In my very recent post about getting an IBM x41 tablet PC, I mentioned a great tool I had run into called AuctionSniper. If you bid on e-bay, you must try out this tool (It comes with 3 free snipes)! Not only will AuctionSniper help make sure you win more of the auctions you bid on it also prevents you from paying too much for an item.
AuctionSniper does this by automatically submitting your maximum bid for an item within the last 5 seconds of the end of the auction (Their time is synchronized with e-bay). I’m not sure who originally coined the use of the phrase “Sniping” to refer to online auctions but its been in use for quite some time now. The idea being that just like a regular sniper remains completely hidden until he takes his shot, an auction sniper waits until the last possible second to place their bid. Other people who are interested in the auction don’t have a chance to retaliate to the bid until the auction is over.
With E-bay’s “automatic” bidding system theoretically you should not need to snipe since a person has already entered their “maximum bid”. As a result if they’re outbid, they should be out of the bidding. In reality the thrill of the auction often encourages people to create a new maximum bid if they are given time. This drives up the price of the auction. As a result sniping auctions usually allows you to get the auction cheaper if you do win and definitely insures that you don’t pay more than what you viewed as being your real maximum bid since you don’t have time to bid again. Since AuctionSniper places the bid automatically for you it allows you to place a last second bid without physically being sitting at your computer at that time. The fact that they’re syncronized with E-bay time also means they can more reliably submit that bid in the last few seconds. I can’t tell you the frustration of trying to place a bid at the last second only to find that the auction ended right before you placed your bid and your bid would have won.
For those of you who are not yet impressed this is just the beginning of what AuctionSniper can do. On their website they have a search tool that allows you to search more precisely through auction listings (and e-mail you the results on a regular basis if you like). In addition they have something called “Bidding Groups”. This is what helped me get my x41 tablet. What bidding groups allows you to do is schedule an auction snipe for a whole bunch of different items as part of one group. For each item you can set a different maximum bid (since each item could be slightly different). The first item in the group that you win cancels the rest of the schedule snipes in that group.
E.G. I wanted to get an x41 tablet. There were about 4 auctions that still had the tablet at price that was still below the maximum I wanted to pay for it (One auction ended in 12 hrs, one in a day, one in 3 days, one in 5 days). I setup an auction snipe for each one of these items and put them in a bidding group I called “x41 tablet”. I then didn’t think much more about it. 12hrs later Auctionsnipe e-mailed me to let me know that I had been outbid in the first auction. The next day I was e-mailed that I had won the 2nd auction. The auction snipes that had originally been scheduled for 3 or 5 days were automatically canceled as soon as I won the 2nd auction.
If this had been a regular e-bay scenario without AuctionSniper, I would have had to put my bid in early or be at my computer at the last second to place my bid and try and snipe. Regardless I would have had to check back after the auction close to see if I won the auction before setting up my bid for the second laptop. I would have had to complete this process several times until I won an auction. This would also have required me to have a block of time at least every evening to be able to handle these requests. With AuctionSniper I setup all the auctions at once and was done with it. If I was extremely busy for the rest of the week my auctions would still get bid put in.
Anyway, check-it out. As I stated in the beginning AuctionSniper actually starts you with 3 free snipes so you have nothing to lose. The best part about the free snipes is they only count if you win an auction. I’ve bid on a good 20 auctions now and only used one snipe 
. In the auction I won there were 5 bids (of a total of 
in the last 2 minutes of the auction. My bid was the last one placed, and was a great deal!