Something I REALLY want ends tomorrow about 11am but I will be at work. I don’t want to bid now as someone may just keep bidding til they beat me. Is there something available that will place your max bid just before the end of the auction?

Cheers,

Joe

eSnipe.com
Used it loads.
[whisper]and you don’t have to pay esnipe’s fees[/whisper]

I use bidnapper

http://www.auctionstealer.co.uk

I use http://www.auctionsniper.com/

Is there a ‘best’ one or do they all pretty much perform the same? Dezb pray tell my friend..

Er ebay does it for you. Bid now and then enter your maximum bid. eBay will only increase to your maximum bid in steps so as long as no one bids a higher amount than your maximum, then you will win the auction. Of course, you have to figure out what your maximum bid really is but actually this is a good way of agreeing a maximum and sticking to it. I’m sure that so many acutions sell for more than the items should be worth because people get carried away with their bidding. It’s that bid creep mentality; you think it’s worth £100 tops, then bidding reaches £100 and from there it’s only a short step to £105 and from there as small a step to £110 and so on. Before you know it you paid £120!

Well they do and they dont. If I put my max of 300 now and was winning others may keep bidding up until over my max and they take it. I’d be at work so couldn’t do anything. If instead they are winning they have no reason to increase their bid, I come in last minute with my max 300 and they have no time to respond. I win.

At least that’s how I see it

You are right joe.

except they may be sniping too!

Sorry I don’t get it Joe, surely if you want it that badly, just buy one new or if you’re feelng really crazy, enter the new price as your max bid, or maybe even the new price plus a little extra just to be sure. No one in their right mind would then outbid you.

It’s an auction, the idea is that you decide how much it’s really worth to you and set that as your max bid, that way you don’t end up paying more than it’s really worth.

they don’t make them anymore

Ah the science and joy of auction sniping – definitely the best way to get a bargain (and avoid the temptation to spend more than you want to 🙂 ).

I’ve use auctionsniper quite a bit and if you haven’t used them before, you should be able to get a free trial.

Just had a read of a thread on moneysavingexpert and it look’s like goofbay is the way to go as their sniping service is free. I think all the others mentioned above work fine though but they charge after a certain point.

You see now I really want to know what it is you’re bidding on 🙂

if someone else’s maximum bid is higher than yours it doesn’t matter how late you bid.

>if someone else’s maximum bid is higher than yours it doesn’t matter how late you bid

Correct but not all ebay users enter their maximum bids and then walk away. If they all did then sniping wouldn’t work. sniping gives you the edge over users who enter a bid and then increment it when they’ve been outbid.

Experienced bidders of online auctions with fixed ending times often prefer entering bids late in the auction to avoid bidding wars (multiple rounds of bidders each increasing their maximum bid to temporarily regain “current highest bid” status) or bid chasing (where the presence of an existing bid encourages others to bid on the same item).
Economic analysis of sniping (Roth and Ockenfels, 2000[2]) suggests that it is a rational gain-maximizing (i.e., price-minimizing) strategy for bidders in auctions which fulfill two criteria: 1) the end time is rigidly fixed (such as those on eBay), and 2) it is possible to gain additional information about the “true” value of the item by inspecting previous bids. For example, a novice antiques buyer may prefer to bid in auctions which already have bids placed by more experienced antiques buyers, on the grounds that the items which the experienced buyers are interested in are more likely to be valuable. In this case, more informed buyers may delay bidding until the last minutes of the auction to avoid creating competition for their bids, leading to a lower winning bid. Analysis of actual winning bids on eBay (Yang and Kahng, 2006[3]) suggests that winning bidders are more likely to have placed a single bid late in the auction, rather than placing multiple incremental bids as the auction progresses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auction_sniping

If you don’t believe in it fine, but it does work.