Ready, Set, Snipe! Sniping 101

You’ve heard about automated “sniping,” but it sounds so… stealthy. So sneaky, underhanded even. And of course, you want to know more!

Certainly you’ve sniped on your own. You’re bidding on a Fender guitar… a Fender, I’m telling you! And the savvy seller started the bidding low. So you add the item to your watch list. Then you wait… and you wait… and you pounce. In the last few minutes of the bidding you hit the “refresh” key over and over, and then with seconds remaining, you place your bid. It’s a gamble, but it’s a gamble that can sometimes save you a lot of money.

Bidding from the start of an auction can drive up the price. You bid $10.00; someone else bids $20.00; you bid $50.00 – and then it gets personal. You bid. He bids. This goes on and on until only person is satisfied: the seller!

Waiting until the end of an auction to place your bid is a smart way to save money and, in many cases, win an auction. You can snipe manually, or you can check out some “snipers for hire.” There are many automated sniping programs on the market; some are free, some are pay-by-snipe or pay-by-win. My advice to you is check out any automated sniper that you use, and make sure that it is legitimate. You will, after all, be handing your eBay password over to the automated sniping company.

Here are two sites worth a look.

First,
AuctionStealer has more than 433,000 active users. The price is great: it’s FREE. AuctionStealer.com also offers a fee-based “Priority Service” which has extra features not available in the free version.

Next,
EZSniper is a pay service, but charges only if you win. The fee is a tiny percentage of the final auction price (for example, 10 cents on auctions that end for $10.00 or less). You can try it free.

Manual sniping is a rush, but automated sniping gives you much more to time practice on your new Fender guitar.