Quite a few years ago, on the day after Christmas, I was on The Today Show with Matt Lauer talking about post-holiday bargains on eBay. This wasn’t the first time I’d been on the show with him; but this time Matt seemed very interested in getting a deal on a child’s lamp that I happened to be selling. He and his wife had just had a baby, and everyone likes a bargain.
If everyone likes a bargain, then I’m not like everyone — because I love bargains! When I was teaching classes at eBay’s own eBay University (yes, there really was one), my favorite class to teach was Buying and Browsing, because I love the thrill of the chase and the acquisition of a good deal without all the haggling.
Often, the first thing that people ask me is how they can stop getting outbid at the last minute of an auction. I always say the same thing — become an expert sniper and bid higher than the other guy!
Okay, but how? In this chapter, I give you my tips and a few I picked up from other savvy shoppers along the way.
eBay treats every bid — other than bids on some real estate sales or incorrectly placed bids — as binding. If you win an auction or buy an item and do not go through with your commitment by purchasing, the seller will file a case against you. If you establish a history as a nonpaying bidder with eBay (that is, you repeatedly back out of purchasing what you bid on), you have a strong chance of getting suspended from the community.
How much an item sells for depends on how many people see the item and how badly others want it. You may think of the retail price or book value as a standard for pricing, but neither may be accurate when it comes to shopping on eBay. In fact, I say everything has three prices:
The price a retailer charges for an item at the store
The price everyone says something is worth
The price an item actually sells for on eBay
Understanding the Bidding Action
Okay, you’ve found the perfect item to track (say, a really classy Hello Kitty wristwatch), and it’s in your price range. You’re more than interested — you’re ready to bid. If this were a live auction, some stodgy-looking guy in a gray suit would see you nod your head and start the bidding at, say, $2. Then some woman with a severe hairdo would yank on her ear, and the price of the watch would jump to $3.
eBay reality is more like this: You’re sitting at home in your fuzzy slippers, sipping coffee while perusing eBay on your tablet or in front of the computer. All the other bidders are cruising cyberspace in their pajamas, too, but you can’t see ’em. (Be real thankful for little favors.)
When you’re ready to jump into the bidding fray, find the bidding form (my name for the center square for bidding shown in Figure 6-1) with the Place Bid button. If the item includes a Buy It Now option, you see that below the Place Bid button.
FIGURE 6-1: You can find the Place Bid button in the center of the auction page header.
Placing your auction bid
To fill out the bidding form and place a bid, first make sure that you’re registered. (For help in registering, see Chapter 3.) After you make your first bid on an item, you can instantly get to auctions you’re bidding on from your My eBay page. Follow these steps to place a bid:
Sign in to your eBay account, and find an item that you’d like to buy.
Click the Place Bid button and in the resulting box, enter your maximum bid on your selected item’s page.
Your bid must be higher than the current minimum bid and you are not required to place one of the bids suggested by eBay (as shown in Figure 6-2).
You don’t need to put in the dollar sign, but you do need to use a decimal point — unless you really want to pay $1,049.00 instead of $10.49. If you make a mistake with an incorrect decimal point, you can retract your bid (see “Retracting Your Bid in an Emergency,” at the end of this chapter).
Click Bid.
The Review and Confirm Your Bid page appears on your screen, filling it with all the costs involved in purchasing the item. This is your last chance to change your mind: Do you really want the item, and can you really buy it? The bottom line is this: If you bid on it and you win, you buy it.
If you are sure you want to bid on the item and agree to the terms, click Confirm Bid.
After you agree, the Bid Confirmation screen appears.
After you place your bid, you will either be the high bidder … or not.
You’ll know where you stand because a window pops up confirming your bid or letting you know your bid wasn’t high enough, as shown in Figure 6-3.
FIGURE 6-2: The serious part — where you place your bid.
FIGURE 6-3: My bid was not high enough to beat another user’s proxy bid.
eBay considers a bid on an item to be a binding contract. You can save yourself a lot of heartache if you promise never to bid on an item you don’t intend to buy. Don’t make spurious bids on the silly assumption that because you’re new to eBay, you can’t win; if you do that, you’ll probably win simply because you’ve left yourself open to Murphy’s Law. Therefore, before you click Place Bid, be sure that you’re in this auction for the amount you’re bidding — and make yourself another promise to figure out the maximum you’re willing to spend — and stick to it.
