I am an Ebay sniper. Like an invisble eagle, circling around a fisherman only to steal away the fish at the last moment. Like a ninja in a darkroom on the night of a new moon, who swipes the negatives before they can be developed. Or, like two white rabbits in a snow storm driving a white truck full of white butcher paper listening to The Great White on the radio, is my Ebay auction skill!
My technique is thus:
1. THE SEARCH - I peruse the listings, searching for items i may be interested in. Once I find something, I determine the going price for the item, and decide how much I will pay for it.
2. THE WAIT - Once I set my heart on a particular item I take a look at when the auction ends and make a note of it. Then I calculate what time I need to come back to steal the item away from the unlucky bidder (aka the adversary)
3. THE SNIPE - Generally I start paying close attention at about 10 minutes til the end of the auction. I refresh my screen once a minute until about the three minute mark. I then begin to listen for the ticks of the clock behind me and synchronize it with the seconds left on the auctiontimer. At the two minute mark I place my bid and go to the bid confirmation screen...the key to the bid is that it must be the absolute highest that I am willing to pay, that way, if I lose, I don't feel as bad about it. I count in my head w/ the help of the clock, until about 25 seconds left and confirm the bid. Then I go back to the Item description page and refresh the screen, and either see a few seconds remaining, or that I have won the auction.
Sniping actually has good aspects for the buyer. It prevents impulsive price wars. On one occasion I got into a bidding war with an adversary and ended up paying more than I would have just because I wanted to win...I guess I'm too competitive. The other thing sniping does is prevents a devious seller from running the proxy bid up to your max bid. It also gives other bidders a very little window to bid against you, which is why they should have bid their max to begin with. Sniping also provides a little bit of a rush and feeling of accomplishment when you manage to steal something away at the last minute. So I hope you have all learned a valuable lesson, and will use these methods as your own. Happy Sniping!!
2 comments:
You haven't come close to being a pro Ebay sniper yet. You are talking with the master now. Don't forget who you learned your sniping skills from, my son. Helpful hint: using the "watch this item" is a great way to keep tabs on something you want that has a long away deadline on it.
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