snipe time choices

[shelby62003]

today is the 1st time I have used Gixen. when I placed my bid, I was not given a choice of a snipe time.... is it an automatic/pre set time (I hope of 3 seconds) or where do I go to set the desired time?? Thanks for the help!

[Cupid]

Unless you have a Mirror subscription you get the default of a 6 second offset.

I don't recommend using offsets less than 6 seconds even when you have a Mirror subscription, I always user a value higher than 6. The major advantage of having such an account is the added reliability you get from having a second independent server working for you.

A Mirror subscription costs $6 per year.

With a Mirror subscription you can choose offsets between 1 and 15 seconds on both the Main and Mirror servers. You can choose different values for different servers and for different snipes if you like, I have a default set so that I don't have to select the offsets that I want every time I set up a snipe.
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Mark

[whburlingjr]

Hi,

Mark recommended an offset to be greater or equal to 6 seconds (even with the second server option).

Can you folks help me understand why it would not be more beneficial to select the smallest offset possible that is still within the worst ebay processing time constant or internet processing time constant (ie: a node oo path may delay transmission). In my imagination, I expected such time contstants to be less than one second (maybe I am naive)

bil

[Cupid]

It is because of what is known as the bid increment rule:

In cases where your bid is less than one bid increment more than the auction price Ebay does not allow the bid to be registered at all.

This is more likely to happen the later your bid is scheduled to be placed because auction prices can only rise as the result of more bids being placed.

Whereas you may have won with exactly the same snipe at an earlier time when it was still acceptable, because the auction price was lower.

So when there are other snipers involved in an auction I find it is more successful to use a larger offset.
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Mark

[Gixen]