auction, pick a mark on your watch, and as soon as the second hand gets to that spot, click the "place bid" button on the review bid page. A new page will come up, either congratulating you on being the new high bidder, or (snif, snif) telling you that "You've been outbid by another bidder!" If you've been outbid--oh, well, you gave it your best shot. If you are the new high bidder, then go back to the bid history page and refresh it one more time to see if you've been outsniped (it happens).

Congratulations! You have joined us on the "dark side."

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