posted on April 14, 2001 09:35:04 AM
There have been a number of changes made at e-snipe recently. Has anyone used them?
Are the bids being placed more efficiently?
They seem to be encouraging people to place much lower buffer times than before.
I still don't have the guts to play it that close after a fiasco I had back in August when they were down and I literally missed about 65 simultaneously ending auctions of a rare series of what I collect. You hardly ever saw these items, then BOOM, several dozen listed with Mr. Lister! It still hurts when I think about it!
posted on April 14, 2001 10:51:58 AM
I used it several times recently, and I've not had a problem, even with a 6-second buffer (I usually use 10 seconds). None of the auctions has closed on Sunday night, though.
posted on April 14, 2001 03:48:45 PM
Very dependable. I use it all the time, it's great. I use an 11 second buffer, but notice that esnipe makes my bids in one second! No problems!
posted on April 14, 2001 04:05:23 PM
well on their home page they say they've been consistently getting bids in the last three seconds (the secret's out!) so I had to knock mine down to 2 seconds. Yep. 2. Won 2 auctions with it yesterday with NO problem <g>.
posted on April 14, 2001 10:23:08 PM
I use it for all of my bids, and have not had any problems that was the fault of esnipe.
The only problem I had was the result of how Ebay structures their bids. Even though I submitted a higher bid than the eventual winner, it was less than the minimum amount for a new bid and Ebay rejected it. That was a learning curve to figure out why my higher bid didn't win, however I don't know if I would do anything different in the future.
E-snipe has totally changed my Ebay buying habits. If I see something that I like, I save it to the "My Ebay" page. Then (assuming that there's time), I return in a day or two to see if I still want the item. If the answer is yes, then I ask, "how much am I willing to pay?" Once I've answered those two questions for myself, I leap over to e-snipe, enter in the information, and more-or-less forget about it until the end of the auction. My success rate is about 85%.
I'm sorry that you had a bad experience, but in the long run, your chances of success as a buyer are much higher with e-snipe than a manual bidding system.
posted on April 14, 2001 11:41:27 PM
Supergsm, the website is www.esnipe.com, and it's used to "snipe" an auction (put in a winning bid at the last moment). The advantage is that you don't have to sit at your computer with your finger trembling on the mouse button, hoping that your computer doesn't freeze up and keep you from winning. When you register, you use your eBay ID and password, and you place your bid with the dollar amount you want to pay, the quantity (for Dutch auctions), and the "buffer" (how many seconds before the end of the auction you want your bid to be placed).
The reason to snipe is that whenever you outbid someone, they get an e-mail telling them so. If you have put in a maximum bid, they can come back and bid again--and if they don't outbid you, they've simply raised the price that you have to pay. There's also psychology involved--if someone browsing sees an auction with bids, they're more likely to look at it themselves and bid on it. For "hot" auctions, even if you bid manually 20 seconds before an auction ends, someone else could get in with another bid after you. Using esnipe gives you a much greater chance of winning.
BTW many people use www.vrane.com for sniping as well as for other seller tools (like checking feedback).
