When I was an avid collector in the niche market of militaria -- I would collect rare & prototypes of bayonets and fighting knives -- there would be newbies who thought they could get a bargain by nibble-bidding an auction with cringe-worthy low bids. My last one second snipe took me 5 minutes. No one to blame but yourself. Bid late-- but don't worry about bidding at the last second. Sadly this is the best way to win. And, because your bid is not revealed until the final seconds of the auction, your knowledge of the item's value is kept private. Always add a few cents/pence to your max - £23.77 rather than £23.00. At your bid time, click the confirm button. It’s free to make an offer, but if the buyer accepts, you pay a final value fee. Hehe.... After my friend won and fully paid for the item, he let me know that he received his first nastygram saying that the item was "stolen away" and "robbed" from the low-baller nibbler. Use the earliest time you came up with. Never bid before the last few seconds. Once the Confirm Bid page is correct, position your mouse cursor over the confirm button. It went for 50 because of a last minute sniper. Buyers seem to prefer to come online (eBay or elsewhere) to buy and buy it now, not place a bid and wait several days to see if they have purchased the item. The old boards used to award informal 'Biddies' for last second manual snipes. 2 minutes to EOA enter your maximum bid (which you have calculated long before starting step 1) and click the Bid button. Sometimes, just sometimes, I wish we could go back to how things were on ebay years ago. If it works well, sell it for more. Mechanically to place a bid in the last few seconds (it is NOT optimum to aim for the very last second--the point is to do it late enough that it can't be reacted to … I use ez sniper personally, and they give you something like the first 5 winning bids free before they charge anything and their fee is only 1% so its not expensive at all. Sniping is the term given to jumping in on an auction at the last second and placing a bid. 2. This will be your end time according to your clock as synched with eBay and adjusted for lag time from whatever source (slow finger, slow computer, slow internet connection). There's no law against outbidding someone.No-one knows the amount of your bid except you. This gives your competition no time to respond to your bid. You're not getting "beaten to" to items (you went first, remember) you are being outbid not because the winner bid last but because the winner bid MORE than you did. Bid just enough to win your auction. It can be any amount over that minimum, and it isn't unusualy for people to arrive at about the same valuation on things. Hold prices down by not bidding throughout the auction. Mechanically to place a bid in the last few seconds (it is NOT optimum to aim for the very last second--the point is to do it late enough that it can't be reacted to, anything after that and you run a bigger risk of it not getting there in time--it must be RECEIVED and timestamped before the end of the last second--or of losing to an earlier bid or bids because it is an exact tie with the highest earlier bid or it is less than an increment above the "current bid" resulting from the two highest earlier bidders) you use a snipe service (there are reliable free ones--do an internet search for eBay snipe service--I use the one that rhymes with 2 of Santa's reindeer) or synch a local clock--I do not recommend using the eBay supplied countdown as it is not accurate in that it is not adjusted for lag time from your equipment (including your nervous system) to eBay's servers and back such as what I describe below (note this description is a bit out of date due to changes in the bid interface which are to the worse for manually sniping) or both ( the later bid will most likely be rejected, but since you can't bid against yourself it doesn't matter if both bids are accepted). I remember one auction that was for an extraordinarily rare French bayonet (from a well-known and trusted seller). Research before you bid. See More. Bid … If you've made a mistake when bidding on an item, you can retract your bid in certain circumstances. It was much the same in the cel collecting field. The old boards used to award informal 'Biddies' for last second manual snipes. Why eBay Wants You to Bid Early . Snoop on sellers' history – use a 'best offers' tool to see if they'll do a deal. Even if it ends at 3am I'll have alarms set on my phone. Snipe bids can be great for the sellers and if you put in a bid early (large or small) even, you have to be prepared to possibly either pay as much (if a sniper meets your bid) or miss out on it. Cancel bids with no penalty up to 5 minutes before the end of the auction ; Make last-moment bids while you're asleep or at work ; Avoid gut-churning bidding wars age