Save and Conquer

I never make direct bids for anything on eBay, other than the items I am buying at the “buy it now” price. How do you buy something on eBay without bidding, you ask? I use a method called sniping.

There are several companies that have ties with eBay that place your bid in the last few seconds of an auction. The one I use is called AuctionSniper.

You sign up for an account at their web site. They have tools that integrate with most browsers. Then, when you find an item you want to buy on eBay, you right click on the auction number, or click on a little button in your browser, and select “Snipe It.” You will be sent to their snipe server where you set a maximum bid amount for an item, as well as when to put in the first of your last second bid.

Their servers then do the work. Eventually, you will be emailed a notice as to whether or not you won the item. You can also check their site to get status of your snipe. You can adjust your bid upward if you see that the current bid for the item you want is higher than your maximum amount.

I don’t know about other snipe sites, but AuctionSniper charges you 1% of the winning bid price for using their service. This is pretty easy to make up as long as you set your maximum snipe bid to less than 99% of what you would pay for the item without sniping. I do not like the other snipe sites that charge a monthly fee. A monthly fee would make me feel like I have to do some shopping to get my money’s worth. Not good.

I used a super-lowball strategy a couple years ago to buy digital cameras for my son and myself. (My wife has the “family” camera that is better quality.)

I researched the 4-megapixel digital camera that I wanted for my son for his birthday, and then put in low-ball maximum snipe bids of $40 for most all of the auctions that had that camera. These were cameras that normally cost $200. I kept tabs on the snipes as the auctions ended to make sure that if I won any, I would cancel all other snipes. I watched something like 5 cameras go above my $40 and then found that I won the 6th. I canceled the remaining 4 snipes. The snipe bid had won the camera for $35 in the last 3 seconds of the auction.

After this worked so well for my son’s camera, I decided to get one to take along on dirt-bike trips, where it is great to have a camera, but they take quite a bit of abuse. I limited my snipe to $50 for a 5-megapixel camera that was going for $250 and selected all ongoing auctions for the item. Within a day I had won a camera for $40.

If you use this strategy, just sure you keep tabs on your snipes, and cancel outstanding snipes as soon as you win an item. Also, do not put concurrent low-ball bids on auctions that end at essentially the same time. You may end up winning more than one item. Because it takes close watching I normally do not try this super low-ball snipe scheme. But if there are lots of the same item available on eBay, it may save you lots of money.

I cannot think of a reason, other than “buy it now,” to not use the auction snipers on eBay or other auction sites.

Stumble it!