[juangrande]

@larrytown - Your response is also interesting. It indicates that using Gixen avoids the frustration you used to experience bidding directly on eBay.

I agree. That is a compelling reason to use Gixen!

[juangrande]

Wow, Mark. You got all the way to page 20? I let it go long before that.

:lol:

[Cupid]

If you buy globally, auctions do still very often end at 3 am, your time.

[larrytown]

that should have read "once owned" by steve..etc # 362065201830

[larrytown]

Your message: INTERESTING ARTICLE, but even if i could afford a motorcycle once ones by Steve McQueen, it would not destroy me if I lost that or any other auction. I have long since passed the stage of being emotionally destroyed when i lost something from ebay, usually because I didn't stay up till 2 in the morning when the auction ended or not being able to type fast enough as the page kept jumping up to a higher amount than i could keep up with(remember those days that folks )? By the time i could refresh the page the auction had ended. i buy low cost items so there was never any risk of loosing the rent money by increasing the last second bids to obtain my interest.besides i soon found out that there are hundreds of exactly the same item just around the next page, in fact at often much lower prices.i now check ebay right after i see something on Home shopping network, (I told you i buy cheap) and see the exact brand at half the price; often free shipping and no taxes. ). I use GIXEN for Kamikaze bids.. surprise attacks ..surprise wins.things on ebay auctions rarely end at three in the morning the way they used to.

[Cupid]

I managed to get to page 20 of the second one :shock: :lol: :roll:

[juangrande]

Yes, someone who doesn't understand how eBay works and bids the lowest possible amount would be blindsided by snipe bids they don't have time to react to. However, there are a great many auctions on eBay with a lot of buying interest and for which several (if not many) substantial bids arrive in the last few seconds of the auction. None of those bidders would be surprised by other snipes.

The real reason for sniping with a service like Gixen is that it allows one to bid just once without worrying that someone would be able to respond to their bid. That is, it makes the auction behave more like a Vickrey auction.

If you're interested, here are a couple of links about Vickrey auctions.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2013/09/09/vickrey_auction_what_is_it_and_why_does_the_winner_pay_the_second_highest.html

http://www-siepr.stanford.edu/Papers/pdf/03-36.pdf

Yes, I'm an academic. :wink:

[larrytown]

I agree with you, the whole point of using Gixen is to make surprise bids on auctions, protecting the likelihood that others will be unsuspecting that there is interest in an item thus allowing us to purchase at a cheaper price.i avoid even going back to the ebay page which might signal to others that there are potential buyers out there.

[Cupid]

If you do not wish to post item numbers on this forum before those auctions have ended, that is fine, please email using the support address given on the Contact tab above.

You register your Gixen id for sniping by first pushing the 'Sign Up' button on the Home page.

If you are asking how to register an id for this Community area, that is not open. Only Mario can set up posting ids like the one I am using. This is deliberate policy so that anyone can post here, whether or not they have ever used the service.

[allowingtoo]

:shock: Wait. You want me to provide the eBay item id number here in an OPEN FORUM that I want to secretly snipe a bid on?? :lol: Like that's going to happen.

Now I know why this desktop thingamig is throwing up all these script errors telling me that I need to Log In.

Where is the subscribe to this post? Did I miss that?