BidGroups - Help/FAQ
BidRobot's "BidGroups" feature will allow you to bid on multiple eBay auctions for the same type of item. When you win any one auction in a BidGroup, BidRobot will automatically cancel the remaining bids in that specific BidGroup.
It's easy to use BidRobot to snipe single auctions. For single auctions, just type the item number and bid using only the yellow top section under the "Bid" title. You can ignore the entry forms in all other sections.
Here's a BidGroup Example:
1) SEARCH FOR AN ITEM: You may want to specifically purchase an "Minolta Dimage G500" digital camera. Currently, 33 eBay auctions offer this specific model of digital camera.
2) CHOOSE ONE OR MORE AUCTIONS TO BID ON: After reviewing the 33 auctions for the same camera, you decide that you want to place snipe bids in six auctions for this camera from six different sellers.
3) CREATE FIRST SNIPE BID: Type your first snipe bid in the pale yellow "Bid" section at the very top of the bid screen. If you were just submitting a single bid for a single auction, you would be done. However, if you want to create a "group" of bids with the other five camera auctions, proceed to the next step.
4) OPTIONALLY GROUP OTHER AUCTIONS: To bid on other seller's auctions for this same camera, scroll down until you find the "Pending Bid Group" that contains your first camera bid from step #3. Then, use the form in that BidGroup area to add more snipe bids (for five additional Minolta camera auctions) to that specific BidGroup. You may add bids for as many additional auctions to this group as you like. To start a new BidGroup, you would go back to the pale yellow "Bid" section at the very top of the screen.
6) YOUR BID HISTORY: If you win any one of the Minolta Camera auctions in that BidGroup, the remaining bids in that specific group will automatically be cancelled.
Additional BidGroup rules:
You can edit or delete any bid in BidRobot up until 5 minutes before an auction closes.
You can see your recent bid history by clicking "Bid History" button in the menu. It's important to note that only bids in that group are affected when you win an BidGroup auction. All your other BidRobot bids in other BidGroups are unaffected.
If BidRobot cannot confirm whether or not you are the winner of a closed auction then the entire Bid Group will automatically be cancelled.
If you are bidding on auctions are NOT in the same BidGroup, then there are absolutely no restrictions about auction ending times. If you want, you can bid on multiple auctions that end at exactly the same time! However, ending times of auctions in the same BidGroup must be at least 30 seconds apart to ensure that BidRobot can effectively cancel remaining bids if you win an item in a BidGroup auction.
BidRobot.com - Help/FAQ
How can I win more auctions and pay less for items I win? Can you prove that last-minute bidding wins more auctions?
What is BidRobot and what does it do?
What are BidRobot's benefits to bidders of collectables?
Are there any other BidRobot benefits?
What is Sniping? How long has sniping been around?
Do sellers hate last minute bidding?
Will BidRobot work with my computer?
Do I have to leave my computer on for BidRobot to place a bid?
Can I use BidRobot when I am away from home?
What are the risks of last minute bidding? Is there a bid guarantee?
What is the ideal buffer time for a last-minute bid?
How does BidRobot synchronize with eBay's clock?
Can I still bid manually? Can I outbid myself?
BidRobot email said my bid was placed, why does eBay not show my bid?
What happens if two eBay bidders bid on the same item?
Does BidRobot work with adult auctions and dutch auctions?
Why doesn't the Bidrobot screen automatically update the current high price of an item?
How do I change, delete or cancel a bid?
Can BidRobot place bids at other auction sites?
How do I change my password or email address?
How can I stop BidRobot from sending me emails?
Why does BidRobot require my eBay username and password?
What if I forget my password?
What does BidRobot do with my personal information?
How can I win more auctions
and pay less for items I win?
Various magazines, books and on-line auction experts
have acknowledged that you can win more auctions and pay
less for the items you win simply by bidding only in the
final moments of an auction. Last-minute-bidding hides
your interest in an item until the final moments of an
auction. It is impossible for another bidder to keep
raising the price of an item when he doesn't even know
you have an interest in it! Your last minute bid will
suprise other bidders who have been watching the item for
days and will prevent them from making larger counter
bids before the auction ends.
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Can you prove that last-minute-bidding wins more auctions?
Look at the bid history of any popular item and
you will likely see that the winning bidder submitted the
winning bid in the final moments of the auction. Then,
look at the bidding history of the winning bidder. You
will notice that he has won a very high percent of his
auctions and generally paid less for the items he has
won. Consistantly winning bidders continue to bid in the
final moments because their wins reinforce the fact that
their last-minute-bidding wins more auctions.
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What is BidRobot and what does
it do?
BidRobot(tm) is the name for a group of programs running
on multiple high-performance servers that do nothing but
place bids on eBay at the time you specify, check the
status of the bid, and email you with the results.
