After 5 years… A new look for eSnipe! If you want to see what your eSnipe experience will be in the next couple of months, here’s a taste:
This is a precursor of more activity on the eSnipe site. A lot more is coming, and some of what’s coming will surprise you. We will be discussing
- Videos on how to use eSnipe
- The new version of SnipeIt
- A fascinating new way to track your auction status that no competing site has even begun to consider (patent pending, thank you very much)
- What guest writers from the eBay world have to say. Big guest writers!
- Tips on getting good deals on eBay
- How to start your own business, on the web or not (one of my favorite subjects, and I’m thrilled to help with if you leave a comment)
- A new product that shows you how to get on the web in an hour-and how to make a site you can update anytime
- How to get ahead in life without a college degree
- In general, how to build a better life. Sounds weak, but I think this blog will deliver.
For now, though, be sure to leave comments if you want any input regarding the new site design. I’m excited about it but I know it’s a big change for those of you who have stuck with us over the years.
As a “charter member” of eSnipe, as long as I still get my free snipes for items under $25 with eSnipe 4.0, you can change the UI to be in Braille.
Seriously though, eSnipe is a fantastic tool that I’ve been using for years and I’ve been extremely pleased with its performance. Sniping is definitely the key to maximizing winning those “gotta have it” auctions on eBay, and eSnipe is the best way to do that. Needless to say, I also get a kick out of being the winning bidder in the last few seconds on an auction, and I know the person eSnipe outbid for me must be ticked-off. Oh well…
Hi, as long as you’re changing things, on the snipes list page (view 3 above), you have an edit link, but 100% of the time i’m only changing the max price to bid. You can leave the edit link, but how about adding a link on the price field that would allow a simple or quick change of the price?
Dr. Dan, thanks tons for staying with us. Imagine: it’s been 10 years! We’re very fortunate to have you.
Cheers,
Tom Campbell
BLP, that’s a fantastic idea. I’ll submit it to the artist. Thanks for the input.
Cheers,
Tom Campbell
Another pleased ‘charter member’. Many buyers are interested in the price realised by items that they bid on but didn’t win. Wouldn’t it be possible to display the selling price of items which weren’t won, instead of just “bid too low”?
tupennyblue, thanks so much for hanging in there so long! It would be most cool to display the selling price of items bid on but not won. If I’m not mistaken we cannot get access to that information without additional hits to eBay’s servers. I will double check with development on that, just in case I’m wrong.
Tom,
I am also a charter member.
Updates are always nice, but please don’t make things harder to use like eBay always seems to do.
Esnipe has always been a wonderful tool in my bidding. I very seldom bid without using it.
@tupennyblue: I have confirmed that replacing “Bid too low” with a price would result in extra hits to eBay’s servers. Because so many thousands of people use eSnipe every day, the extra activity would no doubt displease eBay, which is not something we wish to do. It has always been part of eSnipe’s charter to keep the load on eBay’s servers as light as we can.
@Oklacarcollector: Your point is a strong one. I have wrestled with this very problem over the years. A service like eSnipe should stay the heck out of your way, and not make life any harder for you. I think you will be pleased with our new technology. Whereas the changes we announced in the Esnipe’s New Look post are mostly cosmetic, the unannounced product we are completing now and the updated SnipeIt both satisfy your requirements. I think.
Cheers,
Tom Campbell
Thanks Tom, I can understand the reason now which makes it much easier to live with!
One more thing… my grandfathered account still charges me bidpoints on even the least expensive items when they are priced in my own currency! Is there any way you can let me bid on low value GPB items without incurring a charge? I feel discriminated against because I am not in the US.
Will you be able to delete or rename bid folders in the new upcoming version?
Also, on the “bids too low” question, can the selling price not be captured and saved in the esnipe database when esnipe determines that the bid was too low at the end of the auction? If so, the e-snipe database would be slightly higher but there would not be any extra hits to eBay’s servers.
You’ve done GREAT with e-snipe and it is simple to use. Using it has simplified my life and kept me out of the crazy bidding wars I see too often of e-bay.
MAKE IT a great day,
Lance
Hello
Thank for the great service. I got tired of getting out-bid by a dollar and would have given up on eBay if not for your service. Again I have been a member for may years and qualify for charter status. Don’t change your no advertisement policy. As I get undulated by adds everywhere When I log on to your site does what is does pure and simple. Franky I am very tired of the hard sell on the internet and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate not having to put up with them on your site. Like a breath of fresh air in the middle of a toxic waist landfill. Thanks guys.
@Accelo, thank you for the kind mention. You will see more advertisements for my other properties. These are businesses I started (like EasyOnMe). I will do my best to keep them unobtrusive, but hard times have hit eSnipe like anyone else.
@Lance, we are overdue in being able to change folder names. I will look into it. Capturing selling price: won’t happen, and I’m bummed too. The reason is that sniping sites are not allowed to use eBay’s API. Using anything but the API would pose a heavy burden on eBay’s servers, and they don’t like that at all (understandably).
Cheers,
Tom Campbell
Hello Tom: I’m a charter member also, and I think that eSnipe is fabulous just as it is. eBay’s system was much better before they started *improving* it. I realize that they had to modify it to allow for the back-breaking volume, but they keep fixing things that are not broken, placing undue hardship upon the users who are not professional geeks. Meantime, all the extremes they have gone to with coding the buyers are ridiculous. Any child could figure out who the buyers are. Please don’t “fix” eSnipe. It’s not broken!!!!
