Re: Subject: [Harp-L] Sniping on Ebay

[Joel Fritz <jfritz666@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Two things:

AFAIK no sniping software can place a bid that close to the end of an 
auction.  Some of the software will test your connection speed and some 
other variables and suggest an interval.  At home with cable the average 
suggested time for the bid to originate for me is around 3 seconds 
before the auction closes.  I don't think the web based sniping services 
can do much better. The software still has to connect to Ebay, log in, 
and place the bid.  The software types faster than a human, but Ebay 
takes the same amount of time to validate the signon and process the bid 
regardless. You'd be surprised how close you can come to doing the same 
thing manually.  You just need to know what time Ebay thinks it is.

The second thing is that you can't win an auction unless you have the 
highest bid.  It doesn't matter that much when you placed the highest 
bid as long as your maximum is high enough to win the auction.  If your 
max is $51, the high bid 2 sec before the auction ends is $35 and 
someone snipes with a $51 bid you still win because you bid first.  The 
sniper doesn't know your max unless it's what you've already bid.

In the days of rotary phones there was a sniping method for radio 
contests where they took the first x calls.  Predial everything but the 
last digit and dial the last one when they said go.  Then the stations 
started taking the fifth and eleventh caller or something similar.


M. Erickson wrote:
> Please note, there is a difference between "sniping" (placing a bid in the
> last few seconds of an auction), and a "sniping program" (an automated
> software program that places bids in the last few milliseconds of an
> auction). E-bay's help mentions "sniping", but say nothing about 3rd party
> sniping programs.