BidRobot uses proprietary BidRobot technology to deal
with slow server performance, BidRobot and eBay network
bottlenecks, peak bid placement periods, and the many
other real-time performance issues that threaten the
integrity of your bid. BidRobot is constantly being tuned
and improved to distribute its load over multiple
processes on multiple computers, running on multiple
Internet backbones, on several different databases.
Of course it's not always convenient to place
last-minute-bids when many auctions end at all times of
the day and night! Before BidRobot was available,
overseas and east coast people would need to stay up in
the middle of the night to place last-minute bids.
Instead of placing your
bids directly with eBay, you place them at the BidRobot
site. BidRobot will store your bid information and then
automatically submit it to eBay, on your behalf, in the
final moments of the auction. eBay cannot tell the
difference between a bid that you placed manually and a
bid that is submitted for you by BidRobot so all the
standard eBay bidding rules apply. BidRobot can submit
bids more reliably and consistantly that any other
last-minute-bidding method.
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What are BidRobot's
benefits to bidders of Collectables?
BidRobot protects your privacy and promotes
secrecy of your intended bids. Collectors often watch
what other collectors are bidding on. Collectors can
avoid creating interest in an item by waiting until the
final moments to bid on a collectable.
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Are there any other
BidRobot benefits?
eBays terms of agreement consider any
bid you place at eBay as a contract to buy. So, if you
cancel a bid you place at eBay you could be penalized or
suspended. However, if you place your bid at BidRobot you
may cancel it anytime up until 5 minutes before the end
of the auction with absolutely no penalty or
consequences.
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What is Sniping? How long has
sniping been around?
To insiders, the practice of last-minute-bidding is
known as "sniping." Manual sniping has been
widely practiced for about as long has online auctions
have existed. In the early days bidders would watch
auctions expirations with a stopwatch in one hand and the
mousebutton in the other. Of course the smarter way is to
get BidRobot to automatically do your last minute bidding
for you.
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Do sellers hate last-minute-bidding?
Many do. For one thing, sellers are unable to gauge the
interest in ongoing auctions because last-minute bidders
are delaying their bids until the flurry of bids at very
last moment. For another thing, last minute bidding often
forces sellers to sell items for less than what they
would like. There is nothing a seller likes more than to
see a several day long bidding war at the expense of
several bidders. In the early days, sellers
unsuccessfully lobbied eBay to prohibit last minute
bidding. Some sellers understand that while BidRobot may
keep the prices of items down, it also attracts
last-minute bidders who might not otherwise bid for an
item. Whether sellers like it or not, last minute bidding
wins more auctions and is here to stay.
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Will BidRobot work with my
computer?
BidRobot is a web site, not a computer application.
BidRobot will work on any computer than can connect to
the internet including Macintosh and WebTV.
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Do I have to leave my computer
on for BidRobot to place a bid?
No, once you have placed your bid at BidRobot you can
switch off your computer and let the BidRobot service
place your last minute bid for you.
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Can I use BidRobot when I am
away from home?
Yes. All of your bids are stored at the BidRobot website
not on your personal computer. So, you can log in and use
BidRobot from any computer that has internet access. It
doesn't matter if the computer is at your home, a
relatives home, at the library, or at the airport. Simply
go to BidRobot.com then log in to access your account and
place or review your bids.
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What are the risks of last-minute-bidding? Is there a BidRobot bid guarantee?
No one can promise 100% reliability on the
Internet. BidRobot can't guarantee a bid will be placed.
Also be aware that because BidRobot places your bid in
the last few moments of an auction, you will not have any
warning if your bid fails for a technical reason. Some of
the ways your last minute bid can fail are detailed
below:
After some highly publicized outages, you are probably well aware thateBay, eTrade, Amazon, and many other highly evolved web sites had highly publicized outages last year. If eBay is broke down, no last minute bid can arrive either manually or automatically In some of these outages sellers have been outraged and eBay has automatically extended the closing times of the auctions.
The reason is simple:
BidRobot can't control the rest of the Web. What if eBay
servers are down when your bid is supposed to be placed?
What if either BidRobot or eBay is a victim of a denial
of service attack? Even network traffic can cause bids to
be lost.
- eBay could have an outage or technical problem in the final moments of the auction. eBay has had outages in the past. They are infrequent but it does happen.
- The BidRobot servers could have a technical problem while you were adding or editing a pending bid.
- BidRobot's servers prepare your bid 5 minutes before your bid time. If you attempt to edit the bid within 5 minutes of your bid time then the edit will fail.
- The internet or eBay's servers could be slowed by heavy traffic. These slowdowns can affect last minute bidding whether they are automatic or placed manually. This is why we recommend a buffer of 5 to 10 seconds.
Risks are also discussed
in our
Member terms
page.
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What is the ideal buffer time for a last-minute-bid?
A "buffer" is the number of seconds before the
end of the auction that BidRobot attempts to place your
bid. BidRobot makes the best choice of a buffer time based on information it gathers at the time just before the bid. BidRobot "pings" ebay and determines eBay's response time and Internet congestion. Based on this, it automatically sets the buffer time between six and 10 seconds.
