Better buying on eBay

1. Snipe it Manually

It shouldn't take long to figure out that it's usually better to bid later in the auction--the later, the better. Many eBayers wait until the last few minutes of the auction to bid, leaving no time for lower bidders to be notified and respond with higher bids. This is called sniping, and all it takes is a little nerve and the ability to tell time. Sniping leaves no time to read the auction description carefully or to ask the seller any questions you may have. Make sure you take care of these things long before the end of the auction.

When you've found an auction you want to snipe, the first step is to track the auction and make note of its closing date and time. Then all you need to do is return to eBay a few minutes before the auction ends and place your bid. The problem is that many eBay users make a habit of doing this, so you'll likely have competition. With multiple snipers, the prize often goes to the bidder who can enter a bid closest to the end of the auction.

With seconds to spare...
The most effective snipes occur within 10 seconds of the end of the auction, leaving no time for other bidders to even see your bid--not to mention outbid you--before it's too late. Give yourself about 2 minutes to set up. Start by opening two browser windows (press Ctrl+N to open a second window) and open the auction page in both windows. Move and resize the two browser windows so that they're side by side on your screen.

Type your maximum bid in one of the windows and click Place Bid (but do not confirm your bid on the next page). If necessary, scroll the page so that the Confirm Bid button is visible and not obscured. Then switch to the other window and reload (refresh) the page by pressing Ctrl+R. Reload it again a few seconds later to see any changes to the current price and the time left. Repeat this until there are only 10 to 15 seconds left in the auction.

If you have a slow connection to the Internet, it will be difficult to reload the page quickly enough to see the status of the auction. Try temporarily turning off images in your browser settings to speed things up. If your connection is exceedingly slow, you'll probably have to increase your sniping margin to 20 to 30 seconds and hope for the best.

When the time is right, switch back to the other window and press the Confirm Bid button to place your bid. Then quickly reload the auction page to make sure your bid was accepted. Assuming you entered a sufficiently large bid, you should be the high bidder for the 7 seconds that remain. If you cut it close enough, nobody else will even know you've bid until the auction is over.

Note: Some eBay members consider the ethics of sniping to be somewhat dubious in that it may appear unfair to those unfamiliar with the process. This concern is somewhat understandable. It's true that new members will lose auctions to seasoned eBayers at first, either in bidding wars or by sniping, but as they become more experienced, they'll start winning more auctions. The choice of whether to snipe is yours, but in all my years of using eBay, I've never had a single buyer or seller contact me and complain about an auction I've sniped. Inexperienced bidders will eventually learn the system and find a method that works for them, sniping or otherwise.

2. Snipe it automatically

Sniping is an effective way to increase your odds of winning an auction while simultaneously lowering the final price you pay. But there are significant drawbacks to sniping that limit its practical usefulness:

• You have to be in front of your computer, ready to bid, at the exact time the auction ends.
  
  
• It's nearly impossible to snipe two or more auctions ending at the same time.
  
  
• If your computer crashes or your Internet connection goes down moments before you snipe, you lose.
  
  
• You can easily forget to bid or even become distracted moments before bidding time. (I can't tell you how many times I've been distracted by a doorbell ring or a good song on the radio, only to turn around and find that I've missed my 2-minute sniping window.)
  
  

The solution, of course, is not to simply bid early, then return to the auction after it's over--you may find that you've been outbid by 4 cents. Fortunately, there is a better way. A number of sniping services are available that will automatically place a bid for you at a specified time, typically a few minutes or seconds before the end of an auction. Some sniping services are simply standalone programs that run on your computer, but these suffer some of the same limitations as sniping manually--namely, that your home computer must be turned on and connected to the Internet at the right time. The better services are Web-based, like eBay itself, and operate whether or not your computer is powered up.

When you use a sniping service, you must share your eBay ID and password so that the software can log in and bid for you. While some sniping services are legitimate, some will undoubtedly use this information unscrupulously. So use caution and do your homework before trusting an unknown service with your eBay login. By far, the best sniping service available is eSnipe. It's extremely easy to use and very reliable; best of all, it works. Just log in to eSnipe with your eBay user ID and password, and you're ready to go. To set up a snipe, specify the auction number, the amount to bid, and the buffer time (number of seconds before the end of the auction).

eSnipe will bid for you at the specified time, then send you e-mail to let you know whether the snipe was successful. Naturally, if you were outbid or if your bid wasn't high enough, eSnipe will fail.

The catch
There are two drawbacks to using eSnipe. First, it's not free. New users are granted a free trial period, but thereafter, eSnipe charges 1 percent of the final price of the auction, with a minimum fee of 25 cents and a maximum fee of $10. The fees are pretty small, though, and probably pay for themselves with the money saved by sniping. eSnipe fees are paid by purchasing BidPoints, which are available at a discount if purchased in bulk.

