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eBay Sniping and Sniper Services


Sniping is the act of outbidding another auction bidder at the last moment, so late in fact as to limit the bidder's ability to place a response bid. There are many products out that do this at varying costs with varying claims on operation. The question is what tasks must be done and how hard is it?

The Problem that Sniping Solves

Depending on who you talk to the issues range from odd closing times to keeping prices low, everyone agrees winning is the top issue. In looking at items for sale on eBay there are many examples of the winning bid being placed within the last 20 seconds of the auction, clearly the work of some robot. There is no time for humans to react to this and outbid, but a robot could outbid another robot, perhaps even until the last second of the auction. Basically, snipe to win.

How does it Work?

Presumably one would enter some parameters such as item, username, password and max bid value into some software and then walk away. Some currently available packages are web-server based (EzSniper) and others are stand-alone install (like Auction Sentry). This software robot should be intelligent enough to watch the items and then bid in the last few seconds according to the user's input. It shouldn't be that difficult: very few parameters and a very simple operation.

  1. Collect and store list of Items and Parameters
  2. Check each Item for current minimum bid and High Bidder to monitor status
  3. When time is right place a bid and validate results

Construction

Edoceo constructed an eBay sniping application to play with the ideas: how hard is it and does it work? Having worked on other web robots against TicketMaster, we anticipated it to be much easier; it was. Over two calendar days, maybe eight man hours, the 287-line snipe script was complete, minus bells and whistles. Two features are needed for commercial viability: a WebUI and Configuration Database. Those might take a day/five hours.

Does it Work?

Well, it places bids in just under two seconds, but has not won any yet (as of Sep 2005). Out bid, usually more than a few hours from the deadline, we're cheap. Perhaps if something catches our eye we'll give it a shot. Watch this page for updates.

Yes. Try the eBot Service

It does work (as of Jan 2006), when one bids high enough. The sniper script places bids in under two seconds. Now that this utility has passed fire testing Edoceo is opening the eBot eBay Sniper for beta testing. If you are interested in beta testing with us please use the contact page and let us know you want to use the sniper. We'll give you 10 free snipes during this beta test, one additional snipe for each bug found.

Commercial Products

Search on Google for 'eBay Sniping' for more information. None of these products are endorsed by Edoceo, Inc.

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