Thank you for all these years (who knows how many?) of great service, and all the money I saved in the early years!
Hello and thanks for answering questions.
Nice to be able to speak to management directly.
Cross promotion does not bother me. It is the spiders going up and down the side of the screen and the Vigra commercials that get old real fast.
Take care.
Rick
@Nancye: Thanks for the honest feedback. I’m still surprised at how much sentiment there is to leave eSnipe the same. Wow!
One more thing… my grandfathered account still charges me bidpoints on even the least expensive items when they are priced in my own currency! Is there any way you can let me bid on low value GPB items without incurring a charge? I feel discriminated against because I am not in the US.
Tim
I agree with others. I can’t remember how many years I’ve been using eSnipe, but it’s forever. I’m also a user experience expert. I can’t remember ever thinking “this site doesn’t need fixing” before, but I think that about eSnipe. Sure, it’s a bit rough looking, but everything just works.
The only non-cosmetic change I can think to make is to have the “Edit” link pop-up using a modal “ajax” window, instead of having it on a separate screen. As with the other commenter – I often find myself in this screen just to alter the bid price.
Also, I think you are missing an option to remove an eBay account from eSnipe. I remember never being able to find that option.
Oh, and I know the rows are fairly tight already – I see you’ve removed “Buffer” which is great, but could you fit the Seller ID on there too? It’s great to see how many more items I have lined up from one seller, so I know whether or not to go ahead and get an invoice/pay the seller, or whether I need to wait it out a bit more.
Right now I can’t do that without clicking through on every item.
My eSnipe wish list:
(1) Include seller’s name; ideally permit sort on this & other fields for a given date range. If I have open bids with a given seller I may communicate to the seller that I am still bidding rather than pay the first invoice. Currently I have to see who I owe in eBay then look at the seller’s open items to see if any I’m interested in, some of which I may alreadt have eSnipes on.
(2) The option of bunping my bid one increment over my bid. Occasionally my bid is higher than the winning bid but not high enough for a full increment. This might require two last minute bids, one to test the water (i.e. Bid too low?), followed by a bid acceptable to eBay.
(3) An actionable warning that another eSnipe bid outbids me, sort of an eBay within eSnipe. To be fair both bidders would have to be informed in a timely and actionable way.
@Charles: This should be interesting. Most changes will be cosmetic, and the Ajax edit link is already spec’d. Removing an eBay account: We do it manually for various policy reasons, chief among them the fact that eBay users tend to be less technically savvy than others. We are afraid we’d have too many users deleting accounts by accident then demanding they be restored. Similar things have happened with other features in the past. Your thoughts?
@Charles: I like the seller ID thing. Adding it to our todo list. Not sure it gets in this time, but I think it can. I’ve dropped a line to the design & development leads.
@rr_junk: I think I remember you from way back, no? Anyway: 1) See below comment to Charles. I like having the seller ID as a sortable column. 2) Bumping your bid on increment over: Unfortunately we rely on eBay’s proxy bidding system, and as you might imagine many buyers would be extremely upset if we bumped a bid $10 (as would happen at the $1,000 level) without being asked. 3) The idea of being warned that another eSniper outbid you is interesting. Obviously our privacy policy forbids letting you know who, you’re just saying that you want to know that some anonymous eSniper outbid you? I’m going to blog about that notion. It’s complex. Plus it doesn’t account for the vast majority of eBay users who do not use eSnipe. I’d like to hear more from you about this idea.
Tom,
I’m happy with you removing accounts manually. All I ask then is that you add some text on the “AuctionAccounts” page that tells the user that – perhaps with a link to contact you. Otherwise there is no information on there at all about how to remove an account.
Occasionally I get asked to snipe things for my friends and I have to add their accounts, or bid through my own account. If I add theirs, then they are stuck there for ages
Hello – at the moment it takes two clicks to reach the page for updating a snipe amount: “info” then “edit bid” – could we have this function more accessible so it can be accessed directly from the My Aucions page?
I am concerned that the “New and Improved” Esnipe will not work where I am. I usually access the site from behind a secure firewall at work that does not allow flash verification, certain javascript functions and streaming content. The current interface works fine. Will there be an “opt out” setting?
Thanks
@PeteP: The new version will work just as well as the old one. If I’m wrong, I promise we’ll make it work, and fast.
My number one complaint with esnipe has nothing to do with the website; it’s your email notifications.
When you tell me I won, *you don’t tell me how much I paid*. You tell me the selling price, IIRC, when I *don’t* win, but not if I do.
That’s always struck me as sort of odd.
But, really: redesign the emails you send, and remember they’re generally going to cell phones, with (even on my Blackberry) fairly small screens. So: inverted pyramid; terse copy.
@Baylink: That’s a mother lode of suggestions. I love them all! Bad news: we cannot determine the price reliably due to a couple of factors. The obvious one is that eBay won’t let us use the developer API because sniping services are expressly prohibited. Less obvious: for us to do it reliably would result in multiple hits to the eBay servers per auction. This is rude and probably dangerous on our part. It hurts, bud. I want that feature too. Redesigning the emails: Doh! Consider it added to the todo list. Inverted pyramid == Good Thing. We are working on mobile support in some other interesting ways, but you’re right. The least I can do is rewrite the copy. Fabulous feedback.
Yes! It’s something we hope very much to get to in the next few months. Now I’ll ignore the fact that this comment is almost a year late itself…