is a measure of time , wisdom is the measure of how we used that time. Some people use a sniping service to bid for them. Mechanically you either place your bid on the eBay user interface and wait until the right time to confirm (some find the countdown clock accurate enough, I don't and use the static "time left" display on the bid history to sych to the time it takes for a submission to get to ebay:  refresh it at the top of a minute and add the resulting time left to the time you clicked and you get the time before which you must click confirm) or use a sniping service (there are reliable secure free ones). Time Ended: Dec-03-16 22:51:45 PST  US $25.05        Dec-03-16 22:51:36 PSTUS $24.55        Dec-03-16 22:51:23 PSTUS $22.22     Dec-02-16 15:37:20 PST. This is a typical post auction sour grapes moment for those who do not understand that it is the highest bid that wins irrespective of the time it was placed. Here's how I do it: 1. Yes, the bayonet was THAT rare and desireable for a collector. BID TIMINGThe best way to time your last 1 to 6 second bid is to take a clock with a seconds display (does not even have to be particularly accurate--it could gain or lose a minute a day and still be accurate enough for this) and synch it with the end time of the auction. In a second-price auction, your margin of victory makes no difference: regardless of whether you win by 50 cents or if you win by $50, you end up … Meet other eBay community members who share your passions. I started sniping a few weeks after signing up, 15 years ago; never once got a nastygram. If you can make the highest bid with just 20 seconds left, most likely you’ll win. ZoidMeister likes this. It sounds like the OP did bid his max, but someone else sniped it and it sold for one bid increment above his max. If you don't feel at least a little relief at being outbid or a little regret if you win at or near your maximum you're not bidding your TRUE maximum--the price point at which the value of the item as listed to you is exactly the same as the value of keeping the money you would have used to pay for it. Turns out I didn't. there is no reason to bid more than once here and quite often you might not have more than 1 chance to bid anyways. You sound like you are in the trap that i was in when i first started on ebay, getting into nibble bidding trying to top the last bids by a little increment. But I remember that, in those days, you would also get the classic nastygrams from irate buyers (when user IDs were not hidden). Carefully review the Confirm Bid page, and go back if there is any error. is there an app or such they are using? First, when YOU bid at the very last moment (but only if you actually WIN the item) is called "s-n-i-p-i-n-g," NOT 'sniPPing (snipping is what you do with scissors: 'snip-snip'). Happened to me overnight. You bid your true maximum at the time you choose (but with enough time for the bid confirmation to be received by eBay before the auction ends; aiming for about 5 … 9. ... Bid only at the last second, and you never have to wonder. Each group will execute only one eBay snipe. Both approaches remove the psychology of open bidding and turn Ebay into more of a "sealed bid" or "secret bid" platform. Whether you're new to eBay or you're an experienced shopper, these tips can help increase your chances of placing the winning bid. Change or delete your bids without a hassle. All that does is push the price up and potentially gets you into a situation where you end up paying more for an item than you were prepared too. If you won, congratulations. You have to be ready to jump bid at the last second even if you don't need it. Once you win an item in a group, BidSlammer will cancel bidding for the remaining snipes in that group. 6. Take advantage of this so that you don’t have to keep manually increasing your bid. {"modules":["unloadOptimization","bandwidthDetection"],"unloadOptimization":{"browsers":{"Firefox":true,"Chrome":true}},"bandwidthDetection":{"url":"https://ir.ebaystatic.com/cr/v/c1/thirtysevens.jpg","maxViews":4,"imgSize":37,"expiry":300000,"timeout":250}}. You should have your maximum bid already figured out and set in stone, and watching the bids come in is just a distraction. Once you drop that bid, if it's not high enough the auction is over. Give support, share information, and connect with fellow members. Also without over paying. Use eBay’s automatic bidding system and enter the max you want to pay. It would happen the same time their bid is posted-- with 3 seconds left … Place your bids automatically, in any currency, while you do other things. But some buyers get a thrill out of doing it manually . And a perfect example of why nibble bidding is not the way to go. Anyway, the winner is the highest bid, not the last bid. 3 min article If the auction is PayPal required to bid, check to be sure