10001: Winning Ebay Auctions

This is a continuing series, based off of the book 10,0001 Ways to Live Large On a Small Budget. (This is not an affiliate link - I always tell you when I post those -just links to the book. I don't recommend buying it... check it out at your local library and save some money.)

Ebay Sniping

This is a referral link. To go there without me getting credit for it, visit bidnip.com. If they ask for an email address to the person who referred you, please use sadielankford@ymail.com -- I get 5 free snipes for every person who signs up. You can use your affiliate link and do the same.

Love ebay? Hate bidding wars? Me, too!! Sometimes I get into it, and end up spending too much! That's where sniping comes in.

I had never heard of sniping until I read this book. Basically, you can do this manually or you can do it through bidnip.com at less than 50 cents a pop (you only pay if you win). To snipe manually, first of all you DO NOT BID YET!! You scope out the item you want, and wait for the auction to get down to a minute or so left. Keep refreshing the page, to keep track of how many seconds is left on the auction. When it gets down to about 5 seconds (most places suggest 3, but you have to be FAST to wait that long - ebay has to confirm your bid), put in your max bid. Most of the time, the person who was bidding on it didn't expect this - didn't have a very high bid because there was no competition - and won't have time to re-bid.

The above option is great if you have the time, patience and skill for it. For everyone else, there is bidnip.com. You get 5 free credits just for signing up. You don't have to give them any credit card, paypal, or banking information - you just enter your email address and go from there. Like I said, you get 5 free credits just for signing up!!

There is a bar on the left hand side of the page at your sniping page. You just put the auction ID # in, and they will snipe it for you! You put your max bid, and they will watch the auction, wait until there are only 3 seconds left, and place the bid!

Most of the time, you will save 25-30% by using this method to buy on ebay.

Let me know how much you usually save sniping! Or, if you're new to it like I am, how much you saved because of bidnip (or doing it manually)!

ETA: I realize a lot of you already knew about sniping -- I knew about it but didn't know what it was called. And some of you may say, "Why pay someone to do this for me, when I can do it myself"... it's simple really. I don't have the time to be on ebay much. When I'm online, I'm also multitasking and taking care of the kiddos. Also, I work online. If I allow myself to get sucked into ebay, I won't ever get anything done. Plus, I haven't paid for my snipes -- I had free credits to start and have only used those. For example, the last auction I won was for a Cricut Cartridge. I used to bid up to $30 on them because they're $60 in stores. I bid up to $20 on the last one, and I got it for $18.50 plus free shipping. Even if I would've had to pay a quarter to save $12.00, I gladly would have. :)