[78-L] Sniping

[Michael Biel]

From: Malcolm Rockwell <malcolm at 78data.com>
> I say "screw it!". I bid at the last minute, take one shot
> at what I think is a fair price, bid and be done with it.

But you have to remember to go there "at the last minute" and it might
be in the middle of the night, when you are at work, when you are
travelling, etc.

> Then I check back hours later. If I've won, great...
> If I haven't, great. 

But if you are bidding at the last minute then you know immediately if
you have won.  Are you really saying that you are putting in your bid
hours before the end? If so, that is not "the last minute."

> All the rest of it just isn't worth the energy.  Ma;

I have a "Snipe It" button on my browser tool bar.  All I have to do is
click it, give my password in the box, put in my bid, and change the
number of seconds if I want to change the default.  That is all I have
to do.  It is even less steps than putting in a bid the regular way. 
The service checks the bid level an hour before the end to warn me by
email if I have been overbid already.  At least if I have been overbid
it isn't because I joined in the frenzy or caused the frenzy.



Ken Matheson wrote:
> > Sniping does not affect me when I bid on Evay. Bidding on an item and
> > having someone keep raising you is the reason people snipe. An item
> > will not have any bids until I bid, then it is bid, bid, bid. 

That's what I mean by causing the frenzy.


> > The bad part of sniping is, if you do it correctly, you have only
> > one chance. The computer clock is not good enough for sniping, it
> > takes high speed internet, and a GPS, or atomic clock.

That's why I use a sniping service and why I said earlier that you can't
do it live.  The sign in, page refresh, and manual bid process is too
unreliable.  You have no idea how fast it will happen because it depends
on the speed of your interconnection which can change moment by moment.

> > My bad memory causes me to lose out on many items I would like to have.
> > I have to set up an alarm clock to remind me to bid. 

Having to wake up to be at the computer can ruin your life.  But for me
there is one other factor of doing the last minute bidding frenzy live
-- it might literally kill me.  With my heart condition I can not chance
taking the "excitement" of this for an important item.  I remember what
it was like for me when I first started on oboy and tried to do this a
number of times with a dial-up connection.  

The other problem of doing it live is when a dealer has multiple items
that close within seconds or even a minute or two of each other.  Unless
you have two comnputers it can't be done.  

> > It does no good to have an auto bidding service if you are to cheap
> > to bid a reasonable amount on a hot item.

I put in my snipe service the highest amount that would probably be the
same bid I would have put in the regular fashion.  The main difference
will be that I do not cause the bidding to keep escalating EVERY TIME
someone else puts in a bid.  

> > Although days before hand, I have bid an unreasonable low amount
> > on items I did not care if I bought or not, and won. 

And many time I end up with a snipe that I had bid high on, and because
there were no other bids I get it for minimum bid -- and make the
worried owner very happy because he thought he had no bidders.  

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com