I want something off ebay, but I'm going to forget to snipe it. How do you do your last minute ebay sniping?

bennyhillifier

From my phone 15 seconds before it ends...

i use this thing called my memory to remember to log in and win the auction.

or you could just set calendar alerts in your favorite calendar/mail program.

will this calendar program come up to me at a show and remind me with a wifi enabled device that I can go and buy the item with?

Isn't there software that does all this for you somewhere?

or is that illegal...I'm not sure.

thank you for all that poignant and insightful information mr bdc.

I googled "software ebay snipe"

http://www.ezsniper.com/

I could also google for "saving my social security number and credit card numbers online", and find a site
www.savingmysocialsecuritynumberandcreditcardnumbersonline.com
but would I really want to give them my SS and CC? this is why I'm asking. people's experiences.

Bid-O-Matic:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/bom/

and have you used that? what is your opinion?

yes, works fine any time I've used it. It doesn't guarantee a win but you don't have to sit around waiting to bid in the last 10 seconds.

I LOL anytime people bid days before an auction end. Idiots.

excellent, I will set it up at home tonight.

I've only used ebay once so maybe I don't have all the facts together... but I don't see the point of sniping. Don't you enter in your MAX bid anyway? And ebay makes the price as low as possible giving you the high bid and will raise your bid as high as needed automatically without going over your max bid? (fixing run on sentences is for poo heads).

Well the idea is to not bid until the last few seconds to keep a bidding war from happening days before it ends which causes the price to keep going higher and higher. There's no point in bidding 5 days before an auction ends when you can let software bid your maximum offer in the last few secs.

i.e. if someone is the only bidder they'll just be like "I'm gonna win this thing!" then at the last second they lose.

yeah, but it's all psychology.
If you bid on something and there is 10 days left, then there is 10 days for people to try to outbid you.
If you bid on something and there is 10 seconds left, then there is only 10 seconds for people to try to outbid you.

People can try and outbid me all they want in 10 days. Because on day 30 I put in my max bid. If people keep bidding in those days little by little my current bid will automatically keep going up by ebay, just enough to make me the current high bidder. If the bidding takes the price up above my set max bid, then ebay won't go any higher automatically for me and I lose. But who cares, I didn't want to buy it for above that price anyway, hence the max bid.

I don't get why the last 10 minutes matter.

you want to pay the lowest price. In 10 days, people will try to outbid you which raises the price that you are going to pay in the end.

Avoiding Bidding Wars
One of the most common mistakes on eBay is pre-maturely bidding on an item. Most users see an item with no bids and try to claim it for themselves by being the first to bid on it. Most users on eBay are more likely to bid on an active item than one that has yet to be bid on. When a second user starts to bid higher on the item, the price will begin to rise very quickly. This is known as a bidding war. While being great for the seller, a bidding war hikes up the price for no reason. If you're ever pulled into a bidding war, never let your emotions cloud your judgement; people become so obsessed about beating the other bidders that they end up paying much more than necessary instead of bidding on a different auction. Try to avoid any items where bidding wars are taking place. If the item happens to be rare, and there are no other close alternatives, then keep a close eye on the item, and try to snipe the auction. Make sure that you never participate in a bidding war, and consider moving to a different eBay auction if the item you're looking at has a long list of previous bids.

There used to be a site through UnWired Buyer that calls you in the last 2 minutes and lets you bid with the phone. It works REALLY well though it IS voice based.

Also you can just use m.ebay.com, that's what I do, too. Both work well enough.

should have sniped.
missed my item by 4 minutes.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ORG-rare-SECT-OF-EXECR...DM-DEVOURMENT_W0QQitemZ220547299273

Can't wait to see what this goes for!