bidding

This is semiautographical, because bidding on eBay is more than just a business transaction. It's uniquely modern event with ancient undertones. Kung Fu Sniping, indeed.

Suppose you don't want to pay for a sniping service. (See also Problems with eBay sniping services). Is it best to "sport snipe" by sitting at your computer, staring at the clock, hoping you can do a better bidding job yourself? Here are the pros to that approach:

• It's free
• It's a head rush. Someday someone will look in depth at the psychology of bidding. The eBay sniper is a curious animal, especially the sports snipers.
• You feel like you've gotten one over on The Man! And it's really The Man, now that Meg Whitman has flown eBay. She's probably a closet eBay sniper herself. I'm just sayin'.
• You don't have to worry about problems with the sniping services. Your bidding is in your hands.

Let an eBay sniper do your bidding

Here are the reasons to let a sniping service to the work for you:

• If your home net connection is a dialup, it might very well go down. Some dialup connections turn themselves off after a certain number of minutes of inactivity.
• The eBay sniper services (which aren't owned by eBay, duh) run on server computers and are staffed by professionals. It's in their best interest to keep bidding as smoothly as possible because they lose money otherwise.
• They synchronize their servers automatically every day, usually many times. What if you try to connect to the NIST clock a few minutes before... and the connection is bad?
• They can usually cut it pretty close. eSnipe, for example, easily makes 10 seconds before the end for all of my auctions. eBay sniping was never the same after eSnipe.
• Really: is your home internet service provider THAT reliable? The sniping services usually have commercial-quality OC-48 connections to the Web.
• You still feel like you've gotten one over on The Man! You are an eBay sniper!

Do you really have the laser focus you'd need to bid on everything you want?

 

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