If you bid for a few things on eBay, the chances are that quicker or later youll finish up grasping your bid beaten at the very last second by a sniper. This might be a frustrating knowledge, and while in theory sniping is against the rules and you might report it to eBay, in practice they never do anything about it.

The bad news is that theres only one way to beat the sniper - and thats to become the sniper. The grand news, though, is that once you understand sniping you might utilize it to win auctions at a far lower price than you would otherwise.

Manual Sniping.

Manual sniping isnt that hard, if you have a lot of instant to spare and a reasonably fast Internet connection. Write down when each auction that are bidding on ends, and then generate sure that youre sitting there in front of the page for that vital last minute. You can then outbid the current winning bidder, or defend your own winning bid.

The only tip you really absolutely need to remember for manual sniping is to generate sure that you set your maximum bid quite high - otherwise you might be automatically outbid, and the auction will have ended before you may bid again.

Also, its not assessment of worth your instant to compete against someone who is using an automated sniping accomadation - if its any workable, then they will always manage to outbid you. In the sniping arms race, you positive need to find a sniper of your own.

Automatic Sniping.

If you type ebay sniping into your favourite search engine, youll come up with plenty of online services that will snipe on your behalf for a small fee. They usually let you have a costless trial, so give it a go.

If you dont want to pay each time for an online service, then you might be better off grasping a piece of software like iSnipeIt (http://www.isnipeit.com) or SnipeRight (http://www.sniperight.com). You might pay for these once and make use of them for as long as you want. Once youve installed the software on your computer, you tell it which auctions you want sniped and the maximum amount youre willing to pay. The software will then place the bid with only a few seconds left. The only disadvantage is that you absolutely need to be able to leave your computer on nearly all the time, or you might miss the end of some auctions.

A Sniping Alternative.

If this all sounds a bit too much like playing dirty for you, then is another, more low-technology way to get around sniping. You might just e-mail the seller and say that you were sniped at the last minute but would really like the item. If they have another to sell, the chances are theyll agree to sell it to you for the price the auction closed at.

Of course, theres more to eBay than just bidding - the site offers a whole set of tools to help you manage your auctions. In the next electronic mail , well take a look at these tools.