The Curse of the Last Ditch Bidders
Nearly everyone who has ever bid for anything on Ebay has faced the most annoying of defeats. For hours your high bid has stood proudly, not a sniff of an opposing bid in sight. The clock ticks agonisingly toward zero. Still no opposition bid. Five…four…three…two…one, auction over. Then it appears on the screen, those crushing words: ‘sorry you have not won this auction’.
But how? Who can have circumvented your maximum bid so late in the day? With just seconds to go you were still in the lead, yet your forefought has been blown out of the water by a last minute bidder.
The Two Schools of Thought
So how to beat these dastardly intruders? Two opposing options exist. The first is pre-emptive. Don’t try individual bids, set your true maximum up early and hope that Ebay’s autobid will get the highest mark in before your rivals.
Yet this method is deeply flawed. It brings the timing of your final bid down to nothing more than luck. Time and time again you will pipped at the post by those who wait until the last minute.
It is thus much more productive to use the second school, that of the last minute bid sniping that will have so frustrated you in the past. But simply waiting until the final seconds of the auction is no guarantee of success. It is an art which requires exquisite timing, a fast internet connection, and again, an enormous amount of luck to ensure your bid makes it just before the proverbial hammer drops.
Naturally such precision requires swathes of effort and bucketloads of stress. So how to avoid the frustration-factor?
Get a Bid Sniper
The best way to overcome the difficulties in timing is to take the work out of your own hands and put it into those of a program called a bid sniper, such as the excellent Gavel Thief. These take away all effort and stress by automatically bidding at the very last second in auctions to try and secure you the lowest possible price for your product.
Simply input the reference number of the auction, set a maximum and let the software go to work. You won’t even have to be in the room, and it works fantastically. Where manual work will lead to endless failures the use of a Bid Sniper ensures your bid is placed as late as possible for the lowest possible price.
If You Can’t Beat Them, Join Them
So the key is do what other people have been doing to you, but much, much better. Give thanks for modern technology and the internet and reduce the chances of those nailbiting bid finishes crushing you again.
