Auction Sniping Services

[HIPPEEDUDE]

Originally Posted by SwiftDeath

Yep never hurts to contact a seller

And I usually test the waters too but then still place a snipe lol

If only veteran ebayers shared all their secrets

Well,heres some tricks for you. Send the seller a message if you really have to ask something important but never ask if they will ship international,can be a bad mistake to ask this. If you dont have to ask anything,just check & check only that you are able to message them,if you can then you know you can bid. If you wish to ask them if they will send international ask when its less than 24 hours till the auction ends. By doing this they seller cant put the reply in the listing & cant alter the listing to suit intenational bids. If your going to ask if they will ship it to you still be wary of the less than 24 hours rule,i have had sellers cancel auctions with less than a few hours to go because the item has had no bids & then relist with international postage. Heap pain in the bum & you can miss out this way. One example AC Penny arcade poster,no bids & seller cancelled 2 hours before auction end then relisted it with international shipping after i asked about it. Bit peeved about that & then i forgot about the relisted item so missed out on it.
Next lesson,always see what else the seller has listed,saves on postage if they have other items your interested in. If they do have other items you want & have already won something ask them if they will do a buy now price on the other item/items you want. It helps to offer to have the buy now price added to the postage of items you have already won so they dont have to pay any fees. I know this may be a big no no but,it helps & does work. If the seller doesnt have anything else you want just ask them if they have something not listed as yet or they may consider selling that you could be interested in or is similar to the item already won. Suprising what shows up asking this.
Lastly,if your bidding & you have decided you top dollar is $100 for example,add on another $11.99 or something stupid like that. The amount of times i have lost something over one cent or just a few dollars is stupid & not worth the agro. In the same token the amount of times i have won something by a few cents or a couple of dollars more than what i was prepared to bid is worth the happiness knowing you have the item & you outbid someone by a mere few cents.
Thats all the secrets i will share for now,so here endeth the lesson,lol

[SwiftDeath]

lol I understand where you're coming from but I consider it a little rude to bid on an auction without asking if it doesn't specify shipping to my country

Sellers are also usually a lot nicer about it if you ask first

That being said there are sometimes the post reply problems you mention but rarely the relist with international shipping at least in my experience

Although I suppose you probably deal with a lot of American ebay sellers this way whereas my experiences are mostly with French/Spanish/German sellers

Oh and it is always always good practice to add .93 or whatever to your max bid

NEVER ever bid 100, always bid 100.93 or better yet 101.93

Again gotta work the system and incremental bidding is an important aspect to ebay

[HIPPEEDUDE]

Originally Posted by SwiftDeath

lol I understand where you're coming from but I consider it a little rude to bid on an auction without asking if it doesn't specify shipping to my country

Sellers are also usually a lot nicer about it if you ask first

That being said there are sometimes the post reply problems you mention but rarely the relist with international shipping at least in my experience

Although I suppose you probably deal with a lot of American ebay sellers this way whereas my experiences are mostly with French/Spanish/German sellers

Oh and it is always always good practice to add .93 or whatever to your max bid

NEVER ever bid 100, always bid 100.93 or better yet 101.93

Again gotta work the system and incremental bidding is an important aspect to ebay

I always do ask if they will ship to me but,i just wait until the seller cant revise the listing to suit international shipping & cant add the answer in the listing. If you ask to early they can change the listing or put the reply in the listing & bang goes any chance of you getting it possibly cheaper than you would have.

The $100 was just an example,for me its always something like $102.99 or what have you. All i was saying was if you feel your maximum is one amount add on at least anther $10-$20 just in case. Worst case scenario is you get outbid but dont feel as bad & best case you win it for possibly a few dollars more than your maximum.

Also,always ask for a buy now price if you can,offer to pay them directly through paypal as an incentive. This also works.

Have had sellers from the US,Germany,France & the UK all either cancel the auction then relist with international or agree to a price then sell it cheaper because it was more convenient. I have have only one exception from a UK seller that i bought the Darksiders Xbox console off. They had a buyer closer & was offering more than me but,despite this they still honored the original agreeement that was negotiated.

Sometimes all this never works. I bought something about 2-3 weeks ago in Italy. The seller agreed to ship it to me,advised me of the cost etc & all was happy. I bought the item & havent heard boo since. No correct invoice to pay,no sorry i have changed my mind or anything. Very very frustrating

[twistedsymphony]

Originally Posted by KnightOfTruth

You dirty little sneaks, every last one of you! And here I was thinking that I'm competing against somebody hanging around during the last 30 seconds of the auction, pulling eye-crusties out of the corners of their eyes and chugging energy drinks to stay alert just like me... I call penalty!

Waiting for an auction to end...



I used to manually snipe all the time, but I've got better things to do

Originally Posted by SwiftDeath

...
Oh and it is always always good practice to add .93 or whatever to your max bid

NEVER ever bid 100, always bid 100.93 or better yet 101.93

THIS... I always add some "change" to the end of my bid amount, this crucial when sniping.

because if you snipe at 100.00 and someone else snipes at 100.01... they win

[Dr_Jengo]

Damn.. now I must bid against machines as well with everyone possibly wanting to use this now.. Curse you Swift!!

Nah.. just kidding, I'm sure it has more benefits to use it. I'm actually considering using it after this happened to me that day..

Was watching an auction.. started off at $0.99 with a BIN price.. Didn't want to BIN so I bid early. Got outbid with a few hours left.. No worries, I'll snipe it manually later I thought..

So with 20 mins left to the auction, I got ready to snipe. It was about 1.40am. Auction ends at about 2.00am. I was sitting on the bed..

1.45am: Ok man, I'm ready..
1.50am: Alright this is it, this auction is mine!
1.52am: Here it goes.. this thing is going down!
.
.
.
.
.
2.25am: Oh crap! I dozed off!!!!!!

To make matters worse, nobody else bid on that auction and it went for a super low price at $3+. Really crappy man. Been looking for those for quite a while and at that price, I really felt like kicking myself.

So yea, that was when I thought to myself I should have used the sniping tool..

[blockbusterboy]

Originally Posted by Dr_Jengo

1.50am: Alright this is it, this auction is mine!
1.52am: Here it goes.. this thing is going down!
.
.
.
.
.
2.25am: Oh crap! I dozed off!!!!!!

[KnightOfTruth]

Originally Posted by Dr_Jengo

So with 20 mins left to the auction, I got ready to snipe. It was about 1.40am. Auction ends at about 2.00am. I was sitting on the bed..

1.45am: Ok man, I'm ready..
1.50am: Alright this is it, this auction is mine!
1.52am: Here it goes.. this thing is going down!
.

2.25am: Oh crap! I dozed off!!!!!!

Nooooooo.... This JUST happened to me last night, I even set an alarm and everything but I set it for 15 minutes before it ended thinking it'd give me time to "wake up"... Unfortunately it gave me time to fall back asleep, missed a great deal on a Halo Reach Press Kit (the briefcase) :'(

[Redmagster]

Superb useful thread full of good hints on winning on eBay.

Even to those who are not members of CE.org......

So now we'll be up against all the casual lurkers too....

[Ayiu]

ebay Germany prohibits the use of auction sniping tools

[Redmagster]

Have you actually tried it?!?

I saw an auction once that said 'no sniping' interesting I thought... And they're going to police it how??