Sniping

[negomi2006]

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 🙂

[the3coopers]

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.

[papermoon.lady]

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.

[the3coopers]

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"

[papermoon.lady]

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

[papermoon.lady]

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?

[***super_nova***]

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.

[papermoon.lady]

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

[papermoon.lady]

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?

[papermoon.lady]

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"...

[the3coopers]

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.