I would say that Auction Hunter gets the nod for ease of use, mostly because JBidwatcher, upon first launching, prompts the user with a large amount of settings (the majority of which I ignored, with no problems). Both allow you to track auctions, although Auction Hunter offers a few more bells and whistles to potentially better organize them. I was personally just looking for a sniping program, and both can do that fine. These two eBay auction helper programs offer very similar functionality. The software carries a price tag of $29.95, but it is shareware, so I actually still have not paid for the software, and am in the middle of the 30 day free trial. I downloaded it because it has a built-in snipe feature. It's obviously an app for buyers, and it allows you to monitor auctions you're interested in for bidding purposes, or you can use it to just observe and store data for future reference. The other solution I tried out is called Auction Hunter. It is still in active development but the most up-to-date release was stable for me. First, the free solution, is called JBidwatcher. I found a couple options for eBay sniping for Mac users. So, that was the first thing on my agenda. I am a Mac user, so the way I started out was searching Google for, "eBay tools Mac." I know based on conversations with my dad, that serious eBay collectors use programs to enter a bid automatically, and at the very last possible second of the auction (called sniping). In the meantime, I've been downloading and trying out various eBay tools to see what I like, what I find useful, what works, what doesn't. I noted the auction end date of the 23rd and planned to return then to bid. It had a starting price of $29.95, and when I found it, it'd been bid on once up to $30. MatchMaker found me an English/Dakota Indian Dictionary from 1917, and that was my first bid. So, I thought I'd try bidding on eBay this month rather than using Abe, or "Buy It Now" off eBay where available. I've been checking my MatchMaker results on a daily basis, and keeping notes of what I'm interested in, but I've been busy! I did attempt bidding on eBay twice, but have failed to win a lot yet. The smart and knowledgeable sellers use 'Buy it now or make me an offer' format, which works well as it only needs one person to really want the item in order to achieve a good price, whereas an auction needs at least two.This month in Young Blood, I actually did not make any purchases. However most of the things I buy are one-off's, requiring restoration, most of which are in the auction format. I always check amazon for out of print books before bidding in an ebay auction. I've glad they've explained it as I feared I may have I agree for many items. The FAQs for Andy's link does explain very well why sniping is the most cost effective method of bidding (see FAQ no 5). I can 'set and forget' and just get an email to say if I've won or not.so it works when I'm half way up a mountain. I generally use their 3 second option, which if you investigate later, seems to place at 4 or 5 seconds to the end, which is fine. They offer free bids, but charge for the later (closer to the wire) bids. I use .uk which I can manage from my smartphone. I notice is does recommend a bid at 7-10 seconds for a 'fast connection', otherwise 20-30 seconds.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |