Monday, November 17, 2008

The eSnipe 2008 Stimulus Package

ESnipe is a service which allows bidders to hold their bids until the last ten seconds of an auction. When a buyer creates an account with eSnipe, their eBay user ID and password are saved in the account. ESnipe has a handy tool called SnipeIt! which can be placed in the internet browser's toolbar. When an auction of interest is spotted, the buyer can use SnipeIt! to place a bid that eSnipe will execute on the buyer's behalf during the final ten seconds of the auction.

ESnipe usually offers a slight discount on its fees during the holiday season, but this year's discount is far better than usual. ESnipe is calling this year's special the "eSnipe 2008 Stimulus Package." ESnipe customers purchase BidPoints from eSnipe in order to pay for the service. Without getting into a detailed explanation of how it works, customers pay eSnipe 1% of the winning bid for each successfully won auction. If a customer uses eSnipe to win an auction at $100, then eSnipe charges $1.00. There is no charge when an auction is not won.

ESnipe's current BidPoints sale allows for customers to purchase $100 worth of BidPoints for just $78.00. This is a nice savings for people who use eSnipe a lot. $100 worth of BidPoints typically lasts me for nearly one year. This sale is good through December 1.

Since all user IDs are now hidden in auctions, it is not wise for buyers to bid early and risk having the seller bid against them. Waiting until the end of the auction eliminates the possibility of the seller using another ID to artificially raise the bidder's price. Additionally, waiting until the end of the auction to bid tends to keep the final price down, leaving the buyer more money to spend on other purchases.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jennifer, you have fine taste in sniping sites! (And literature too. I used to love the Stratemeyer Syndicate (which always sounds like a crime operation to me) books for boys, i.e. Tom Swift, Space Patrol, and a few others.)

Jennifer White said...

I always used to think of a syndicate mainly as a crime organization myself. In fact, from Answers.com, one of the definitions of syndicate is "a loose affiliation of gangsters in control of organized criminal activities."

What is really funny is that one of the Stratemeyer Syndicate books, the sixth Nancy Drew book, has a group of counterfeiters operating under the name the Hale Syndicate. It's no wonder that some people think of the Stratemeyer Syndicate in negative terms (I'm not one of those people). Picture the headline, "Edward Stratemeyer and His Rogue Writers Wreak Havoc in the Book Publishing World."

Thanks for all you do at eSnipe!