- You can cancel bids when you “e snipe”; after all, while eBay prohibits canceling bids the “e snipe” services don’t mind at all.
- By holding on to your bid until the very last moment, you keep a much lower profile. Bad for other collectors, good for you when you’ve discovered a listing where the seller didn’t describe the item properly. If you bid early, you’re just inviting other smart collectors to the party
- Unless you want to practice a lot (and lose a lot of auctions in the process), the online services are far more accurate than you are, and can easily place the bid within, say, 6 seconds of the auction close. Do you trust your computer not to bring up a screen saver, log you out, or run a security update 10 seconds before auction close?
7 eBay Tool Tips For Choosing an Auction Sniper: How to Win on eBay By Choosing The Right “E snipe” Service
There are a lot of good sniping services out there, so many that a search like “ebay bidding” or “e sniper” returns way too many results. Here are the criteria I have used successfully since starting on eBay in 1997.
1. You Deserve A Generous Free Trial
The sniping services place a lot of bids every day, and while support, operations, and legal costs quickly add up for any online business, the “e sniper” you choose should have a reasonably lengthy period. One or two free bids aren’t enough to give you a good feel for the service. If they can’t offer at least 10 days of service and at least 20 free bids, they aren’t welcoming you as a customer.
2. Only charge if you win
The auction sniper should only charge if you win. The psychology is simple. If you’re charged per snipe, you’ll tend to be far more timid in your purchases. That makes bid groups out of the question, and bid groups are a powerful eBay tool that cannot be had without use of a sniping service. Don’t know what bid groups are? Read on. We’re getting there! These subscription sites where you’re charged $30, $50, or $70 a year just to place your “e snipe” bids? Really?
3. Free Trial Should Not Require Credit Card
Look, eBay doesn’t make you enter your credit card to look around. Sniping services should only charge you once you’ve become a happy customer. They most certainly should not require a credit card for the free trial period. It’s not like they’re losing real money if they fail to place your bid. Look for auction snipers with a no-strings-attached free trial. If you’re asked to fork over anything other than you eBay ID and password, you’re not looking at a company that seriously wants to serve you.
4. Bid Groups Are Essential To Savvy Buyers
One of the good things about eBay is that they tend to have lots of everything. One of the bad things about eBay is that they tend to have lots of everything. Take the case where you search for a particular model of phone or camera and find hundreds of potential bargains? What you’d really like to do is place bids on all of them and cancel as soon as the first one wins. That’s a big no-no on eBay because you can only retract bids under rare circumstances.
A good “e snipe” auction sniper service can in fact perform that very service for you. It’s called bid groups. Remember that the auction sniper doesn’t actually place the bid until seconds before the auction closes. Bids can be canceled when using an “e sniper” because they were never placed on eBay!
Put these two scenarios together and you have bid groups. It works like this.
- You note several different auctions for the same type of item by copying their URLs into a text editor
- You create a bid group folder at the sniping service to hold the bids for this particular item
- You enter each bid’s information and maximum price you’re willing to pay into the bid group folder
- The “e sniping” service then places a bid on whatever auction in the bid group is about to end. If it wins, the remaining auctions are canceled. If it doesn’t, then the next item in the group about to end is bid on, and so on until you win or until the bid group is exhausted
5. The Sniping Service Should Be At least 10 years old
The New York Times wrote about auction sniping way back in 2002 (http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/05/technology/news-watch-auctions-how-to-outbid-the-fanatics-software-that-never-sleeps.html), and auction sniping was already a popular practice by then. eBay has been around since 1996. The established sniping services are still around because they don’t screw around with security, they have good service, and they’re speedy and reliable. Do you honestly want to entrust your eBay information to a new company run by script kiddies and high school hackers? Choosing a sniper is like choosing a bank. You want old, expert, and boring. Choose one that’s been around since the Times spotted the sniping trend.
6. Real support from locals here in the states
When I’m evaluating software or a service, I always give it an anonymous test. I submit a support request by clicking the Contact button and asking any question I can think of. If it’s a bad question, I can see if they take the time to understand it and explain all the issues thoroughly. It also tells me if they’re condescending or brusque. If I ask a challenging question, it helps me to see if they know their stuff. And I much prefer native English speakers. It saves time so I don’t have to rephrase my problem over and over again.
7. Preserves Your Auction History
The auction sniper you choose should fill a gap left by eBay: the vanishing history problem. Wouldn’t it be nice if eBay kept your auction description and date around longer than 3 months? I’m with you on that one. But they don’t. A good auction sniper should keep your auction description and date around for at least three years.
8. Lets You Choose When You Win
The accepted use of the word “sniping” in the online auction world is a bid placed within 1 minute of the auction close. Nowdays snipers are daring, and are known to place bids 10 seconds before auction close or even earlier. If you’re risk averse, you probably think 10 seconds is cutting it way too close. If you’re an experienced eBay tools user you probably think that winning eBay auctions would mean 6 second. In “e snipe” parlance, this is called the buffer time. For maximum flexbility and risk management you should be able to choose your buffer time with an auciton sniper service. That’s how to win on eBay.