Well, you know the rest. I'm tired of losing auctions to sniping. I am confident ebay doesn't care (they could easily extend an auction 30 seconds after each "last" bid or whatever time it took for each bidder to KNOW each others top bid - in other words a *true* auction) So, does anyone use or know of a good snipe program? I'd like a software based option.... thank you so much.... P.S. I've pretty much resorted to only buying hole fillers for my 8 year old daughter and graded stuff for me - I'm just not good enough to judge a RAW coin online yet - if ever...
Now that is an interesting concept you have there. I'd like to see an optional format available where the auction runs for some minimum time to gain sufficient exposure, then after that bidding ends when no one puts in a qualified bid for some time period, like say 10 minutes. That would be fun to watch and might bring up sales prices
Well, it isn't software based, but I use gixen.com and it has worked like a charm for me. Avoided some bidding wars and saved myself a few bucks by sniping and getting the high bid at the last second.
I understand your frustration with getting sniped. However, keep this in mind: *As primarily a seller on eBay, I would absolutely prefer higher selling prices. I feel that bidders waiting until the last moment to submit all their bids leads to lower selling prices. I don't have actual numbers to prove this...just my perception. *As a buyer on eBay, I have absolutely sniped about half the items I've won. The other half? Searching through BIN/BO listings. Contacting the seller. Saying, "Hey, would you consider ending this auction early for X price?" Maybe give this a try. *As a seller, my opinion doesn't mean squat to eBay. I can't leave negative feedback for buyers, I can't rate them on How Fast Did They Pay or Buyer Tried To Extort A Lower Price. eBay takes a cut of my shipping fees to try to get me to make all my shipping FREE. eBay has done nothing to protect me in the few cases where someone has tried to use the system to take advantage of me...but if enough buyers complain...maybe that will help? *They are NOT going to do away with the sniping...because it's probably the most exciting moment as a buyer, when you WIN. However, I would like to see an end to software/app/robot sniping. I don't mind if a person snipes...but if there are ten software programs conspiring to keep the end price down, now I have an issue with that. *Maybe, if searching BIN/BO listings doesn't work out for you, you should start placing your reasonable bid (or somewhere a little lower than it) early on in the process, then trying to snipe yourself with your actual reasonable bid. I've done this a few times with success - someone tries to snipe my bid of $2.50 with a $3 bid, but I've got a bid of $3.50 I throw in at the last second. That way they don't have time to "re-snipe" you. *If an item gets away from you, don't take it personally. Let it go. There will always be more coins. I JUST lost a coin I'd contacted the seller about, worked out a deal for an offer, was going to pay, and someone bought it at FULL PRICE. Talk about frustration...but oh well, I'm not going to let the one that got away ruin the 5 or 6 that I did catch that day. (Although I was pretty sure it was going to be a nice RPM.) Maybe this helps?
I know a seller who shill bids his own coins, its a fact. I beat this by snipe bidding him. He will never win this way as he cannot get the price to creep up pound by pound if he doesnt know what i will bid with 5 seconds to go. I got his last two coins for £1.50 and £2.40....they are £12 coins and bad photography meant apart from his other shill bidding buddy account I had no competition. YOC 2 - corrupt seller 0
I have two eBay accounts (because sometimes I have more monthly listings than I get free listings) but I would NEVER shill bid to bring up the prices. If an item doesn't bring what I need it to, I consider that my fault... I do try to keep the name "defcat_numismatics_2" similar enough to my main name "defcat_numismatics" that people would never think I'd try something like that. I've known sellers that ended their auctions with a day left because they didn't have enough action. I was the high bidder and contacted them, and that's exactly what they told me...lol
Hmmmm. If you are getting outbid at the last minute or even last couple of seconds, a sniping program will be of absolutely ZERO BENEFIT since it is obvious that you are not bidding enough. SNIPING Programs do exactly what eBay ALREADY does in that it wuill bid on your behalf UP TO BUT NOT EXCEEDING the MAXIMUM AMOUNT that YOU HAVE SET. If you do not "define" that maximum amount in real life, then a sniping program will simpy not work. You want to win some auctions? Wait til the last second and bid $1,000,000. I can guarantee that you'll win. You may not like the amount you pay but at least you'll win. Perhaps you should share the listings that you are "losing" so that folks can advise you on how to approach your bidding philosophy? Now, the entire "purpose" behind a sniping program is to "suppress" actual bidding. In other words, if it appears that nobody else is bidding, then folks have a tendency to bid low instead of throwing their maximum onto the pile. But, once that maximum is set, other biddings can eat away at it, a dollar at a time, until they have the high bid OR until they have reached "their" maximum. This does you no good and as such, most eBay bidders do not do this. Instead, they'll wait for the last second and then drop their big bid. 9 out of 10 times, they'll win the item for less than their maximum and on rare occasions, they'll win the item AT their maximum. There will also be times where that maximum bid just is not enough and it'll "look" like they lost by a single bid. The entire point being, you have to know WHAT to BID and WHEN to make that BID. If you do not know that, then your win rate is simply not going to increase.
I only usually make 2 bids, 1st bid is opening bid at the minimum, like a $.99 bid, so that way it'll remind me when it's ending or if there's already bids, I just add it to my watch list, and then my last bid. The max amount I'm willing to pay for the coin. If I don't win, I'm not mad because I didn't want to pay more than what I put as a max bid. Would I like to know how much higher the other sellers max bid was, sure, but if I kept bidding to find out, I'd likely over pay and I'd be broke! I don't use a snipping program, simply because I have eBay on my phone. I always have the chance to check my lists, like tonight, I have 27 coins I'm watching that are ending. None of which I plan on bidding on, but I went through a series of varieties with my Cent Book to see how much the difference between the R1/R3 coins are. Sometimes it's just nice watching what some people are willing to pay for coins.....
I bid two ways: 1) Snipe. Only for things that I REALLY would like, and usually for larger-dollar amount items. 2) Make the first bid. I just bid the max that I'd pay for it. Doesn't matter when I do it, and if I get outbid, I don't bid again. I let it go. Usually for lower-priced items that I can come across again easily.
On 100 auctions with $30 being my MAX bid, I absolutely will win more using a sniping program than entering that $30 bid, say, half way through the auction. I won't win bunches and bunches more because what you said does have merit (the highest wins regardless) but not 'showing your hand' throughout the auction DOES equate to more wins - esp. on auctions where only two people are interested. You're obviously correct about the buyer that bids his/her HIGHEST amount right outta the gate, but people are visual beings... they like to "see" where they are and "what" is the present highest bid... so they bid low and watch it ride. Ultimately they see they're winning and often DO NOT input their highest number. If the human element wasn't involved, you're totally right.. a sniper would be useless....
"Sometimes it's just nice watching what some people are willing to pay for coins....." I do the same thing - great way of gaining knowledge. I know there are collectors out there who believe the 'money' end of things enters into the hobby too much. I *have* to watch my money when buying coins...
Bidnapper is my new best friend. With the amount of coins I buy on eBay (all of my coins) and the amount that I spend it it works great. I watch my bid go through usually literally on second 2-1. I have won all my coins 5 or 6 using bidnapper. The other thing I love is no buyer remorse. You can place a bid and if you change your mind you can delete the bid as long as it is not inside 6 minutes of the end. I've placed orders that I later deleted because I bought other coins. I've only been reading this forum for a few months but the 2 best take away things I learned are Hugh wood and bidnapped (Ps not a paid advertisement)
If I blindly bid $30 as a max in the last few seconds of an auction, I might have a large bid win as well. BUT, I am not going to put a max of $30 on everything I want as some are worth $10 max.