your eBay and PayPal accounts are linked. Your one-stop-shop for news, updates and information from eBay about selling on eBay. eBay and sellers encourage people to bid early is because it makes them more money. {"modules":["unloadOptimization","bandwidthDetection"],"unloadOptimization":{"browsers":{"Firefox":true,"Chrome":true}},"bandwidthDetection":{"url":"https://ir.ebaystatic.com/cr/v/c1/thirtysevens.jpg","maxViews":4,"imgSize":37,"expiry":300000,"timeout":250}}. If your bid didn't meet the minimum, check the bid history to see when the current bid increased to higher than or within an increment below your bid and you know your bid went in between that time and the EOA. In fact, if it's less than 5 seconds, it was probably manually. You can make Second Chance Offers up to 60 days after an auction ends. Many do it the old way and sit, wait it out, then submit at the lest few seconds. As the end of the auction approached I put my snipe bid in for the value that I was willing to pay -- $14,000!!. ?if so how do they do, So how do they do it the last half of a swcond. serafino, ZoidMeister and MIGuy like this. If it's still in a nice price range, then sit back … You are better putting in your max bid with a little time to spare, can still be last 10 seconds, that way if you get out outbid someone else was willing to pay more. But his maximum bid could have been anything: a dollar , $1.01, $101.00 higher than yours. "Surely if you bid your maximum at any random time, there would be no need for a last minute bid as you've bidded your maximum." If you receive a Second Chance Offer, you'll be able to buy the item at the amount you offered in your last bid. If you were outbid, c'est la guerre. If it works, sell it. Serious collectors and professional dealers know to bid once, late in the auction. How Second Chance Offers work. If you are outbid immediately after placing a bid, it's likely another bidder is using automatic bidding, and has a maximum limit that's higher than yours. 7. Derrick Combs, Jan 31, 2021 at 12:49 PM #63 + Quote Reply. To be accepted by the system, a bid has to be at least one bid increment above the showing high bid. eBay will automatically bid on an item for you up to the highest amount you are willing to pay. I do it manually. 8. If your max is still the highest bid when the hammer falls, you win no matter how early or late you placed your bid. It also reduces the competitive aspect of the bid, because if someone keeps bumping your bid up, you get annoyed and raise it further. I keep getting beaten to items I want to purchase at auction by buyers bidding for the first time at literally the last second. eBay auctions often have multiple competing bidders. Of course. Your one-stop-shop for news, updates and information from eBay about selling on eBay. Before you bid on an item, do some research to find the listing that gives you the best chance of winning for the lowest possible price. Those are usually paid services that you give your eBay user id and password to, tell them your max bid and what item you want to bid on, and they will bid for you at … In the last 15 minutes of an auction you've bid on in the past, you can instantly bid one increment higher than the current bid by clicking the "1-Click Bid" button. This tactic is used to try to prevent other bidders from … Snipe eBay auctions with Bidnapper to: Win more auctions. They outbid you. I eventually lost because one of my collector friends won it for $17,500. EnterprisingAhuraMazda's Experience. Sniping in its most basic form is simply waiting until the very last second of an eBay auction and quickly plugging in a bid that is slightly higher than the user before you. Set the clock to approximately the correct time. You can swoop in and snipe manually or there are a number … 4. If some other error, blame eBay's tinkering and correct the problem. I bid early because I knew I wouldn't be available when it closed. And god forbid you try to collect multiple cels of the same character-- people would accuse you of trying to "hoard" them all. As you have demonstrated, it is always the highest bid that wins, not the last. This allows you to spread multiple bids around for common snipes to get the best price. After all, the one who sniped bid more than you were willing to pay, and you would have lost even had you placed your bid at the end. I knew the full value of the bayonet, as well as the other two sniper bidders (we knew each other from military forums so we would compare notes about auctions). ... You don't want to raise that bid until the last second to avoid a push. If you can't be present for the end of an auction, bid on something else for which you can bid at … Auto-suggest helps you quickly narrow down your search results by suggesting possible matches as you type. The integrity of a second price auction (what eBay's format is) depends on each bid being an independent valuation of the item to that bidder; if eBay fully sealed all bids one wouldn't have to snipe. With many bids coming in the final seconds, your bid might be the last one eBay … Share best practices, tips, and insights. Other bidders may be using the automatic bidding system. Bid your highest/max and bid once because you won't have time to bid again. There was nothing quite like a last-minute manual snipe, but at the same time, boy did other people not like it when you did that! Auto-suggest helps you quickly narrow down your search results by suggesting possible matches as you type. See if your bid was accepted, and if not, why not. Get quick answers to important questions to get you selling faster and better! Notice that there is no provision in these instructions to watch to see what the current bid is or anything like that. ... Make sure you understand how eBay bidding really works. I hate being bid snipped, but also I did snip other's bid at the last second entry, so I guess i'm fair . Usually win. Share best practices, tips, and insights. You can bid at last second, but due to speed of your internet & if ebay & your device time are slightly out, bid may not get accepted, it is a risk. Before you try sniping (bidding in the last few seconds) you need to learn to bid your TRUE maximum without regard to what others appear or don't appear to have bid--if you try to snipe without doing that you will be worse off because not only can you get outbid by another sniper for less than you were willing to pay, you can also get outbid at less than you were willing to pay by the hidden maximum of the earlier leader without time to rebid your real true maximum (since the whole idea of sniping is simply to keep anyone--which includes yourself--from reacting to your bid and its consequences. Legal? In the world of financial gambling, people pay or receive money for contracts called options. Give support, share information, and connect with fellow members. And that just goes to show that your bid timing didn't matter, eh? Second, eBay has a new feature that you may have noticed: when there is LESS THAN … If it works well, sell it for more. If it showed you as the leading bidder, refresh after a few seconds to see how the auction ended. Bid only at the last second. The other reality on eBay is that the growing trend for the last ten years has been away from auction listings towards fixed price listings. At 5 minutes to EOA log out of eBay and log back in. Keep your bids private. Or alternatively, you can simply bid your max at any time during the course of the auction. Repeat step 2 once more to make sure the time still doesn't shift more than a second or so. There are services that will place a bid for you at a chosen number of seconds before the end. I remember the good ol' days when we had the "feedies" board. I don't use a sniping program either. JayAg47, Jan 23, 2021 #4 + Quote Reply. I used to be very active in the animation cel collecting field and the competition for those auctions could be intense. I don't bid until the last second ever. Come back to your auction 10 minutes before it ends. You bid your true maximum at the time you choose (but with enough time for the bid confirmation to be received by eBay before the auction ends; aiming for about 5 seconds is late enough to make it almost impossible to react to) without regard to what others appear or don't appear to be bidding. Copyright © 1995-2021 eBay Inc. All Rights Reserved. Decide your buffer time (how long before EOA you want your bid to show up). Copyright © 1995-2021 eBay Inc. All Rights Reserved. If you lost the auction but would have bid higher, then you have nobody but yourself to blame. Less people bidding normally means lower prices. How do they time it? Just bid the most you are willing to go in one bid, that is what they are doing but they wait til the last second to do it. Then why did you not bid your max at any time during the auction? You can maximize your chances of winning by having a good bidding strategy. Ah yes, I remember the nastygrams quite well. A Second Chance Offer is when a seller offers you the item you were bidding on, even though you weren’t the winner. Ebay doesn't need "time" to automatically increase your bid beyond their snipe amount. Derrick Combs Well-Known Member. EZ sniper places your bid at the last second of eBay and 40 other auction sites. I never did accomplish my goal to get a 1-second snipe badge. There are apps. I thought I bid enough. When looking at a listing's bid history, there's no way to tell whether the bid was placed manually or by a sniping service. If someone outbids you, that sucker overpaid, right? 1.) Repeat a couple of times to make sure the time doesn't shift more than a second or so. If the auction was closed, give a longer buffer time next time. If it doesn't work, quadruple the price and sell it as an antique. 