[Guest]

OK...I get it now. Thanks Ramona and Cupid for your explanations. I do bid uneven amounts, but instead of 100.01 darseks (which is kind of obvious) I'll bid something like 100.29 darseks, depending on the bid increment.

maj ram

[Cupid]

There is also the bid increment rule to consider... so if I bid 100.01 darsek 10 seconds before the end and the result is that the auction price rises to 100 darsek, then a bid of 100.20 would be rejected by Ebay, if it were scheduled for 6 seconds before the auction end...

So, by scheduling later snipes you can loose to earlier, lower bids.. conversely by scheduling earlier snipes you can sometimes win at slightly lower prices.

[Ramona]

No, that's not how Gixen works. What it does is place your bid at the time before the auction end that you choose - it's no different to you sitting at your computer and placing your bid manually in the final seconds of the auction. eBay looks after the proxy bids in both cases.

What is being talked about here is when equal high bids are placed on an item, the one that was placed first wins the auction. So if we are both bidding 100 darsek on an auction, and you snipe 10 seconds before the end of the auction, whereas I place my bid 6 seconds before the end of the auction, you will be the winner (because you bid first).

Of course, if you bid too early, then I might have time to react to your bid - which is why you snipe late. And if I bid 100.01 darsak, then I'll win, which is why it normally makes sense to bid odd amounts.

[mape123]

Sorry to reply to an old post, but I wanted to know if I understand this correctly. Let's say another sniper and I are bidding on the same item, and our bids are well above the current bid. If I set Gixen to place a bid at 15 seconds, it will bid at the next increment. The opposing sniper sees this and bids another interval at, say, 10 seconds. When Gixen sees this, it bids another interval for me at around 6 seconds. By this time, the opposing sniper doesn't have time to place another bid, and thus I win. (I could set my first bid at 10 seconds to insure this happens.)

If this is true, and it's the way Gixen works, then this is a brilliant strategy and I'll start using it immediately!

Please tell me if I'm right.

If not, I'm still so grateful to you, Mario and Cupid, for creating such an awesome program and allowing me to win so many auctions!

Thanks - Ric

[Cupid]

One of the added features you get with a Mirror subscription is the ability to increase the snipe offset time, up to 15 seconds (in one second steps) before the auction closes, on an auction by auction basis...

For exactly the reasons you state,for me, this is one of the most valuable features available with the Mirror upgrade, and I use it to increase the time before the auction end that my bid is placed by Gixen on every auction that I snipe... So, I have even set my default offset to be more than the default 6 seconds, just so that I don't have to remember to select this feature every time I add a snipe.

[tribromobenzene]

I used to have heartrenchingly annoying moments when I would forget to bid on something, some still annoying me years later. Never again! Now when I see it, I can just set my gixen bid, and it's done! No more waking up at 3 am for that rare find. No more stress either. Just win or be outbid if it goes more than I would pay anyway. The only thing I would change is make it snipe just a little earlier, so that anyone else sniping too would be after me, so that I would win on the rare occasion of bidding the same amount (or within the bid increment). But this hasn't bothered me yet.
I might buy a gixen account thingy in the future, just because it has been so awesome for me.