The Difference Between Sniping

and Automatic Bidding

Sniperware is software that you can use either from the Internet or download onto your computer to help you bid on items when you are away. It will take the stress of bidding away, allowing you to bid on and win items with ease. Sniperware is useful, but sniping is not allowed at eBay.

There is a difference between sniping and automatic bidding. Automatic bidding is the use of software that you set up for the items you are bidding on. You simply tell the software, or the service how much you are willing to pay for an item, and how much to raise the bid when someone bids higher than you.

Sniping, on the other hand, is setting the automatic bidding software to go in at the last possible second of the auction and bidding only slightly higher than the highest bid. When this is done automatically, there is no way that your bid can be topped manually before the bid ends. That is sniping, and it is against eBay's rules.

Again, sniping software has it's uses. It will alert you when your bid has been topped, and it can be set up to automatically raise the bid by a certain amount at that time. You set you top price – the highest price you are willing to bid on the item – and the software will work its way up to that price as other people outbid you. Once it reaches that cap, it will automatically cease bidding on the item.

Sniping software can monitor more than one auction at any given time. This is important if you bid on a lot of items at once. You can also set the software up to bid on different auctions for the same type of product. When you win one of those bids, the other bids on the other auctions for the similar item will be automatically cancelled.

Again, Sniperware can be purchased and downloaded to your computer. Depending on how often you will use it; this may be the better choice. The other choice is to use a web based service, where you will be required to pay for the services for each auction. Some services charge flat monthly fees. If you use the Sniperware from your computer, your computer must be on and have a live connection, or the software will not be able to function properly.

There are a many different sniper programs and each one offers something different.  They all will manage your bids, place your bids at the last minute, and they will all alert you when you have been over bid.  They can be set to bid at the last minute as well.  

As a customer you can choose which method is best for you.  Most customers choose to go with Sniping instead of manually bidding or automatically bidding in a fair way, just because they don't have to deal with bidding wars.  Sniping is more convenient for you to just sit back and watch, knowing that you are going to win the item. But remember, it is against the rules, and it can get you banned from eBay.

There is a dramatic difference between bidding automatically and sniping.

By bidding automatically you don't have the guarantee of winning because other bidders will know you are bidding, and they will do all they can to over bid you. When you are over bid you have to go in and change your amount and hope you have time to still bid if you are bidding manually. With sniping software, however, you can bid automatically, simply because your bid was topped, without worrying about breaking the sniping rule.