You don't have to use a sniping service to snipe. I usually do it manually. I am subscribed to "Just Snipe" sniper service. I get five free snipe auctions per month. The only catch to the five free auctions is that they can't be used on items in E-Bay Motors. (Boo, Hiss) But they are free so I take it. I can up grade for a fee, but I just take the free ones. It is a very simple system to use. Just Snipe bids with 5 seconds to go. When I manually snipe I usually try to put in a snipe bid at the last 5 second mark. I have a DSL connection. It might be a little harder if you are on a dial-up connection but you can still manually snipe on a dial-up connection with 5 seconds to go. The one problem you might have when you manually snipe if you wait to get down inside the last few seconds you run the risk of missing the auction altogether. I've had that happen before. One advantage of using a sniping service that was already pointed out is that you won't miss bidding on an auction at any time. The real bennefit of sniping (manually or with a service) is that you are not raising the price against yourself. The earlier you bid the more time you give other people to out bid you. If you bid with one day to go then someone can out bid you with one hour to go. Then you have to come back to re-bid to be the high bidder again. Why get in a bidding war? If it is an item you are determined to win why do you keep raising the price? Assuming the item bidding price passes the sellers reserve, the item dosen't get sold to the highest bidder, it goes to the highest bidder when time runs out on the auction.It makes no sense to ever bid on an item in an E-Bay auction until the last 5 seconds unless you like paying extra for an item. You'll notice that "for the most part" people that bid early don't usually have a high feedback rating and that people who come in and bid in the last 10 seconds have higher feedback ratings. In my opinion and in general it makes no sense to bid early on an E-Bay auction unless you like paying more for an item than you need to. Just Snipe gives you five free auctions (non-E-Bay Motors) per month. It is worth trying out if you want to see what a sniping service is like. You can always up-grade for full service at a later date. If someone knows about a free sniping service that lets you bid in E-Bay Motors I'd like to know about it. Jim Seisser -----Original Message----- From: GT350HZ (AT) aol (DOT) com Sent: Jan 8, 2006 12:35 AM To: MHeroy (AT) aol (DOT) com, shelbymustang (AT) carmemories (DOT) com Subject: Re: Sniper software Here is the problem with just leaving a bid on ebay. I have run into this situation on identical items and the amount I paid was less when I used a sniping service. When you have a bid up, if someone is interested they will make several bids at incriment up to the amount you bid in many cases. Sometimes they are interested in finding out if they are willing to stretch to the amount that you bid and sometimes they are legitimately bidding. In most cases if you bid on incriment at a point you will frequently tie the high bidder. This enables you to figure out that you have to bid more to get the item. For the original bidder it exposes their maximum and also causes them to pay their maximum if the person decides not to outbid them. On items that I have an interest in, but are not that important to me, I have decided to place a bid that I would easily pay for the item. If I am outbid, sometimes I just go on, sometimes place another bid. The mentality is the bidder is more likely to continue bidding until they reach a point well beyond their expectations or they become high bidder. One example was a set of concert tickets I was trying to buy. I decided I would leave a bid. That same day, after 5 bids, I was outbid. On another set of concert tickets I only set up a snipe bid and paid $150 less for a better pair of tickets than the ones I lost. Often the person who has no idea as to market will lemm on the previous bidder. If they thought it was worth $500, then it wouldn't hurt if I paid a little more if the mind set. Snipe services takes out the sharing of expertise and market knowledge as well as giving someone a set target to beat. Lee 66 # 869 69 # 2055 ________________________________________ PeoplePC Online A better way to Internet http://www.peoplepc.com
