I have Jbidder programed to bid at 1 sec.
This happened:

Tue Oct 09 15:18:56 EDT 2007: Preparing snipe. (1)
Tue Oct 09 15:18:57 EDT 2007: Loading bid request… (1)
Tue Oct 09 15:18:58 EDT 2007: Snipe was too low, and was not accepted. (1)
Tue Oct 09 15:20:59 EDT 2007: Cancelling snipe, auction is reported as ended. (1)
Tue Oct 09 15:20:59 EDT 2007: Cancelling snipe. (1)

Greetings,

No, it reads ‘too low’. The amount being bid was too low to be accepted by eBay’s servers.

— Morgan Schweers, Cyber*FOX*!

Greetings,

That said, I very strongly discourage 1 second snipes unless you’re comfortable with the possibility of losing the auction due to network traffic fluctuations, which are out of JBidwatcher’s control.

JBidwatcher will do its best, but the network (yours, your ISPs, eBays, and anybody in between) is not always responsive enough.

— Morgan Schweers, Cyber*FOX*!

How low do you think i should set the snipe time to?

Hi, The way I work it out is to open an eBay auction page (an auction that’s near it’s end) and note the time to the end of the auction in minutes and seconds (point A) click refresh and note the time again (point B) and then immediately click refresh again and note the time again (point C) – the difference in time should be seconds. Simply take the difference in time between point B and C (seconds) and add 2 seconds for traffic. ie On my PC the difference in time is 4 seconds and so I set my interval 6 secs.

Hoddy

Hoddy,

I don’t really understand the logic of what you are trying to do.
All you are measuring is the time for your browser to render the page plus your own delay time to hit the refresh button again. I get two seconds when I try that.
But that time has nothing to do with sniping; if the ebay time relative to your computer time is off by ten seconds, you would never notice that with your test.

I just set my snipe time at 8 seconds. That allows enough tolerance to account for network delays, I have never missed a snipe because of the time. And it’s highly unlikely another bidder will have time to react to your “snipe” bid.
That’s all you need to worry about – how long would it take another bidder to react to your bid and place a bid higher than yours. Even if the other bidder has multiple windows open it’s going to be hard.
The other bidder would have to refresh at exactly the right time, ie just after your snipe bid went in, then wait for the browser to render the new page so that he sees the “outbid message”, that in your case seems to take 4 seconds and then the other bidder would basically have the new bid amount already typed in so that all he has to do is the bid button.

Setting the snipe time anywhere near 1 or 2 seconds will just increase your chances of missing a snipe completely.

I think the misconception is that you need to have a shorter snipe time than another sniper.
Not true.
Let’s say you snipe a 8 seconds for $100 – if the other sniper sets his snipe time at 4 seconds and if his amount is set at $90, he loses and you win. If his snipe amount is set at $101, you lose.

Now, take exactly the same scenario but with your snipe time at 2 seconds
If the other bidder snipes at 4 seconds with $90 he still loses and if his amount is $101 he still wins.
Same end result.

I’m sorry, I can’t help myself: the opposite of “wins” is “loses.” “Looses” is the opposite of “ties together.”

Greetings,

Heh; it is a surprisingly common mistyping. That noted though, lots of JBidwatcher users didn’t start with English. (It’s surprisingly popular outside the US, despite my sad lack of localization so far.) I generally give a lot of slack to everybody, because of this.

The meat of what he’s saying, though, is exactly right.

Trying to get a 1 second snipe is generally only for bragging purposes, not for day-to-day sniping. I’ve done it, but I only tried from a very fast corporate network, in the middle of the night. :) Home internet access has too much variability to be confident that it’ll all go off perfectly. Giving yourself a little buffer is always good.

That wasn’t the case in this case, however. It set up the snipe at 2 minutes before the end, and at that point it was already too low a snipe amount versus the current price.

I address the snipe timing issue somewhat here:
http://www.jbidwatcher.com/help/faq.shtml#ans40

Good luck with your auctions!

— Morgan Schweers, Cyber*FOX*!

apikoros – I actually had to look up Webster’s because “lose” with one “o” just doesn’t look right.
And the pronunciation doesn’t match either……goose is spelled with two “oo” s, why not “lose” as in “not win”?

But of course you’re right, so I changed my post, even though “lose” now doesn’t look right to me….but it is right according to Webster’s .