quote:Who says a manual bid/snipe will be successful. There’s any number of things between you and ebay that can go wrong that will prevent you from bidding.
Originally posted by Peterborough:
If this item goes cheaply and my snipe doesn't go in I will be beside myself!!
Do I stay up late and make a manual bid or is there any sign that things will be getting back to normal?
The last I heard, AS’ failure rate was 1 out of 1,000 (let’s be liberal, and say it’s 10,000). All well and good unless you happen to be that "1". On “must have” items, aka “I will be beside myself”, you might want a backup. Go ahead and have AS place a snipe. As a backup, stay up late and place a manual snipe, or use an alternative sniping service. I’d opt for staying up late, because I probably couldn’t sleep, and I’m proactive. If neither AS nor your backup work, then someone/something in the universe doesn’t want you to have it. I probably would have my backup leave a bid that was at least an increment different to insure that AS, or manual, or alternative service worked (AS and alternative will still bill you, regardless). Remember, your higher snipe would have to be after your lower snipe to be recorded by ebay.
I’d avoid a proxy bid because someone has already placed a bid, and like you, probably realizes its value, which means it could easily turn into a bidding war, even if it’s late at night.
If there was something I really wanted, and if *I* didn’t do everything I could to get it, then I would be mad at myself. You could even have multiple backup plans. It’s all a personal choice.
Of course, there’s the possibility the item won’t go cheaply. There’s the possibility there will be a flurry of snipes. There’s the possibility that the current proxy bid is very large.