Myibay

Even if you're not so familiar with e-bay, you've probably heard of bid sniping. Sniping is when a bid is placed within the last few moments of an auction by an ebay user -- preferably within the last ten seconds.

Why is this method so popular?

Ebay calculates the victor of an auction through "incremental bidding". Participants place a "maximum bid" (the most someone is willing to spend) on a desired item. Ebay will then add the minimum required increment to the present bid in order to put someone as a top bidder, depending on their maximum bid. The auction may not even land close to someone's maximum bid at the end, which can allow people to save some cash or go all out if they need to.

With this in mind, using the sniping tactic can do a few things for you:

1) It prevents a "bid war" from occurring, where two or more people spar bidding on an item, inflating the price.

2) It prevents the auction from gaining attention, which will attract more bidders and more wealth.

3) It prevents other people from increasing their maximum bid toward the end.

There are ways to place a bid in the last few moments. You can either do it manually, which takes practice, or rely upon software or third party services. Considering the attention you have to pay when manually sniping, relying upon a third party application or service is much easier. Myibay.com is one such service.

Myibay.com is an easy to use free service and I've found it to be reliable. I've utilized it three times with successful snipe bids placed. The site allows you to monitor snipes and modify them accordingly. When the time to snipe comes, myibay's servers communicate with ebay to send your bid. It's automatic and doesn't require you to be logged in. You can also download a web plugin to allow you to place snipes while browsing ebay auctions.

There is a catch, though. The site requires that you utilize your ebay account name and password. Security is a primary goal, states myibay.com, but again you are trusting your account information into third party hands. According to them, they will not issue your account information to anyone and only utilize it for placing snipe bids. However, they do gather usage statistics.

According to the terms, your password is deleted from their system if you have no active snipes. So, that does add some comfort and security. But again, using them can be a risk. I feel comfortable using them, but some of you may not for this reason.

Myibay.com also offers a down loadable stand-alone program, which is an alternative to their web plug-in.

There are other sniping tools out there you can use. This is just one of many. It certainly caught my attention and I enjoy the service. While you're out exploring for that sniper utility, I would consider myibay.com as you weigh your options. Again, the service is free and based on donations.

(Note: If you would like to read more about scoping out auctions and bidding tips, please check out my review of ebay.com)