suggestions for lead time

My personal choice is to use 8 seconds during normal times! On Sunday, during primetime, PST, PM between 5 and 8:30, I add 15 seconds. On the hour, half, and quarter hour, I add 10 seconds. These are very busy traffic times for Ebay. It works for me! Remember to bid your max as the highest bid wins! Happy Sniping!!

After losing many, many auctions due to Auction Sniper failing to place the bids in time... I use 30 seconds REGARDLESS of what time of the day or night it ends. This was the general concensious I gathered when I went into the support section complaining about it. And (knock on wood) since I have done this, it hasnt failed me yet!!

You get a free snipe credit or two when the snipe fails, but it isnt any consolation when you would have much rather had the item!!

quote:

---

After losing many, many auctions due to Auction Sniper failing to place the bids in time...

---

After posting many many times hoping users would get a clue they still havent.

Click the words "Not in time" next to your losing auction. They aren't caused by us! We always bid on time. Always, always, always, always. Want to be perfectly clear I do mean always. Yes, I am sure. Always. If we dont then we'll post in our announcement board. But as you can see, that's been only a few times in almost 3 years. So I'll go ahead and stick with always. We either bid, or dont bid. We pretty much dont bid late. So again I'll say we always bid on time.

Perhaps we should change our "Not in time" message to "eBay Error" or more simply "eBay Sucks, blame them."

There isnt a need for 30 second lead times. We already adjust peak period lead times for you. Although if you'd like to feel safe go ahead and use 30 second lead times on any snipe that ends within 10 seconds of any quarter hour. Other than that they arent needed.

I am glad 30 seconds is working for you. But I'm pretty sure that 5 seconds would work equally well. eBay was rolling out new servers and code several weeks back. For about a 6-8 week time frame they had many more of those errors than normal. We haven't changed a thing, and those errors have dropped by 2-3x. Again showing, it's a problem on their end, not ours.

In the past week only about 1 in 4000 bids is "Not in time." And I'd be willing to bet they are probably bids at one of those freaky peak times I mentioned and we already adjust them. Sometime eBay just eats it. 1 in 4000 is pretty darn good though. Better than manual snipers could do by probably 100x-250x.

As far as I am concerned... when the snipe dosent get placed and I lose as a result, both AS and eBay are to blame. Who happens to be at fault in any given circumstance (and when one considers that "fault" is only a matter of opinion) means little to me.

I dont care whose fault it is. Its about winning the auction. As long as I win (or lose because the item went higher than what I wanted to pay) I am just peachy.

I would never, during normal time, set a snipe at 30 seconds. Plenty of people are capable of sniping by hand in the last 30 seconds. Like Sara said, A S adjusts the time if it is necessary. Eight seconds has never let me down during these times. I only add seconds during known busy traffic times and even then not near 30 seconds, but add 10 to 15 seconds.

I'd like to support the idea I've seen posted before....AS to program an option to allow AS to fire our snipes when AS determines is the last "second" it can be effectively be placed, based on Ebay lag time. Thus, if this option is choosen, no snipe time would be required by the user and you get what you get, whether 1 sec or 20 before auction close. Ideally, all snipes would then be placed 1 sec before close all the time if you choose this option. What do you think?

I think the folks who whine now when their bid does not make it in time would whine even louder and have more of a reason to blame AS when the bid does not go through. Typical thread titles would be:

"AS can't deliver in time!"
"False Promises by Auction Sniper!"
"Bid not in time? This really sucks!"

Catch 22, this subject always seems to be.

There are people that won't be happy no matter what A S does or Ebay. They thrive on bitching!

I like the idea of ASA determining the last possible second. But I would add it as an option for the "bitchers". I.e. you could define a numerical lead time or check "auto" and let AS determine what is the appropriate leadtime.

Seems like a nice compromise. Everyone could have thier cake and eat it too.

Yes, well, if everyone would leave it at that, but experience tells me that a person would accept the set time and then if they lost or did'nt get it in, they would be here complaining.

But they come in complaining when they lose anyway, don't they? (Yes, self included).

Case in point!