topic Re: Sniping in Buying

Sniping

negomi2006 — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 21:50:21 GMT

Hey all, I used to post here a fair bit but haven't for a while....

is Just Snipe still a good free sniper program to use & does your password have to be the same as your ebay password???

Thanks in advance guys 🙂

Re: Sniping

the3coopers — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 23:13:29 GMT

Never heard of Just Snipe (doesn't mean it's no good). But it appears to be a paid service, or gives only a few snipes per week.

Probably the best Sniper service is Gixen. It is fully online, nothing to install so you can use it from any computer, even a smartphone.

Yes, you must provide authorisation to the Sniper to use your account on your behalf. So they need the password. If this concerns you (and there is a slight risk involved), then open a new ID just for Sniping.

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Re: Sniping

negomi2006 — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 00:53:39 GMT

the3coopers - thanks for your reply, I don't usually use a sniping program these days but an auction that I really want is finishing when I will be at work tonight and I don't want to show my hand too early 😉

I have decided to go with Gixen for this one *fingers crossed*

Re: Sniping

lane-ends — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 09:29:48 GMT

I use snip and auctionstealer. I paid for snipe credits on snip years ago, cant remember how nuch but lasted years. Auctionstealer is free for few snipes a week.

Re: Sniping

papermoon.lady — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 14:48:13 GMT

Well, at the beginning I lost a few auctions because I didn't know how they worked. I remember my very first auction - I kept increasing my amount by 50 cents and didn't understand how it was possible that somebody outbid me all the time!

Now I know how it works and I have won some auctions... But always manually up to now. However,I was thinking it would be nice to have a backup just in case my connection drops just in the last few minutes of an auction.

So I was wondering if I bid through Gixen for example and then my Internet connection is fine and I want to bid myself (because after all Gixen can fail too according to their FAQs), if I bid before Gixen (this is likely because Gixen really bids a few seconds before the end of an auction) and bid just 1 dollar more than the Gixen bid, will the Gixen bid be cancelled? Will Gixen consider it an auction that it didn't win?

I prefer to do it myself, but if the Dodo connection drops just before the end of an auction I would kick myself!

Re: Sniping

lyndal1838 — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 16:13:28 GMT

If you bid manually as well as the Gixen bid you are bidding against yourself and may well pay far more than necessary for the item.

As an example...if the bid is at $100 and you and Gixen bid around $150 then you will pay that much instead of $102.50.

Do you really want to risk it?

Re: Sniping

papermoon.lady — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 21:10:43 GMT

No... That's why I had said if I bid for example one dollar more than Gixen. For example the Gixen bid is 99 and I bid 100 manually before it, then when Gixen bids it will think it has been outbidded and the bid will practically be cancelled?

Re: Sniping

***super_nova*** — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 00:58:51 GMT

I do not know about Gixen, but I use Phantom Bidder, and eBay recognises my bids and does not bid against me. What I mean once I made a manual bid on item that also had BIN (to prevent somebody getting it at the BIN price), then I realised I will be unable to manually bid at the time the auction ends, so I set up Phantom, fully prepared that I will have to pay one increment above my opening bid. Nobody else bid, and the Phantom did the normal thing placing the 3 bids in the last few seconds, at the starting price.

PhantomBidder gives few free bids, but after that you need to pre-pay. But the only misses I had over the 8 years were all my fault, like changing my eBay password and not telling Phantom.

Re: Sniping

papermoon.lady — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 01:32:26 GMT

I have just found this thread about Gixen and bidding manually too: http://arhit.gixen.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2118&sid=7c5d86b0c34db92b78c9fa3a04bdbbee

It should be fine... 🙂

Re: Sniping

the3coopers — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 02:03:25 GMT

No... That's why I had said if I bid for example one dollar more than Gixen. For example the Gixen bid is 99 and I bid 100 manually before it, then when Gixen bids it will think it has been outbidded and the bid will practically be cancelled?

If Gixen is set at $99 and you bid $100 before it, then it is EBAY that will reject Gixens' bid. These sniper services don't actually check the prices or anything - they just bid "blind".

In fact, Gixen paid service uses 2 separate eBay logins to place a "double bid" on your behalf. I have mine set for AU at 10 secs then USA at 8 seconds. What happens is that normally my AU bid is the one that "wins", however if it fails then the USA one is my backup.

