Is 6 seconds too long?

Sure, you can try to get closer but every second under five risks eBay not registering your bid in time. But think about it: supposing you had successfully entered your snipe with only *one* second left? What difference would it have made in the outcome of the auction? You still would've won, right? All of which supports what I've been saying all along -- bidding your maximum amount the first time, every time will win more snipes than cutting your bid closer to auction end than the other guy.

It musta been another sniper and I dont think making it closer to the end of auction would help then since they were probably using something like AuctionSniper themselves.

Sounds like they did just like you, entered their max and put it in at the last second and hoped for the best. It's bound to happen sometime, but I think overall you'll win more auctions for less than your max most of the time.

You can probably safely lower your snipe time to 3-4 seconds without much problem. We place nearly every snipe on time even the 1 second snipes. But as Steve mentioned the deciding factor really is your max bid, not the timing of it in the last few seconds.

I'm certain you'll start winning more with out hitting your max.

Thank you

It's possible the other bidder was a sniper. If so, it's to your advantage to bid earlier (since they have no clue as to your bid either). The thing you are trying to forstall by sniping is others seeing your bid before they place there's. 5 seconds seems pretty short to refresh and notice your bid and make a guess as to what your maximum might be.

It doesn't really matter whether the other person was a sniper or not. Bottom line: high bid wins. Always put your maximum bid in on a snipe; if you win the item for less you got a bargain; if you were pushed to your max to get it, you still got it; and if someone else outbid you then he or she was willing to pay more for it than you were.

Happy sniping with the best darn sniping program on the Internet!

I agree with the above posts that the real issue is how much your are willing to unload from your bank account to purchase the item.

I tell my friends that it's not how much you are willing to spend, but how much you will not spend for the item....then back off a few bucks.

That's an excellent rule of thumb, Ron!

In this particular case if you had set a smaller lead time then you would have lost the item. Sounds like you both set the same max bid but you won because you bid first.

Normally though... if someone is willing to pay more than you then you will lose... regardless of when you bid. I don't think it's right to set a max bid then get pissed at someone else because they set the same max bid... after all they just did what you did.

By the way... a bit of trivia... Can you tell me what 'Yahoo' (the website) stands for?

just guessing

German DJ

Rather worse than "knucklehead." The term first arose in Jonathan Swift's political satire, "Gulliver's Travels." The Yahoos were brutish, ape-like beasts with a fondness for soiling or destroying everything they came into contact with and for outrageously bad manners and behavior. Swift intended for Yahoos to represent the common man, for whom he had a great contempt.

Wonder if the ISP folks looked up the history of the word before they adopted the name?

Well... you're right about the English language orgin of the word 'Yahoo'.

The website 'Yahoo' however is actually an acronym Y.A.H.O.O. which stands for "Yet Another Hierarchally Organized Oracle". This is because 'Yahoo' was one of the first internet web directories available to early internet users. You could go there and reference a complete list of ALL internet webpages. There are of course far too many to reference so easily today.

Another piece of trivia related to IT and 'Gullivers Travels'....

An issue many network people would be familiar with is refered to as "Big Endian - Little Endian". It involves debate over which way bits in a data stream should be sent. They can be sent with the most significant bit first ("Big Endian") or the least significant bit first ("Little Endian"). These expressions had their origins in Gullivers Travels. Apparently in Gullivers Travels two nation go to war over the issue of which end of a boiled egg should be pointing up when eaten for breakfast (or something to that effect).


0110 0111 (most significant bit is leading bit which has a "value" of 128 out of a total 256 (starts at zero, 0 - 255)). Least significant bit is last bit which is worth 1 out of 256.

Wasn't it "Big Enders" and "Little Enders"?

Nope. I'm wrong. You're right.

You're also right about the war that was started over which end of a soft-boiled egg to open -- the wide end or the pointy end. My favorite passage is where Gulliver puts out the fire in the King's palace.