If you want to practice bidding, go to eBay’s Test Bid page at
When you make a maximum bid on an item, you actually make several small bids — again and again — until the bidding reaches where you told it to stop. For example, if the current bid is up to $19.99 and you put in a maximum of $45.02, your bid automatically increases incrementally so you’re ahead of the competition — at least until someone else’s maximum bid exceeds yours. Basically, you bid by proxy, which means the automatic-bid feature stands in for you so your bid rises incrementally in response to other bidders’ bids.
No one else knows whether you’re bidding automatically, and no one knows how high your maximum bid is. And the best part is that you can be out enjoying your life while the proxy bidding happens automatically.
The bid increment is the amount of money by which a bid is raised, and eBay’s system can work in mysterious ways. Buyers and sellers have no control over the bid increments that eBay sets. The current maximum bid can jump up a nickel or a quarter or even a twenty-dollar bill, but there is a method to the madness (even though you may not think so). To determine how much to increase the bid increment, eBay uses a bid-increment formula that’s based on the current high bid. Here are examples:
A 5-quart bottle of cold cream has a current high bid of $14.95. The bid increment is $0.50 — meaning that if you bid by proxy, your automatic bid will be $15.45.
A 5-ounce can of top-notch caviar has a high bid of $200. The bid increment is $2.50. If you choose to bid by proxy, your bid will be $202.50.
Table 6-1 shows you what happens when you put the proxy system and a bid-increment formula together in the same cyber-room.
Joe Bidder tells his proxy that his maximum bid is $8.00. He’s the current high bidder at $2.75.
2.75
0.25
3.00
“Do I hear $3.00?”
You tell your proxy that your maximum bid is $25.00 and take a nice, relaxing bath while your proxy calls out your $3.00 bid, making you the current high bidder.
3.00
0.25
3.25
“I hear $3.00 from proxy. Do I hear $3.25?”
Joe Bidder’s proxy bids $3.25, and while Joe Bidder is out walking his dog, he becomes the high bidder.
A heated bidding war ensues between Joe Bidder’s proxy and your proxy while the two of you go on with your lives. The bid increment inches from $0.25 to $0.50 as the current high bid increases.
7.50
0.50
8.00
“Do I hear $8.00?”
Joe Bidder’s proxy calls out $8.00, his final offer.
8.00
0.50
8.50
“The bid is at $8.00. Do I hear $8.50?”
Your proxy calls out $8.50 on your behalf, and having outbid your opponent, you win the auction.
The Secret’s in the Timing
Brick-and-mortar auctions, such as those held by Sotheby’s or Christie’s, end when the bidding ends. No auctioneer is going to cut off the feverish bidding for that one-of-a-kind Van Gogh, right? As long as someone is bidding, all systems are go. The last bidder standing wins. Auctions on eBay, however, close at a prescribed time. Because of this fundamental difference in the way eBay runs its auctions, you need to do some special work to make sure that you time your bid as strategically as possible.
You can find out what time an auction ends by simply looking at the auction page. Note that eBay runs on Pacific Time and uses a 24-hour clock (00:00 to 24:00 versus the more familiar 1:00 to 12:00).
To get the serious deals, you may want to synchronize your computer’s clock with eBay’s. To find out what eBay’s official time is, go to
Then compare eBay’s time with your computer’s clock. On most Windows-based computers, the time is in the lower-right corner of the screen on the taskbar. Now you’ll know how to offset your timing if necessary.
Using the lounging-around strategy
Sometimes the best strategy at the beginning of an auction is to do nothing at all. That’s right; relax, take off your shoes, and loaf. You may want to make a token bid (the very lowest you are allowed) or mark the page to Watch on your My eBay page. I generally take this attitude through the first six days of a week-long auction I want to bid on, and it works pretty well. I do, however, check in to keep tabs on important items I’m watching on My eBay, and revise my strategy as time passes.
If an auction has received no bids 12 hours before the auction ends, the seller has the right to change the minimum bid. Also, if there is a Buy It Now option on an auction, someone can swoop in and purchase the item for the stated price. If you place the minimum as a token bid when you first see the auction, you may foil a Buy It Now from another bidder. (Buy It Now is disabled after a bid is placed in some categories. In others, it disappears once the reserve is met — if there is one.)
If you see an item that you absolutely must have, mark it to watch (or make a token bid) and revise your maximum bid as the auction goes on. I can’t stress enough how important this is.
As you check back each day, take a look at the other bids and the high bidder. Is someone starting a bidding war? Look at the time when the competition is bidding and note any patterns, such as lunchtime bidding. If you know what time your major competition is bidding, you can bid after he or she does.
Using the beat-the-clock strategy
You should rev up your bidding strategy during the final 24 hours of an auction and decide, once and for all, whether you really have to have the item you’ve been eyeing. Maybe you put in a maximum bid of $45.02 earlier in the week. Now’s the time to decide whether you’re willing to go as high as $50.02. Maybe $56.03?
No one wants to spend the day in front of the computer (ask almost anyone who does), but if you have a smartphone, you might want to use the eBay mobile app while running errands. Just place a sticky note where you’re likely to see it, reminding you of the exact time the auction ends. If you’re not going to be near a computer when the auction closes, you can also use an automatic bidding software program to bid for you; see “Succeeding by Sniping,” later in this chapter, for details.
In the last few minutes
With half an hour left before the auction becomes ancient history, head for the computer and dig in for the last battle of the bidding war. I recommend that you sign on to eBay about 10 to 15 minutes before the auction ends. The last thing you want is to get caught in Internet gridlock and not get access to the eBay website. Go to the items you’re watching and click the auction title.
With 10 minutes to go, if there’s a lot of action on your auction, click reload or refresh every 30 seconds to get the most current info on how many people are bidding.
Bidding in odd increments is just one of the many strategies to get you ahead of the rest of the bidding pack without paying more than you should. Many of the strategies in this chapter are for bidders who are tracking an item over the course of a week or more, so be sure you have time to track the item and plan your next move. Also, get a few auctions under your belt before you throw yourself into the middle of a bidding war.
My Favorite Bidding Strategies
There used to be a time when I would tell beginning eBay members my favorite methods of bidding and winning, and if there was an eBay employee in earshot, you could see him or her wince. Things are considerably different these days. For example, eBay used to officially oppose the use of third-party payment options — until they purchased PayPal. And when sniping swept the online auction community and became de riguer, the eBay Powers That Be didn’t endorse the practice. Finally, after some agonizing, the eBay insiders admitted that sniping does work in winning auctions.
As a matter of fact, eBay’s instructors are now pitching many of the strategies that I’ve been talking about for years — because they work! While editing this book, my editor even reminisced about just how much the eBay “party line” has changed since I wrote my first book on eBay in 1999.
Hunting for errors
Some of my best buys on eBay were the result of searching for misspellings. Many sellers are in a hurry when they set up their auction listings, and to err is human (and to win, divine). I am more than willing to forgive sellers for their mistakes because the payoff for bargain hunters is, well, a bargain.
Think of alternative spellings when you search for an item. A favorite of mine is Von Furstenburg for Von Furstenberg. Usually, I search for the correct spelling and find a bunch of items where the bidding can get steep. But when I search for the misspelled version, I may find identical items that have no bids, because I’m the only one who has found the listing. Figure 6-4 shows that eBay is often aware of misspellings when it comes to name brands.
FIGURE 6-4: Once I clicked the link to the misspelling, there were 1,002 results (versus 32,710, spelled correctly).
You can search for both the correct and incorrect spellings by using a search such as (furstenberg,furstenburg). Book 2 gives you lots more search tricks.
I was also successful during one holiday season when computer-animated cats were popular (and going for extremely high prices on eBay, because they were sold out everywhere across the country). The brand name was FurReal. I searched for spellings like fur real and furreal and found many bargains.
eBay smartened up and now sometimes shows alternative spellings — but not always (what is the right way to spell L’Occitane?).
A couple of our favorite misspellings are neckless (instead of necklace) — currently 2,305 items up for sale — and vidio (instead of video), for which 180 are currently on the site. I accidentally ran a misspelled search for a popular electronics game and noticed that there were 29 items spelled Nitendo. Note that eBay did suggest the proper spelling of Nintendo, with 43,902 items.
There are a couple of websites that can help you find misspelled bargains on eBay; check out www.fatfingers.com and www.typohound.com for some stellar examples.
Researching your item
Sometimes we (that includes me and you) find what we think is an incredible deal on eBay. It may well be, especially if we know that the retail price is, say, $80 and we’re seeing a Buy It Now or an auction closing at $40. If a low, low price works for you, just go ahead and buy the item if you want it right away. To find the best price for any item on eBay, do your homework to find out what similar items on eBay (or Amazon) tend to sell for.
When you conduct your eBay research, the best strategy is to look at the prices achieved in previous sales. Do a search for Sold auctions. Then check an auction’s bid history by clicking the number of bids placed on the auction item page (the link appears next to the Winning Bid price). You’ll be presented with a screen like the one in Figure 6-5. This will at least give you an idea of how many people are duking it out for the item, if not their actual IDs. You should also click the Show Automatic Bids link on the right, so you can see how many bids were placed by proxy.
FIGURE 6-5: I don’t know who they are, but their bids sure seem persistent.
Pay attention to the times when bidders are placing their bids, and you may find that the people bidding in the auction are creatures of habit — making their bids about once a day and at a particular time of day. They may be logging on before work, during lunch, or after work. Whatever their schedules, you have great info at your disposal in the event that a bidding war breaks out: Just bid after your competition traditionally logs out, and you increase your odds of winning the auction.
Early in an auction, there may not be much of a bidding history for an item, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still check out the dates and times a bidder places bids. You can also tell whether a bidder practices sniping (discussed later in this chapter) if his or her bid is in the last few seconds of the auction. You may have a fight on your hands if the bidder uses sniping.
Quick Bidding Tips
When you get a tip, double-check to see who it’s coming from. Visit eBay’s community boards and chats, and listen to what the others have to say. Before taking anything to heart and changing the way you do things, check the tip-givers’ experiences. Are they really experienced on eBay? Or are they selling seminars or passing on the latest misinformation? I love buying from eBay sellers who are also buyers, because they respect and understand what it’s like to be a buyer on eBay!
Here are a few short tips that I know really work:
Shop eBay.ca, eh! That’s right. If you’re in the U.S.A., why not bid on auctions on the eBay Canada website? In fact, if you’re an international bidder and are willing to pay shipping from the United States, you’ll have no problem handling Canadian shipping charges.
Place your bids in odd figures. Many eBay bidders place their bids in the round numbers that match eBay’s proxy system. You can win by a few cents if you place your bids in odd numbers like $10.97 or $103.01.
Don’t get carried away in a bidding war. Unless the item is rare, odds are that a similar item will show up on eBay again someday soon. Don’t let your ego get in the way of smart bidding. Let your opposition pay too much!
Don’t freak out if you find yourself in a bidding war. Don’t keel over if, at the split-second you’re convinced that you’re the high bidder with your $45.02, someone beats you out at $45.50.
Watch for item relistings. If you see an item that you want but it has too high an opening bid (or too high a reserve), there’s a good chance that no one else will bid on the item, either. Put that auction into your Watch area of My eBay. Then, after the auction ends, double-check the seller’s auctions every so often to see whether the item has been relisted with a lower starting bid and a lower (or no) reserve.
Combine shipping when possible. When you purchase an item, check the seller’s other auctions and see whether you’re interested in making a second purchase. If you see something else that appeals to you, message the seller to see whether he or she will combine the items in shipping. That way, you can make two purchases for a smaller single shipping bill.
Never bid early, but if you do, bid high. The only time this “bidding early” business works is if no one else is interested in the auction. Usually, though, the tactic will gear up another eBay user to outbid you because suddenly the item is valuable to at least one person. If you must bid before the auction’s close, bid high. As a matter of fact, bid a couple of dollars more than you might want to pay. (I mean literally a couple, not a couple hundred.)
Try for a Best Offer (previously Second Chance). If you get outbid and miss the chance to increase your bid on an auction item, you’d be smart to email the seller and ask whether he or she has any more of the item. You may get lucky, and the seller can send you a Best Offer for your high bid.
A seller may send a Best Offer to up to four underbidders in the auction under three circumstances: when the winner doesn’t pay, when the reserve price wasn’t met, or when the seller has more than one of the items that were sold. Any purchase you make in this manner will be covered under eBay Buyer Protection, and you will have the opportunity to leave feedback.
Succeeding by Sniping
Sniping is the fine art of outbidding your competition in the very last seconds of the auction — without leaving them enough time to place a defensive bid. Sniping is my number-one favorite way to win an auction on eBay. When I first touted this method in 1999, it was a fairly new idea. Now everyone knows about sniping, and it’s pretty much an accepted bidding method.
Bidders (that is, losing bidders) whine and moan when they lose to a sniper, but they should remember one thing: The high bidder always wins, whether you’re sniping or using the automatic bid system. If you’re going to snipe, assume that the current bidder has a very high-dollar proxy bid in the works.
Some eBay members consider the practice of sniping unseemly and uncivilized — like when dozens of parents used to mob the department-store clerks to get to the handful of Cabbage Patch dolls that were just delivered. (Come to think of it, whatever happened to those collectibles?) Of course, sometimes a little uncivilized behavior can be a hoot.
Sniping is an addictive, fun part of life on eBay. I recommend that you try it. You’re likely to benefit from the results and enjoy your eBay experience even more — especially if you’re an adrenaline junkie.
Sniping techniques for the beginner
Here’s a list of things to keep in mind when you get ready to place your snipe bid:
Know how high you’re willing to go. If you know you’re facing a lot of competition, figure out your highest bid to the penny. You should have already researched the item and figured out its value. Raise your bid only to the level where you’re sure you’re getting a good return on your investment; don’t go overboard. Certainly, if the item has some emotional value and you just have to have it, bid as high as you want. But remember, you’ll have to pay the piper later. You win it, you own it!
Know how fast (or slow) your Internet connection is. Before you start sniping, figure out how long it takes to get your bid confirmed on eBay. Test it a few times until you know how many seconds you have to spare when placing a bid.
Don’t lose heart if you lose the auction. Remember, this is a game.
Although sellers love sniping because it drives up prices and bidders love it because it’s fun, a sniper can ruin a week’s careful work on an auction strategy. The most skillful snipers sneak in a bid so close to the end of the auction that you have no chance to counter-bid. Losing too often, especially to the same sniper, can be a drag. See the section on BidRobot further on to solve this problem (it works for me).
If your Internet connection is slow and you want to do some sniping, make your final bid two minutes before the auction ends and adjust the amount of the bid as high as you feel comfortable so you can beat out the competition. If you can make the highest bid with just 10 seconds left, you most likely will win. With so many bids coming in the final seconds, your bid might be the last one eBay records.
This stuff is supposed to be fun, so don’t lose perspective. If you can’t afford an item, don’t get caught up in a bidding war. Otherwise, the only person who wins is the seller. If you’re losing sleep, barking at your cat, or biting your nails over an item, it’s time to rethink what you’re doing. If it’s taking up too much of your life or an item costs too much, be willing to walk away — or log off — and live to bid another day.
To snipe a bid manually (without a sniping service), first make sure you’re signed in. Then follow these steps to snipe at the end of the auction:
In the last few minutes of the auction, locate the item you want to win and press Ctrl+N to open a second window on your Internet browser.
Keep one window open for bidding, as shown in Figure 6-6.
Continuously click the Reload or Refresh button that appears in the last few minutes of an auction, just above the Place Bid button.
By reloading the item continually, you’ll be aware when you’re in the last 60 seconds of bidding. You also can see instantly whether anyone else is doing any last-minute bidding.
In the bid box of the second browser, type your maximum bid and then click the Place Bid button.
You then face a page that, when you press the button, finalizes and confirms your bid on the item. Do not click the Confirm Bid button yet.
As the auction nears its end, confirm your final bid by clicking the Confirm Bid button.
You know when the auction is almost over because you’re reloading your first browser continually. The longer you can hold off bidding before the auction ends, the better.
FIGURE 6-6: My manual sniping system in action (before I automated my snipes).
If you really want an item bad enough, you may want to set up a backup for your snipe. Try my three-screen system, in which you can place a backup high bid in case you catch another sniper swooping in on your item immediately after your first snipe.
Obviously, if you win with the first snipe, the second window is unnecessary. But if you lose the first one, that second window feels like a real lifesaver! If you’re outbid after two snipes, don’t cry. The winner paid way more than you were willing to pay. It’s not much consolation, but rarely is an item so rare that you only see it come on the auction block once in a lifetime.
Auto-sniping your auctions
My daughter says that I can make almost anything high-maintenance, and she may very well be right. When it comes to eBay bidding and winning, a bunch of software programs and websites can help automate your shopping and feedback process. I like that they will bid for me whether I’m near a computer or sleeping peacefully.
Here is one bidding service that I have used successfully: BidRobot. Shown in Figure 6-7, BidRobot deftly places sniping bids for you from its servers. It’s won many an auction for me while I’ve been on the road or busy writing. The service is one of the least expensive out there, charging a low flat rate. Get a three-week free trial (all you can snipe for three weeks!) at
FIGURE 6-7: Easily place snipes in advance by using the BidRobot website.
BidRobot also has a BidGroup feature to use if you’re bound and determined to get the lowest price for an item. This is accomplished by planning a bidding schedule at a set price. The bidding continues until you win your item (or not). Here’s how it works.
Search for your item. Search for your specific item on eBay. You may find a large number of eBay auctions that offer your item.
Select the auctions you’d like to bid on. Review the listings (checking the seller’s feedback, description, and eBay Buyer Protection availability) and select six different listings.
Create your first snipe. Type your first snipe bid in the pale-yellow Bid section (at the very top of the BidRobot bid screen) and select the option to indicate that you want to create a group of bids with the other five auctions.
Group the other auctions. To bid on other sellers’ auctions, scroll down until you find the Pending Bid Group that contains your first item bid. Then use the form in that BidGroup area to add more snipe bids for other auctions in that specific BidGroup. You may add bids for as many additional auctions as you like to this group.
Winning. If you win any one of the auctions in your BidGroup, the remaining bids in that specific group will not be placed. This is automatic.
Retracting Your Bid in an Emergency
We’re all human, and we all make mistakes. Luckily for everyone, eBay members are allowed to retract bids under certain circumstances. You may retract your bid if you meet one of the following criteria:
You accidentally typed the wrong bid amount: Say you typed $900 but you meant $9.00. Oops. In a case like this, you can retract the bid, but you’d better rebid the proper amount (that original $9.00) immediately, or you may be in violation of eBay’s policies.
The seller has added information to the item description that changes the value of the item considerably: The bull that was let loose in the seller’s shop has changed the mint condition of the Ming vase you just bid on? No problem.
You can’t reach the seller through eBay’s messages or through the telephone number you got from eBay’s find members area: Seller has gone AWOL, and you have a question about an item you’ve bid on? You can use eBay’s message system by clicking the Ask a Question link near the bottom of the listing page. Or to get the seller’s telephone number, click the Advanced link (at the top-right corner of most eBay pages) and then click the Find a Member link (on the left side of the page). Next, input your transaction number and the seller’s User ID. After checking to make sure that you’ve begun a transaction with this person, the good people at eBay will send the seller’s telephone number in an email message to your registered email address. Your phone number will also be emailed to the seller.
Every time you retract a bid, it appears in the feedback area of your eBay feedback page.
Here are a couple of additional restrictions to retracting bids:
You can retract a bid if it was placed during the last 12 hours of an auction. If you bid more than once in the last 12 hours of the same auction, you can retract a bid within one hour of placing it. In this case, only that bid will be retracted; any other bid placed before the last 12 hours of the listing remains valid.
When you retract a bid and the listing has more than 12 hours to go, you wipe out any of your previous bids in the auction. To reinstate yourself as a bidder, you must bid again.
If you want to retract your bid within the last 12 hours of the auction and you placed the bid before the last 12 hours, you must send a message to the seller asking him or her to cancel your bid. It is up to the seller whether to cancel your bid. A bid retraction isn’t a guarantee that you will get out of purchasing the item. Sometimes sellers simply don’t have the opportunity or time to cancel a bid. That means you have to buy the item.
You’ll probably never need this link, but to retract your bid (or find more information), be sure you’re signed in and go to
Placing bids
eBay treats every bid — other than bids on some real estate sales or incorrectly placed bids — as binding. If you win an auction or buy an item and do not go through with your commitment by purchasing, the seller will file a case against you. If you establish a history as a nonpaying bidder with eBay (that is, you repeatedly back out of purchasing what you bid on), you have a strong chance of getting suspended from the community.
You don’t need to put in the dollar sign, but you do need to use a decimal point — unless you really want to pay $1,049.00 instead of $10.49. If you make a mistake with an incorrect decimal point, you can retract your bid (see “
Although sellers love sniping because it drives up prices and bidders love it because it’s fun, a sniper can ruin a week’s careful work on an auction strategy. The most skillful snipers sneak in a bid so close to the end of the auction that you have no chance to counter-bid. Losing too often, especially to the same sniper, can be a drag. See the section on BidRobot further on to solve this problem (it works for me).
