Some of you indicated you use software which bids for you on ebay. How do those things help out at all. If I’m bidding on a bike frame for example, and the most I want to pay for it would be, $780 bucks, or something, and I wait 3 minutes before auction closes. Let’s say, its being listed for $450. I put my 780 bid in. As the auction activity starts, Ebay already will move the bidding up to 780, to counter bids, coming up to my 780 highest amount. Once it goes past 780, I’m out.
How does bidding software benefit here? I would think the software would ask you for a “cap” bid ,or highest bid ,too.
It does. They will wait a couple of seconds before the bidding is supposed to end, then bids the smallest increment above the last bidder (up to your max).
Bidding early drives bidding up, even to the point the item is now above retail. Bidding late allows the bidding to stay low until the last minute. If you bid your $780 3 days before the bidding ends, then someone will/could bid up to and beyond your $780. but if the bids hang around $500 until the last minute when your snipe program bids for you, no one has the opportunity to out bid you. Unless of course, someone has a higher bid already in (say $900)…in this case all your $780 bid does is drive his winning bid even higher up to just over your $780.
The snipe programs are really for people who have a price they’ll pay in mind and won’t be at a computer when bidding ends. I’ve had alot of snipes set, but by the time the auction is about to end and my snipe bid is about to be set, someone is well above my snipe bid and the snipe doesn’t even bid for me.
I use them when I know…since I’m old…that I won’t remember when the auction ends.
**How does bidding software benefit here? I would think the software would ask you for a “cap” bid ,or highest bid ,too. **
The sniping programs do ask for your top bid. Basically, you put in the highest price you are willing to pay then the program starts bidding for you but not until the last few seconds of the auction.
The real advantage is that you do not show up as a bidder until the last second or two of the auction. Folks who are not using a sniping program can’t hit the keys fast enough to top your bid. Someone who would be glad to out bid you by $2 does not see you until it is too late.