Is Ebay assisting the sniper?

[bob27556]

I lost an auction a little while ago for some BA's that I was trying to pick up cheap and noticed that the end time now displays the seconds counting down. My guess is since sniping has become standard procedure Ebay decided to make it a bit easier. OK I'll admit it. I don't have to set my second hand to the computer clock anymore but you gotta do what you gotta do. Does anyone know about the watching window that appears in the upper right? I haven't used Ebay much for a while.

[barnettrp21122]

Do you mean the "Watch This Item" button? If so, that's just a way of bookmarking any item you're interested in and you'll be notified when it's getting close to the end of the auction.
Bob

[Brad]

Hi Bob,

The timer counting down showed up a couple of months back and I liked it as you knew the time rather that having to refresh the page. Then it disappeared and went back to the old format. I googled for it and found a forum where someone from eBay said they were beta testing and pulled it back to evaluation the results and would make a decision "soon" about rolling it out. It showed up again recently. I can only surmize that they are still testing or have made it permanent. (wow, that entire paragraph was helpful, wasn't it? )

I believe they have added something like "instant bid" but I am not sure how it works. For me, I try to snipe and will enter my max bid. If I get it, great, if not, so be it. (It seems a lot of folks still enter in multiple bids.) I like the active timer as it is easier to manage and allows me to get my bid in.

Good luck.

[tapout1003]

Ebay has been making major changes lately. It seems their numbers are down and I believe they are trying some new things to bring the traffic back. I'm not a big fan of sniping. I never have the time to tune in for the last 30 seconds of an auction. When I want something I pretty much bid my max and if I get it great.

[3victrolas]

I do the same thing Brad does & I put in my maximum bid in the last 8 seconds or so of an auction. If I win great, if not that's ok too.

I sold a bunch of books on Ebay Monday. I did have the usual multiple bidding going on, but at the same time virtually every single auction of mine was sniped by a bidder in the last 5 seconds. Seems that countdown clock is making sniping easier.

[B.B.B]

There is also a bunch of software programs out there that handles your sniping automatically.
Snipe while you sleep!

Here is one of the more well-known ones
http://www.esnipe.com/