5. You can use … If it is less than an increment then you both valued the item the same and s/he was better at adding "moxie to your proxy":  bidding a bit above round numbers to increase your chances of winning in such a situation. I had two items way below my max bid at the last second someone somehow went over my bid by pennies is this legal? Not everyone uses a service either. Position your mouse cursor over your (or eBay's if it is up) refresh button. Retracting a bid. If it works, sell it. The key to winning is to bid your maximum (don't forget to allow for the shipping cost when you decide the maximum you will bid). 10. The nibbler was upping his bids by $1-$2 dollars, and he did this for over 100 times! Bid sniping Waiting until the last few seconds of an auction to make a winning bid is known as bid sniping. Subtract your buffer time from the end time per your clock that you have calculated. That is a fantastic story, though! Browse to the Bid History page for the item about 10 minutes before EOA (End Of Auction). And it depends what you mean by "pennies" as to the amount that outbid you:  if it is exactly 1 increment over yours, you don't know how much s/he actually bid since, just like your bid was SHOWING at only "pennies" over the next highest bidder's, so does the winner's. Meet other eBay community members who share your passions. Why you've been outbid immediately. Watch the clock and put your bid in during the last few seconds. If it doesn't work, quadruple the price and sell it as an antique. It is not the last bid that wins, it is the highest. He was the high bidder at ~$300 and this lasted for most of the duration of the auction. Take the time remaining from the refreshed screen and add it to the time that you hit refresh. Timing the bid is the lesser of the feats in terms of both importance and amount of energy involved doing it. As to fairness, all sniping does is keep your bid sealed instead of being available to be nibbled at to unseal it (including by shillers and sport bidders who aren't trying to win and who have about a 50/50 shot of exposing your max without outbidding it and probably have no scruples agains cancelling/retracting if they do go over). If not, someone else was willing to pay more. Some sellers say they'll … 3. (Login cookies tend to expire at the worst time). Use a bigger buffer if your synch efforts have been more than a second apart, if the item is pretty important and doesn't come up very often, or if you're new at this. This tactic is used to try to prevent other bidders from … Its a service that goes into ebay and bids on your behalf at the last 5 seconds, so if you have the highest bid with the sniper bidding for you, you win. A lot of us knew each other from various forums and cel-collecting websites so our competition was the friendly sort, but then there were others... Those of us who knew the real value of things would bid what they were worth, which would make the nibblers mad because the price would shoot up drastically. Bid sniping Waiting until the last few seconds of an auction to make a winning bid is known as bid sniping. You'll need to bid again in order to be the highest bidder. When the second hand of your clock hits the top of the minute (HH:MM:00) click refresh. It's the highest bid that wins. Use a shorter time if it's a common item and you're sniping for the practice and bragging rights. This is your bid time. Same thing pretty much happened with an old postcard I had bought for 5.00 and put up for 7 or 8. Last minute [seconds] bid gives others no time to re-bid but the earlier you place your max, the more time others have to nibble at it. 2 min article; Tips for winning auctions. Why not put the bid in for the most you were willing to pay? So while I do miss the camaraderie of those days and being able to congratulate people on their wins, I can't say I miss the nastygrams all that much, even though some of them were pretty funny. Try the following: Get quick answers to important questions to get you selling faster and better! Don’t bid too high early on or you can unnecessarily drive up the price of an item. 5 minutes left when I bid and it went through with one second left. Your case is a good example to the OP for how bidding works. Doing it, not the last few seconds # 4 + Quote Reply the for! Have to keep manually increasing your bid was accepted, and if not, else! Final seconds, your bid timing did n't matter, eh make second Chance Offers up to days... Snipes to get the best price showed you as the leading bidder, refresh a! The lest few seconds of an auction to make sure the time still does n't work, quadruple price. The minute ( HH: MM:00 ) click refresh bid button next time, right news, and... 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