Sniping is the practice of placing a bid just as an auction is about to end. Sniping although welcomed by sellers as it drives the price of the item up, is frustrating for buyers who get outbid haveing little or no time to respond. There's nothing worse than thinking a bid is in the bag, only to get sniped and lose the auction.
Snipers will monitor an auction have the bid allready to be placed and with a few seconds remaining submit the bid or they will use an automated bidding software such as iSnipeIt.
Some online auction sites, such as Excite Auctions and Yahoo Auction, have automatic extension options, if someone places a bid within the last few minutes of the auction end (time varies from one auction to another), the auction is automatically extended.
The best defense against sniping is to rely on automated, or proxy, bidding. When you come across an item you're interested in, decide the maximum you're willing to spend, not how much you hope to spend. Enter this amount as your maximum bid and the autobid proxy system will take care of the rest. In order to win an auction, a snipe has to outbid you and if you've already settled on the maximum amount you're willing to pay, you needn't worry about a snipe unless they are willing to bid more in which case you would have lost the bid anyway. By bidding your true maximum amount up front, you foil snipes who prey upon bidders with low maximum bids.
The Bottom Line:
If you really want an item, enter the maximum amount you are willing to pay and let the auto bidding proxy system do the rest. Snipers generally are not willing to pay fair market value for items as they thrive on "stealing" away the bid at the last second. By placing a fair value bid the odds are you will foil the snipers every time.
Of course you can always get a copy of iSnipeIt and become one yourself :-))
Happy Bidding,
AL