Sometimes eBay will accept both auto-snipe bids, and they can both be seen as from me in the Bid History. Other times one of the servers returns with a message "Bid is under asking price".

Re: Sniping

the3coopers — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 02:11:47 GMT

If you bid manually as well as the Gixen bid you are bidding against yourself and may well pay far more than necessary for the item.

As an example...if the bid is at $100 and you and Gixen bid around $150 then you will pay that much instead of $102.50.

Do you really want to risk it?

It doesn't work like that. You cannot win it twice! And the price you pay is ENTIRELY based on eBay's Bid Increment system. So, you pay the price of the 2nd highest opposition bidder, plus one Bid Increment.

For example, if the other person bids $90...

a) you have a Gixen set at $100, then you win it at $95

b) you have a Gixen set at $100, and then you also manually bid $150 (either before OR after Gixen), then you win it at $95

c) a) you have a Gixen set at $100, and you manually bid $90, then you win it at $95

No matter what you do, there is no possibility to "bid against yourself" on eBay - it's all based on your UserID. The only way that can happen is if you use a different ID, because then you really ARE bidding against yourself.

Re: Sniping

papermoon.lady — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 02:39:33 GMT

Yes, that's what I actually meant. If a bid is too low, Ebay tells you you have to increase your maximum bid, so the Gixen bid will not go through.

I intend to try the free version for the moment. I would be curious to see how it goes if I don't bid... but I guess I will have to wait for an auction when I cannot be in front of the computer towards the end... For the moment it is just a safety precaution.

Re: Sniping

the3coopers — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 05:20:02 GMT

I use the Free one for most of my IDs, and I've never had a problem or lost a snipe due to bad service. When it's something really important, I use the paid subscription (only $6/yr) which is on only one of my IDs.

There are other advantages of the paid version, not just that it has 2 servers when sniping. The best for me is the "Contingency bidding groups" where it will only bid on remaining items in a nominated group if it wins the first one. This is excellent for situations where there is a good "add-on" item that would not be viable on it's own - for example "Only if I win this games console, also bid on this game cartridge"

Re: Sniping

papermoon.lady — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 06:09:02 GMT

Yes, for 50 cents a month it might be worth trying if something is really important...

Re: Sniping

papermoon.lady — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 06:13:49 GMT

I actually wonder if it is better to do what I said I wanted to do above, or instead leave the highest bid with Gixen (because it bids really a few seconds before the end), and I could bid just a bit earlier, and a little bit less, so if somebody tries to outbid me after my bid Gixen can outbid them?

Re: Sniping

***super_nova*** — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 06:43:29 GMT

I actually wonder if it is better to do what I said I wanted to do above, or instead leave the highest bid with Gixen (because it bids really a few seconds before the end), and I could bid just a bit earlier, and a little bit less, so if somebody tries to outbid me after my bid Gixen can outbid them?

Yes, but possibly you will also make them to drive the price up.

For instance if the top bid is in this moment $60 and you put $100 in Gixen. The person who has the $60 bid may actually bid $90, if you bid manually $95, they may decide to up their bid and anybody else watching the item will know that they have to snipe with at least $100,. If several people bid $100 in the last few seconds, it is the one who bid that amount first who wins.

Re: Sniping

papermoon.lady — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 06:55:11 GMT

Yes, there are risks. One needs a little bit of luck too with auctions!

Re: Sniping

papermoon.lady — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 02:13:45 GMT

Do you think it looks weird or suspicious if for example the last two bids are both mine because I first try to bid manually then Gixen also bids? I mean, do sellers care?

Re: Sniping

papermoon.lady — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 06:41:30 GMT

Well, I looked at some of the items the seller of the item I want to bid on has sold (from the feedback page), as well as the bids, and for almost every item there are consecutive bids from the same bidders, also towards the end of the auctions, so it shouldn't be look too "weird"...

Re: Sniping

the3coopers — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 08:51:47 GMT

Do you think it looks weird or suspicious if for example the last two bids are both mine because I first try to bid manually then Gixen also bids? I mean, do sellers care?

Sellers care about the money. In general they don't even look at the bidding patterns.