those dratted e-snipers

[Lythe Featherblade]

When it comes to online auctions, everyone knows that if you really want something at a decent price, you show no interest until the last second, then bid when there's no time left for anyone else to bid higher. That is if you have the time to sit there at auction's end to do so, or pay a program to do it for you. Most of us do it when we want something in general, and curse those who do it because it seems when we really want something, someone wants it more.

Lately I've started collecting pewter dragons, mostly off e-bay, and seen quite a few nice onces get sniped right out from under my nose. As a rule I bid earlier and stick to a set price, because a bidding war for one means I wouldn't have the funds for 2-3 other nice ones a day later, and I'm usually not free when the auctions end. Today I've had my revenge. I did find a nice one, placed my bid, bumped my bid a few days later (guess I really like it), and then, when the e-sniper went after it, he was 1 cent below my bid. And oh how good that 1 cent feels, with the satisfaction that his own tactics didn't give him enough time to raise his final bid.

[illandous]

Hmm.. See. I use a program for sniping bids. Used to do it for magic cards all the time. It was great for 2 reasons.

1. When I was putting together a deck I knew EXACTLY what cards I had already won for it.
2. Better prices

And yeah, if you setup your sniping software for minimum bids it never really works out. I always went .05 over a min bid. I would put in a snipe bit at 5 seconds and 2 seconds if I really wanted it. that way the other sniping software would not be able to refresh the page in time. Most snipes happen at the 1 second so I've found.

Always make sure your clock is syncronized with Ebay's clock. And also sniping software is basically asking for how much you would buy it for, it's just putting in your number with less time on the clock than a traditional means.