On 05/02/2018 08:06 AM, Eric Christopherson via cctalk wrote: > When you say you snipe with a bot, do you mean you use eBay's highest-bid > functionality to do it? Or do you use third-party software? > > I've never been clear on how the built-in highest-bid functionality works. > I often see things where the same person has several consecutive bids, > which doesn't make any sense to me in the absence of other people's bids in > between them.
When you submit a bit do eBay using the traditional method, your bid is really a proxy bid--it's increased by specified increments until it's outbid by another bidder. If you prevail, you win by the minimum winning proxy bid. For example, I was looking for a cheap HDMI cable. There were a few available for a starting bid of $0.50. I submitted a bit for $1.00 and won with a final price of $0.69. Sniping simply reduced the amount of time that a competing bidder has to submit a bid when he discovers that he's being outbid. There's nothing unethical about it--auctions end at a specified time and you get your bid in at the last possible moment. There's software for this, but since I'm an original member of the eSnipe service, I use them and haven't paid them a fee for years, since bids under a certain amount aren't assessed for a commission. Later subscribers don't have the same deal, I believe. When I'm interested in something small, I'll submit a snipe bid for what I'm willing to pay and then forget about it. If I win, great, if not, no bother. One thing that many eBay subscribers overlook is the "Make offer" feature of some auctions. In my opinion, that's where the real gold can be. If the BIN price looks too high and you really want an item, make an offer. You never know--the seller just may be want to be rid of the thing and will take any offer. FWIW, Chuck
