This
and the following page provide information to help you buy and sell online. Any
ideas and contributions would be most welcome.
TOOLS TO
HELP YOU BUY: When
we're talking about buying, we're really talking about
sniping. At their basest level, sniper programs allow a
bidder to submit their bids within seconds of an auction
close, thereby preventing someone from bidding you up and/or
outbidding you in the hours before an auction closes. While the
bidder who is prepared to ante up the most $$$ is always going
to win the auction regardless of when the bid is placed,
sniper programs can remove the emotion from auctions and that leads to cheaper
glasses.
On a practical
side, sniper programs free you from the need to sit glued to
the computer monitor until the wee hours of the morning to
watch an auction close -- the sniper does this for
you. Snipers can also be useful for watching and logging
large numbers of auctions. This frees you from the
30-auction limit imposed by the eBay watch page.
Several
excellent sniper programs or servers that will snipe on your
behalf are available:
Programs
the Reside on Your Computer:
The
following programs all get installed on your computer's hard
drive and then use your dial-up connection to place a
bid. The advantage is that these programs give you total
control, but a big disadvantage is that the computer must be
left turned on and the phone line free. The other disadvantage
is that every time eBay makes a significant change in its web
site (which happens often), the program has to be
updated. Assuming that the program developer is keeping
pace with the changes and that fixes are actually available,
you may miss several auctions before you realize that there is
a problem.
Dan
recently released a new version of Auction Sentry
that has a built-in browser that allows for one-click
auction logging. It's still a bit buggy as of
writing (8/04), but it's worth watching. Price is
$24.95 to purchase but there is an annual renewal fee of
$9.99.
Programs
that Reside on Someone Else's Computer:
The
following programs are resident on someone else's
computer. There are three big advantages to using
them. First, they snipe regardless of whether your home
computer is turned on or your teenager is tying up the phone
line. Second, they can be accessed via the internet from
literally anywhere, an especially big plus for those who
travel extensively. Third, someone else has the
responsibility of keeping pace with changes at eBay.
While these folks may not necessarily be faster at adapting
than the programmers mentioned in the section above, you may
miss several from your home computer before you actually clue
into the fact that something is 'not quite right'.
Several online sniper services are available:
