Sniping Tactics

HawkEye, you wrote: "Set AS to snipe the max you'd be willing to pay. Set it with a tight lead time."

I agree with the first sentence but disagree with the second one. It is not necessary to place the last bid, only the winning one. In my experience (and I've been around eBay as long as you have) the only bids which are placed inside of 8 seconds are planned bids, not counter-bids. In other words, if you enter a snipe with 8 seconds left nobody has time to react to it, even with two windows open and monitoring the bids as they come in. By the time they hit "Refresh", see your bid, type in a counter-bid, and click on "Bid" and then on "Confirm" it's too late. So, the important thing is the first of the two sentences quoted above: bid your max, first time, every time. The two main purposes of sniping are stealth ("don't tip your hand") and avoiding bidding wars. Getting the last bid in is an ego trip, nothing more.

You misunderstood my comment... or misread it. Like I said it's a tip for those who feel they have to have a back up for AS in case AS doesn't snipe. I was suggesting that they do it manually as opposed to setting two 'auto snipers'. I only ever snipe ONCE, seconds before auction end. Let the the highest bid win. But there are so many negative comments here about AS not working properly my point was simply this... if you don't trust it, then don't trust it... and learn to snipe yourself.

If you you've been around as long as me then you know that no real sniper takes any more than one well planned shot.