The second catch is that eSnipe is not smart. It can't read your mind or the minds of the other bidders, nor can it make decisions for you. For instance, if you enter a snipe bid of $54.03 and the price at the time of sniping is $53.99, eBay will refuse your bid because of its incremental bidding rule, even though it's higher than the highest bid. If you sniped the auction manually, then you'd be able to make the call on the spot and raise your bid by the required 96 cents.

eSnipe offers a Bid Checkup feature, an automated e-mail sent at a specified time before the end of the auction to notify you of any potential problems with your pending snipe, but the real-world usefulness of the feature is limited since you probably won't be around when it arrives. Personally, I've found the Bid Checkup e-mail to be somewhat of a nuisance, as it merely means I get two e-mail messages notifying me of a failed snipe instead of just one. Fortunately, you can specify 0 (zero) in the Bid Checkup field to disable the feature.

Bonus tip: put eSnipe on your toolbar
If you find yourself using eSnipe more frequently, you may want to streamline the bid-entry process. Instead of opening up eSnipe, logging in, then typing or pasting the auction number into the form, you can use eSnipe's SnipeIt feature.

Start by clicking SnipeIt on eSnipe's toolbar and following the prompts onscreen. Eventually, you'll be given a link that you can drag onto your browser's Links toolbar. (The link is the same for all supported platforms and browsers, but the screenshots in the instructions are different.) To snipe an auction, navigate to the auction page on eBay and click the SnipeIt link on your Links toolbar. A small window will appear with all information filled in for you; just specify a bid amount and press "Place eBay bid with eSnipe."

1. Deal with Fraud

eBay provides two tools to help buyers deal with suspected fraud by sellers, mostly to the end of retrieving any money sent. These should be used only as a last resort, if diplomatic efforts fail and if the buyer didn't use a payment method with built-in protection. These tools can also be used by sellers who suspect fraud by buyers.

The first tool is the Fraud Alert form, which is little more than a moderated discussion between buyer and seller. The two parties air their complaints in a private forum on eBay's site and, in some cases, resolve the dispute themselves; the prying eyes of the typically silent eBay moderator act as a stern parent separating two kids in the backseat.

If you wish to pursue a fraud investigation, you can also file a report with SquareTrade, a separate company that has a partnership with eBay and offers dispute-resolution services at no charge.

Note that eBay's buyer and seller protection services are available only to participants in officially completed auctions. This means that if you weren't the high bidder in an auction or if the reserve wasn't met, you won't have access to these services.

Sleuthing tools at your disposal
An eBay user who knowingly commits fraud will undoubtedly take steps to hide his or her true identity, but there are a few things you can do to learn more about whom you're dealing with:

• Start with the obvious: check the user's feedback profile and look for a possible pattern of behavior. Next, contact any other buyers and sellers with whom the user has completed a transaction. Buyer search and seller search can help you find relevant auctions for the last 30 days or use the auction numbers in the user's feedback page to view auctions up to three months old.
  
  
• Use the Find Contact Info form (Search > Find Members > Contact Info) and enter the user's ID and the auction number, and eBay will e-mail you the phone number and mailing address on file for that user.
  
  The user will also receive a notice that you've requested the information. But don't be surprised if Mr. John Doe lives at 123 Fake Street in Springfield.
  
  
• If the user has an unusual domain name (as opposed to something common such as aol.com or hotmail.com), the domain itself may provide more insight. Use a Whois tool to find out who owns the domain behind the user's e-mail address.
  
  
• If you've received any e-mail from the user, look for any IP addresses in the e-mail headers. For example, you might see something like this:
  
  Received: from mx22.sjc.ebay.com (mxpool11.ebay.com [66.135.197.17])
  
  In this case, 66.135.197.17 is the IP address of one of the computers responsible for routing the e-mail to you, and it will turn out to be a machine at eBay. But if the user e-mailed you directly, his or her IP address will show up somewhere in the headers. If the machine name (here, mxpool11.ebay.com) doesn't appear next to the IP address, use the NSLookup tool to resolve the address.
  
  NSLookup is a program included on most modern computers, such as those running Windows XP/2000, Unix, or Mac OS X. Just go to Start > Run, type nslookup 66.135.197.17 (or whatever IP address you wish), and click OK. If you don't have NSLookup on your system, you can use an online NSLookup gateway (try www.his.com/cgi-bin/nslookup or www.webreference.com/cgi-bin/nslookup.cgi).
  
  The computer name is often useful in determining the user's own domain or at least his or her ISP (such as aol.com or notmyrealdomain.com). Use the Whois tool to find out more about the domain in the machine name.
  
  
• Try searching Google for the user's name, e-mail address, postal address, phone number, zip code, or anything else you know.
  
  
• Use eBay's forums to reach out to other eBay users for help. You may even find someone else who has had dealings (negative or otherwise) with the user in question.
  

Happy Auctioning.....

Submitted by:
David A. Karp
Author, eBay Hacks