divineAndbright

Don't you hate when you fall asleep while waiting for 3am to come around to try to snipe up something on ebay? I'll be kicking myself for quite some time, sure missed out on a great deal!

East Hill

Give.

East Hill

yellowjeep

Yes, what did you miss out on? I missed out on a fork yesterday. I was pretty annoyed.

cyclotoine

esnipe really isn't that expensive. it works well. thanks to esnipe I won an old logo hex bar clamp bolt 120mm cinelli 1a (i.e. pre-1972) while i was moving and did not have internet last week. anyone want to buy a 115mm pre 1972 1a? haha for a lousy 5mm upgrade... when you gotta have it... esnipe

nlerner

No need to stay up late: auctionsniper.com

Neal

crazyb

What if two bidders are using auctionsniper on the same auction? Who wins?

iab

ezsniper.com the first three wins are free. Charges after that are low.

yellowjeep

The highest bidder. When I use auctionstealer.com I put the absoulte most I would be willing to pay plus like 2 dollars and hope for the best. Nothing is worse than losing an auction by a dollar.

Little Darwin

I just put my maximum bid into Ebay and let them do the proxy bidding for free, for an unlimited number of times!!!

Best deal in town.

The sniper sites are getting paid for what you can do for free.

I agree that if you are just looking for a deal on a relatively meaningless something it is fun to snipe... but if you really want the item, just put in the bid and forget it. By going through a sniping site you are just adding an additional possible point of failure... What if the sniping site has a little hiccup at the wrong time?

Just my $0.02, and it is free, just like Ebay proxy bidding.

rmfnla

Exactly.

If you are upset by losing an item by $1 then why didn't you bid a dollar (or two) more?

If I want something I put the ABSOLUTE maximum I will pay, not what I'd like to get it for.

cyclotoine

Won't ebay bid up to your maximum if others are bidding well before the end of the auction? The snipper sites are called just that because no one knows you are there till the end. I find that if I put in a bid with esnipe of at least double the current bid price approximately a day before the end of the auction I have a good chance of winning. The great thing about snippers is that it keeps the price down. if everyone decides their max bid in advance and puts it in a walks away there is no opportunity for people to keep checking the auction to see how much it has gone up or if their ebay proxy bid has been outbid a day before the auction end. With snipers they have the opportunity to think about it, and decide to bid that little extra. The whole bidding thing is great, much appreciated when selling but of course annoying when buying.

nlerner

One thing I like about sniper programs is that I can easily change my mind and cancel or change a snipe before the auction is over. I have no idea if eBay proxy bidding allows you to do that easily or not. And as Cyclotoine noted, your "hand" isn't revealed until 5 seconds remain in the auction. I've always liked the stealthiness of that. I still rarely win auctions, however, because my snipes are just too low, but that's fine, too.

Neal

divineAndbright

It was for a '91 trek 2100 pro frame/fork. Most people here wouldnt make a big deal of it since its aluminum/carbon but I just think they're so cool. It only sold for $67 bucks, it is missing its decals though.

item: 200182881862 // they say 2300 from '92 but im pretty certain its a '91 2100.

I shoulda set my alarm clock, I just used my "mental" alarm ala kramer from seinfeld, but I woke up 2 and a half hours too late haha. I didnt think I would fall asleep as im kinda a insomniac, course for something important I sleep like just swell.

lotek 

www.auctionstealer.com

3 auctions per week free.

marty

Little Darwin

If you snipe me, and win, then you are simply bidding more than I am willing to pay. If you snipe at the last minute and I win, then what have you gained? You have just raised my buying price to what you were willing to pay. No problem to me, but no gain to you.

Admittedly, there are enough people out there in love with sniping that several snipes can come in at the last minute... and even still, the highest bidder wins.

I had never thought of the opportunity to cancel a bid if using a sniping program... finally a real advantage! However, I don't bid unless I want to win. Of course a pending bid on one item has caused me to bypass bidding on another item.

However, by the rules of bidding, assume that you are sniping, along with 3 others. Your snipe is scheduled for as late as possible (as are the others). You all have $200 bids loaded and ready to go...

And since the earliest bid wins, because the rules on Ebay favor the first bidder in case of a tie, the better your sniper program at getting the last second, the less likely you will win.

Enjoy your sniping!

BlankCrows

Only fools bid an even dollar amount for any bid. I would always add some cents to that $200 bid just to inch by that threshold amount. I've won a couple auctions by mere pennies with that method.

I use esnipe. Won a few things and lost a few with it. It works well and I've never experienced any trouble with them.

nlerner

With auctionsniper, you can create a bid group, thus sniping multiple versions of some item you're looking for. Once one of those snipes wins an auction, the subsequent ones are automatically canceled.

Neal

CardiacKid

I use EZSniper.com and win more auctions than my budget really allows.

yellowjeep

I was up watching the end of that auction. I almost snagged it, but I have WAY to many projects going right now. I need to finish one or two before I pick up more stuff

Kommisar89

www.hammersnipe.com - I love it. I see an item I like, I put my bid in hammersnipe and forget it. An email arives to tell me whether I won or not. No worries about getting up at 3:00 AM. And you can set up the bid groups too. I think hammersnipe might be the same as auctionsniper.com.

Little Darwin

That's another interesting feature that makes the sniping potentially useful.

I'll have to check it out!

nlerner

In terms of cost, with auctionsniper you only are charged for auctions you win, and the cost is fairly minimal (.25 for wins on items that sell for up to $25; 1% on items $25 to $995). As I said earlier, I win a very small percentage of the snipes I set up (I should be selling what I have at this point, not buying more!), so the cost is always low.

Neal

stronglight

Bid Groups through snipers "usually" do not work for me. What I bid on is typically very specific odd vintage bike items which rarely pop up at all. But, it does sometimes help when I am bidding on certain recurring new-old-stock items and am not willing to bid higher than a specific amount.

SweetLou

esniper! Best command line sniping program. If you run Debian, it is in Debian's repositories. So, I assume for you Ubuntu users, it is in their's also. You can either use arguments in the command or use a file. I always use a file.
Like some program above, you can put any number of items in your file and tell esniper how many you want. It will bid until you win the amount you want. For example, if you want three derailers in your file will be:
quantity = 3

# Questionable quality Ultegra 9 speed
150169978215 21.95

# Ultegra 9 speed
220158767028 26.09

# Good looking Ultegra 9 speed
110177789844 35.08

# 105 Used, looks good
190161103160 25.12

It will bid on the item when you tell it to bid. It will bid your max amount, once you win the three items, it won't bid on the last one.

As for why to use a sniping program? Well, it is true that the highest bidder will win, but it is the Stealth mode that helps you win. Not against other snipers, but against the person that sits and watches the bidding and keeps bidding the next increment. If done right, they won't be able to get that last bid in on time. There are other reasons also, like being protected against shill bidding. https://www.moyen.org/snipe/why.html

For those that would like to give esniper a try, https://esniper.sourceforge.net/ It is really a Linux program, but with a couple of downloads, it will run on Windows.