Zubal: “If I bid, I bid right up front. No electronics.”

Barlow: “I do use bid sniping technology. The main reason for using sniping technology is that it assures that if you see something and either track it or put in an initial minimum bid, at the last minute or second it will put your bids in even if you manually forget to do so. You just program it. Another advantage to using it is that it doesn’t allow you to be deterred by the crazy hours of some auctions: you don’t have to be up and at your computer. It also protects you from what I call vindictive bidders whose sole purpose is to drive the price of a bid up to its maximum without actually acquiring the item: with sniping bids you are protected from being run up. Plus, importantly for me, it gives you anonymity in a sale until the very end.”

Dealer Y: “No. What is bid sniping software or technology?” [Editor’s note: I tell him what I’ve learned about bid sniping software/technology as part of my research for this article, and I can practically see his eyes widening even though we’re talking over the phone. He asks me lots of questions about what it does and how to find it, and ends this part of our conversation with a: “Wow. That sounds incredible. I’ve really got to get on that. Thanks.” I am absolutely certain that by this time tomorrow (we’re talking on a Sunday), he’ll have added a new weapon to his eBay arsenal in the form of bid sniping software/technology.]

MORE ON BID SNIPING TECHNOLOGY: HOW ONE SNIPING PROGRAM WORKS

Barlow: “Here’s how Easy Snipe works: you can go right on to eBay, select an item you’d like to bid on, access Easy Snipe, and a window comes up with the item number and related information. Then you just add your maximum bid and the number of seconds before the close of the sale that you’d like to bid to be submitted. The standard number is 15 seconds but you can change this to 10 or even 3.”

CAN SNIPING PROGRAMS BE OUTBID?

Barlow: “Yes, definitely. A manual bid can outpace a sniped bid. It all depends on incremental seconds of timing. Also sniping programs can sometimes fail if eBay does an upgrade of its program, as they sometimes do, and the bidding software consequently needs to be revised. But you have a much better chance with a sniped bid.”

WHERE DOES ONE ACQUIRE SNIPING SOFTWARE, AND HOW EXPENSIVE IS IT?

Barlow: “It’s sold right on eBay, just type in “snipe” and lots will come up. Of course there are competing programs and technologies. I used to have a sniping software program installed on my computer, but I found that problematic if my dial up connection or DSL went down plus it meant that I was forced to leave my computer on if I went away for 3 or 4 days but there was an auction coming up during that time. Currently, I subscribe to a sniping service that uses its own server to do its work.”

Barlow: “It’s not very expensive at all. The sniping software I had installed on my computer ran somewhere between 30 and 40 dollars. The sniping server I subscribe to now runs about 40 to 50 dollars. Whether sniping saves you money is another question, but it does help you to acquire items up for auction.”