Anyone who has shopped on Ebay has been in the following predicament. With seconds to go you are the highest bidder waiting excitedly to receive your confirmation e-mail and pay for your new product. Only to refresh your screen and see the ‘You have been outbid’ notification. In the Ebay world of bidding terms this is referred to as bid sniping. There are several methods to go about bid sniping.
Use your ‘watch list’ in Ebay and make sure you login during the last five minutes of the auction. Set a reminder alarm in your phone, computer, etc. if you really do not want to miss your item. I recommend putting a feeler bid out when the auction is around the five minute countdown until end of auction. In other words, you want to make sure that your competition has not placed a maximum bid that is significantly above the current bid. Once you have established a live bid atmosphere with your competition, wait until the last twenty seconds of the auction and place your final bid. If you have a competitive bidding environment you need to bid higher than the ‘must bid higher than’ amount. This is to ensure that you are not outbid by a competitive bid occuring simultaneously to your bid.
There are computer generated website services that perform Ebay bid sniping activities for you, but I prefer to do this on my own because of the fun and excitement. Happy Bidding!
