eBay Sniping
Article by Margaret Alderton - December 2003
- What is Sniping - |
- Is Sniping Legal? - |
- How Does Sniping Save Me Money? - |
- How do I Snipe? - |
- What are the best Sniping programs? - |
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What is Sniping?
Sniping is the art of placing last second bids on eBay. The objective of sniping is to reduce the number of times the bid is incremented by making your bid so close to the end of the auction, other bidders don't get the opportunity to counter your bid.Is Sniping Legal?
Yes it is, on eBay at least. eBay has acknowledged sniping and have written this article on sniping. eBay mentions in this article that the way to beat snipers is to put in a proxy bid. By putting in a proxy bid on an auction you are essentially giving away your maximum bid. If other bidders also want the item, then they will out bid you long before the auction ends. Sniping is the best way to save money when bidding on eBay auctions.
How Does Sniping Save Me Money?
Let us look at two case studies: One where you are placing proxy bids throughout the lifetime of the auction, and one where you are sniping a bid in the last seconds of bidding.
| REGULAR BIDDING | SNIPING | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Does this look familiar? I can't emphasize this point enough: Placing bids early in the auction only serves to push up the price, especially if you are placing proxy bids. By waiting until the last few seconds of the auction to place your $25 proxy bid in the above example, you have saved more than 50% on the end price of the auction. This is a typical result for sniping, that is why it is so popular. In essence it all comes down to who has the higest bid at the end, but sniping does eliminate the element of "one-upping" that causes the auction price to rapidly climb.
How do I Snipe?
If you have the nerve and the spare time, you can snipe manually. It is exactly like placing a normal bid, except you wait until the last few seconds of the auction before submitting it. Simply decide what you are prepared to pay for an item, then place a bid within the last 20 seconds with a proxy value of the maximum you are prepared to pay for the item. This may sound simple but it is nerve wracking and prone to human error. Almost every sniper on eBay uses sniping programs to automate this task for them.What are the best Sniping programs?
There are many Sniping programs on the market. They can roughly be divided into three types: PC Based, Web Based and Hybrid.
PC Based snipers run on your computer. For them to be able to snipe you must leave your computer on and be able to connect to the Internet. You also have to ensure your PC clock is synchronised to eBay time. PC Sniping products are the cheapest option, ranging from between $10 to $50 one-off charge to download and install the software.
Web Based sniping services usually require you to join up to a web site. Most of these services charge you per auction, a percentage fee or a monthly charge. You do not need to rely on your PC to carry out your sniping with web based services. These can be very expensive to use and not as user friendly as PC based snipers.
Hybrid sniping tools are a new breed of sniping program. They combine the best of PC based snipers and web based services and are very reasonably priced.
| Snipe Utility | Type | Price | Rating | Comment |
| SnipeRight Professional | Hybrid | $19.95 one-off |  |
Easy to use, integrated browser, feature rich and very reliable. Best of breed! My personal pick. |
| BidNapper/ezSniper | Web based | $19.95 per 12 winning snipes/ 1% per winning snipe |
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Easy to use, however expensive and not 100% reliable. |
| Auction Stealer | Web based | $8.99/month $19.99/3 month $34.99/6 month |  |
Not user friendly - cut and paste from auction pages to place a snipe. Slow. |
| Auction Tamer | PC Based | $15.95/6 months $24.95/year | |
Integrated browser, but awkward to use and navigate. |
| Auction Sentry | PC Based | $14.95 one-off | |
Cheap and easy to use but functionlity lacking. Support also a little lacking. |
| iSnipeIT | PC Based | $34.95 one-off |  |
Fully featured but notoriously unreliable and no support to speak of. |
