The following tips and tricks section is intended for the advanced EBay buyer. Many of these are simply bidding strategies that make use of the EBay design to help gain an extra edge on important auctions. Publication of these tips should not be taken as an endorsement to make use these strategies, since some are viewed in a dim light, and tend to slip into the “gray zone” of EBay etiquette. Most readers should use these tips for pure educational value only, since they clearly illustrate the potential tricks other EBay bidders may employ against you.

Sniping is an extremely controversial, and increasingly popular, practice on EBay. Since EBay wisely starts and ends all auctions at specific times, it allows bidders to launch last-second bid attacks on the item up for auction. If this sniping bid is successful, it leaves absolutely no time remaining for the previous high bidder to place a counter. Since most bids are of the proxy variety, sniping has really become something of a science. The safest way perform it involves guessing what the bidder's logical proxy bid maximum might be, and then exceeding it by the smallest of margins. In this case, the proxy maximum either withstands the sniping barrage, or the bidder guesses correctly and ends up winning the auction hands down. Either way, the bidder will either win the auction at a reasonable price, or lose it to someone who is willing to pay a bit more.

The second sniping method is a bit more risky and is usually reserved for the auctions that are very important to the bidder. It is really an all-or-nothing snipe using a very high maximum bid. For example, there might be older CPU that would be perfect for a server box, but instead of guessing at what the proxy bid might be, the bidder simply puts the hammer down with an extremely aggressive bid. In doing this, the bidder is hoping that none of the other participants have lost their minds, and that the highest proxy bid or snipe will be well within reason. Essentially, the bidder is prepared to pay one bid increment more than the highest bid placed, but places a much higher bid just to make sure. Using this strategy, the bidder is all but assured of winning the auction, but a small chance also exists that someone else will be bidding with the same strategy and one of them will be paying dearly for the risk.

Sniping is not that prevalent on EBay, but certain hot auctions can attract snipers in droves. These auctions are usually offering extremely valuable or hard to find hardware, or have a current high bid that is much lower than the item's perceived value. Many high bids go from ten dollars to several hundred dollars within the last ten seconds of an auction. This is also quite hard on the EBay servers and it is not uncommon to have connection issues during a spate of heavy sniping. This can also affect the bidder's ability to snipe, and EBay can simply stop responding when multiple bids are placed almost simultaneously. Wait too long and the system might lock potential snipes out. Snipe too early and the other bidders a chance to see your move in time to counter it.

Another useful ploy is for the bidder to place an initial bid on an interesting auction, and then snipe at the last second. The beauty of this trick is that if no one else snipes, then the bid does not increase and the item is won for the initial bid. When bidders snipe on their own auctions, the only thing that increases is the potential maximum price, and not the final bid price. When sniping on auctions that others currently lead, your best case scenario is always a bit worse than if you hold the auction reins in your own hands.

At first glance, this may look similar to just placing a high proxy bid and waiting to see if anyone surpasses it, but there are a few differences. The first is that by meeting the opening bid price, you are raising the stakes for the potential snipers, and will make a few of them think twice. Second, a proxy bid paints the bidder in a corner and incurs liability for the full bid amount placed. By only bidding the minimum amount, it allows the bidder time to decide whether to snipe, or to just let the item ride at the minimum bid.

In order for this to work properly, it does take a bit of luck. Since the bidder is really only trying to protect against last-second snipers, it kind of falls apart when outbid early on in the auction process. For this reason, bidders usually only try this strategy on open items that are well into their auction period, with perhaps no more than a day or two remaining. This strategy also has very little chance of working on “hot” EBay items that will receive serious early bidding attention on EBay.