Well thanks to my new CT friends I have learned about Gavelsnipe.com. I have been able to win several auctions at great prices by using it. Until today that is, I had bids on a couple of items that ended and lost even though I had the highest bid. I learned that even though you have the highest bid on Gavelsnipe it still has to meet the minimum bid increment. I had always just posted a maximum bid in the past and sometimes won by pennies because a maximum bid posted on eBay counted regardless of the minimum increase since it was the first bid placed. I'm sure most of y'all knew this but I was disappointed a little bit to be the high bidder and lose. After a minute of disappointment I realized that my high bid was my Max Bid and I would have been outbid anyway. How do y'all feel about placing a max bid compared to using a SNIPE service?
I tried the maximum bid routine and was outbid more often than not even when trying to snipe at the end. I started using the snipe service Vrane.com and my success rate jumped to over 90%. I set the snipe at my maximum bid and it gets placed with 10 second left in the auction. By the time eBay accepts the bid there is usually 6 - 7 seconds left. Unless someone comes in before me at a bid higher than my bid I rarely lose.
I use gavelsnipe as well, 99% of my auction bids are done with it. I never used to max bid early either, I'd watch the auction and manually bid as close to end if I wanted it. I am one who believes that max bids can end up costing more than sniping due to longer bidding wars. Whether true, can't really say, but that's how I feel. I have had the same issue, highest bids not taking because of the next increment minimum thing. Sometimes it's saved my butt tho, I've looked back on auctions I've lost and realized it was best.
