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Which sniping program did you use?

JPG wrote:Which sniping program did you use?

A FREE one I found using google called JoyBidder. It seems to work most of the time in that it does bid for you in the last few seconds. It lets you bid with 15,10,5 seconds left in the auction. I set it to bid with 10 seconds to go and it appeared to have bid with 8 seconds left, but the winner appears to have swooped in and bid 3 times within the last 6 seconds. Anybody know a better snipping program? I'll be the first to say I don't know if I really understand this last second bidding.

Auction ended 19:44:33
n***e(28) US $37.77 May-31-15 19:44:32 PDT
t***4(72) US $36.77 May-31-15 19:44:25 PDT
n***e(28) US $36.00 May-31-15 19:44:30 PDT
t***4(72) US $31.00 May-31-15 19:44:25 PDT
n***e(28) US $30.00 May-31-15 19:44:27 PDT
t***4(72) US $26.52 May-31-15 19:44:25 PDT
1***4(19) US $25.52 May-31-15 19:34:28 PDT

I have been the winning bidder several times (bidding manually at the 5 sec mark) only to find that I was outbid at the very last second. I am certain that this is being done by some sort of bidding program. So be it. I am not going to turn this process over to a computer program. Part of the thrill is participating in the bid.

My most recent losing effort was for an Emerson motor for my Shorty. It was mine until about 2 sec before the bid closed. I was really disappointed on that one. It was a motor that became surplus to the seller as a result of buying a PowerPro.

In the case detailed here, it appears to me that the winning bidder was simply the bidders with the highest "My Maximum Bid". I believe that the eBay auto bidder beat you. If you set your maximum high enough, you will always be the winner when you select the "Auto Bidder".

sawwood wrote:

JPG wrote:Which sniping program did you use?

A FREE one I found using google called JoyBidder. It seems to work most of the time in that it does bid for you in the last few seconds. It lets you bid with 15,10,5 seconds left in the auction. I set it to bid with 10 seconds to go and it appeared to have bid with 8 seconds left, but the winner appears to have swooped in and bid 3 times within the last 6 seconds. Anybody know a better snipping program? I'll be the first to say I don't know if I really understand this last second bidding.

Auction ended 19:44:33
n***e(28) US $37.77 May-31-15 19:44:32 PDT< -1
t***4(72) US $36.77 May-31-15 19:44:25 PDT< -8
n***e(28) US $36.00 May-31-15 19:44:30 PDT<< -3
t***4(72) US $31.00 May-31-15 19:44:25 PDT<< -8
n***e(28) US $30.00 May-31-15 19:44:27 PDT<<< -6
t***4(72) US $26.52 May-31-15 19:44:25 PDT<<< -8
1***4(19) US $25.52 May-31-15 19:34:28 PDT

Notice that your bids always increased by the minimum bid increase until the max($36.77) was reached(the e-bay auto bidder at work).

Since the n***e bids increased by a greater amount(until the last), they were externally injected by whatever was used.

You did as well as you could have, but your maximum bid was simply exceeded by n***e.

n***e apparently bid three times with increasing bid values(the third[last] bid may have been $42.00).

There is no way you can predict what another bidder will do, so your max bid becomes the determining factor. It really needs to be the max you are willing to pay(then if not successful you were simply outbid higher than you were willing). The last second bidding merely prevents an escalating bidding war early that drives the $ up. BTW .77 was a good ploy.

P.S. I use 'Gixen' another freebe with a subscribable backup bidder function(two paths into e-bay).

sawwood wrote:

JPG wrote:Which sniping program did you use?

A FREE one I found using google called JoyBidder. It seems to work most of the time in that it does bid for you in the last few seconds. It lets you bid with 15,10,5 seconds left in the auction. I set it to bid with 10 seconds to go and it appeared to have bid with 8 seconds left, but the winner appears to have swooped in and bid 3 times within the last 6 seconds. Anybody know a better snipping program? I'll be the first to say I don't know if I really understand this last second bidding.

Auction ended 19:44:33
n***e(28) US $37.77 May-31-15 19:44:32 PDT
t***4(72) US $36.77 May-31-15 19:44:25 PDT
n***e(28) US $36.00 May-31-15 19:44:30 PDT
t***4(72) US $31.00 May-31-15 19:44:25 PDT
n***e(28) US $30.00 May-31-15 19:44:27 PDT
t***4(72) US $26.52 May-31-15 19:44:25 PDT
1***4(19) US $25.52 May-31-15 19:34:28 PDT

I don't see any reason to think that your sniping software is at fault. You had a MaxBid of $50 (including shipping), which presumably means that you were not willing to pay more than $50. Someone else was willing to pay more. In theory, you should be happy that you "lost" that particular auction, because you were not willing to pay $51, and you still have your powder dry for a better deal the next time around.

Here's a link to a great tutorial on eBay buying: http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/ebay/index.htm. The author likes to do his sniping manually, but that's beside the point. Personally, I use eSnipe, and it has always performed as it should. I do follow the advice in the tutorial, and set my bids for what I consider to be a good deal -- which is usually a modest amount less than the average selling price for comparable items. I "win" any given auction maybe 30% of the time. But given enough time, I've always been able to buy at a below-average price. Sometimes well below.

If you set your maximum high enough, you will always be the winner when you select the "Auto Bidder".

There are times when I really want an item that I will put in a max bid that you would think no one would out bid you on, but there always seems to be someone "CRAZIER" than I and puts in a max bid higher than you could get the item brand new!

Yeah, the bidding was hot and heavy as the SS items from this seller were looking VERY nice!! As they say "better LUCK next time"? That's the one thing about SS parts, there's almost ALWAYS a next time!

Like I said, if you bid high enough, you will always be the winner. In the case of the Emerson motor, I mwas disappointed because when I lost I realized that I was willing to pay much more than what the winner finally paid. I was attempting to be frugal; it did not work.

Now I might have posted a much higher maximum and still been outbid. What I am saying is that I really did not know what I was willing to pay more than my maximum until I got beat. I thought I had it won. Notice that the winner sorta came out of nowhere and I thought I was the only one hiding behind the bridge.

The next motor that I see that I want - I will bet on winning.

sawwood wrote:

That's the one thing about SS parts, there's almost ALWAYS a next time!

Well it's next time already. A bunch of VERY nice SS lathe chisel sets are now listed @ around $40 with shipping of $10-15, ie buy it now. So I picked out a set. DONE! I don't mind doing the "buy it now" if the item is legit and in VERY nice condition, ie new looking and listed at a reasonable price. Saves a lot of time and hassle, but definitely not as fun as scoring/winning a good deal.