Sniping On Ebay

My own rules for bidding on ebay:

1. Watch more than one of the same item at a time, if possible.
2. Know what your max bid is going to be beforehand.
3. NEVER bid until the last 20 -30 secs of the auction, whenever possible. When it's NOT posible, enter your MAX bid at the latest time you can. ebay will only add the next increment to your bid....until you win, or are outbid.

That's my ebay strategy. I wouldn't trust my ebay password etc. to ANYONE else, as easy as it is to hack, be dishonest, etc. My 2 cents worth anyway!

Good advice. One should never use the same password in more than one place... ever!

Update: I will not use a sniping service, I have now had some first hand experience of how ridiculously ANNOYING these are from the other end, and do not want to subject others to the same treatment.

ebay "sniping" always seems to raise strong reactions in both directions. I see no ethical conflict as it is within the rules. I am often beat out by snipers who wanted the item more than me. So thats the way it works. Why should I get irritated? I or anyone farther down the bidder list could have put in a higher proxy bid, but they didn't. ebay is a tool to use to get what you want. If no one else wants it, you get it for your initial bid. If most people want it, you have to pony up the price. Some sellers complain that snipers reduce the final bid by not showing the "interest level" of large number of bids which attract other bidders, but conversely if there were no snipers to put in the final high bid, they would have sold it to the lower underbidder. That is what a reserve is for if they want to use it. I know there are some people who think it is more a competition sport rather than a financial transaction and even start to stalk some snipers or more successful bidders. If you don't bid until the last minute, your recent bids on what you are interested in do not become a sign pointing to items you consider a good deal. I am glad many do not snipe, but studies like http://www.usatoday.com/tech/scienc...f-ebay_x.htmshows that it is a more successful strategy. Look at the list of articles on the right side "related papers" and you will see that this has been researched seriously.

Jim