Since we started doing this in 2001, the number of successfully submitted bids has increased substantially.
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How does BidRobot synchronize
with eBay's clock?
Both BidRobot and eBay synchronize to the
U.S. Naval Observatory Master Clock
You can verify BidRobot's
accuracy by comparing the email you get from BidRobot
with the bid times shown on eBay's bid history screen.
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Can I still bid manually? Can I outbid myself?
Yes you can bid manually. No you cannot outbid yourself.
Even though BidRobot will be submitting a bid for you at
the end of the auction, you may still manually bid on the
same auction or any other auction. eBay's
proxy bidding
limits the winning bid to an
increment just slightly above the next highest bidder or
just above the item's reserve price (whichever is
greater).
- If an item's reserve is $10 and you place three last minute bids at $15, $20, and $30 dollars, eBay's proxy bidding mechanism will limit you to winning the auction at $10, which was the reserve price.
- If another bidder's
high bid is $10 and you place three last minute
bids at $15, $20 and $30, eBay's proxy bidding
mechanism will cause you to win the auction at
$10.50 which is fify-cents more than the next
highest bidder (other than yourself).
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BidRobot email said my bid was
placed so why does eBay not show my bid?
Ebay will not accept your bid if it is not higher than
the current high bid. For example, if another last-minute
bidder places a higher bid than you, and he's one second
earlier than you, then your lower bid is not accepted by
eBay and will not show up on the auction history.
eBay will also reject
your bid if your bid doesn't meet or exceed the minimum
bid increment established by eBay. For example, an
auction showing a high bid of $300 has a bid increment of
$5, according to eBay rules. In this auction, eBay would
reject any new bid less than $305 which is the current
high bid ($300) plus the minimum allowed increment ($5).
You can see eBay's minimum increment table by clicking
here
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What happens if two BidRobot users bid on the same item?
Remember that eBay's proxy bidding rules favor the
highest bidder, which trumps bidding at whatever time,
sniped or not. So what you're really asking is "what
if multiple BidRobot users bid the exact same amount on
the same item with the exact same buffer time"?
Actually, we've only seen this happen a couple of times
in the millions of bids we've placed.
The first bidder to have placed the bid at Bidrobot will
be retrieved first and processed first - but BidRobot is
capable of submitting multiple bids in the same split
second. BidRobot makes no attempt to arbitrate among
BidRobot users sniping on the same item. Always, the
bidder with the highest bid amount wins, so be sure to
add a nickel to your bid amount!
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Does BidRobot work with adult auctions and dutch auctions?
Yes and Yes.
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Why doesn't the BidRobot screen automatically update the current high price of an item?
BidRobot doesn't automatically update the current high
bid, but you can press your F5 key to retrieve the
current high bid. Here are the reasons it doesn't update
the high bid automatically:
- The high bid displayed at eBay isn't necessarily the maximum bid amount that the high bidder has submitted. A high bidder's true high bid amount may be hidden by eBay's proxy bidding system. You can read about proxy bidding by clicking here . The best philosophy for placing your bids is to place them once at the maximum you are willing to pay for an item. If you win, that's great! if you lose then the winner paid too much for the item.
- Not even eBay's
servers can keep bid prices current. For example,
search for an item then compare the high bid
shown on the search page with the high bid in the
item listing. More often than not, eBay's two
high bid amounts disagree.
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How do I change, delete, or cancel a bid?
You can change, delete, or cancel any bid waiting at
BidRobot up to 5 minutes before the auction is scheduled
to close. Simply Log-in then click the "edit"
or "delete" button that is displayed below the
item number in your list of items with pending bids.
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Can BidRobot place bids at other auction sites?
No. Some auction sites have auctions that automatically
extend the closing time to defeat sniping. Also, bidding
applications are somewhat complex and our focus is on
eBay where 90% of online auctions take place.
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How do I change my password or email address?
Log in then click on the "My Settings" link at
the top of the screen. You may change any account
information that appears on the MySettings screen.
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How can I stop BidRobot from sending me emails?
We recommend that you keep receiving
"after-bid" emails since they provide
diagnostic information if there is a problem with your
bid. However, if you want to stop the emails, Log in then
click on the "My Settings" link at the top of
the screen. You may select and un-select the check
box indicating which emails you will receive from
BidRobot.
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Why does BidRobot require my eBay ID and password?
BidRobot requires your ID and password to place a bid at
eBay on your behalf. eBay cannot tell the difference
between a bid you place and a bid that BidRobot places
for you.
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What if I forget my password?
You can request your password in the login box on the
home page
and we will email it to your registered
email address.
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What does BidRobot do with my personal information?
Your personal information is never provided for sales or
advertising purposes to any vendor, market or other third
party. You can read our privacy policy by clicking
here
.
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