Hi, my name is Carlie and I am a Jimmy Choo-aholic. Ok, so I’m no Imelda Marcos, but I do have more than a dozen pair of Jimmy Choo shoes alone — an embarrassing number once a little math enters the equation. Average price of a pair of Choos: $700 x 15 (pairs in my closet) = $10,500. Gulp. The good news for my bank account? I really only paid 1/10th of that thanks to a little patience and an Internet tool called Bidnapper. Bidnapper is an eBay auction sniper. It delivers bids on your behalf to eBay at the last moments of an auction in a process called “sniping”. Why is this important? First, because it doesn’t place your bid on eBay until those last moments, you’re not driving the price up in a bidding war through out the entire course of an auction. Second, because Bidnapper will only bid for you in the last seconds, your competition likely won’t have time to respond. You can use Bidnapper for anything on eBay you may want to purchase. I’ve used Bidnapper when buying electronics, collectibles, purses and of course, ahem, shoes. While many people in the world of tech know about and use Bidnapper, many in the world of couture do not. This is an advantage to us couture shoppers as there will be fewer, if any, crafty Bidnapper sniping going on against us when shopping on eBay (but if you’re trying to buy computer parts using Bidnapper, good luck).

Getting Started with Bidnapper

Head on over to http://www.bidnapper.com/ and sign up for an account. You’ll be asked for your eBay login during this process, so make sure to have it handy. There are several ways to use Bidnapper for free, or if you’re the instant gratification type, you can sign up for an unlimited monthly service for as low as $7.99, or a pay as you go service where you just buy snipe lots. Snipe lot credits are only used when you’ve won an auction (for example, you can bid on nine different pair of shoes, only end up winning two, and Bidnapper will only charge you two of your snipe lot credits). So now that you’re signed up and you have some sort of credits in your account, let’s go shopping!  

Let’s Go Shopping

Today I’m going to bid on a pair of… drum roll please… Jimmy Choo shoes. The shoes I’ve narrowed my sights on have a starting bid of $40. Now that I’ve found a pair of shoes I want to bid on, I head over to my Bidnapper account to set up my snipe. From the “My Auctions” page (see accompanying photo gallery for example screenshot), first enter the eBay Auction Number. Next, I must designate my Max Bid. In this case I’m willing to spend up to $60, but not a penny more. The next couple of fields can usually be skipped (yes, eBay is the site I’m bidding on and yes, I only want one pair of these shoes as only one pair are up for bid anyhow). The next field, Contingent Upon, is useful if you’re bidding on multiple pairs of shoes, or any item, and don’t want to end up potentially buying everything you’ve bid on. With Contingent Upon, you can tell Bidnapper to only place bids on this particular auction if you didn’t win auctions X, Y and/or Z. Since this is our first Bidnapper snipe though, we don’t have any other auctions set up so we’ll simply leave Contingent Upon as the default None. Notes? If you want to remind yourself of something specific about this auction, here is your place to do so (I never do). Next is the moment of truth — press Snipe! Your bid is now officially in the system.

Sit back, relax and let Bidnapper do your dirty work from here!

Watching Your Auction

From this point on you can be as proactive or inactive as you like with regards to your snipe. In my case, I typically go in to auctions knowing exactly how much I’m willing to spend and because of that, once I’ve entered my snipe in to Bidnapper, I typically don’t look at it again until Bidnapper sends me an email letting me know I’ve won or lost. Once I was dying for a particular purse though, and letting my emotions get the better of me, I found myself changing my Max Bid six different times as Bidnapper was reporting to me that others had just outbid my Bidnapper Max Bid. I don’t recommend this, but I suppose we’re all allowed our “OMG I MUST HAVE THIS PURSE” moments in life, right? LOL. Also, it’s important for me to note that you can delete a snipe at any time, as long as your bid has not yet been placed on eBay (just check the eBay auction page directly to see if you’re the high bidder if you’re not sure). Remember that Bidnapper will not place your bid until the last moments of an auction, so deleting even just an hour before an auction is set to end should generally be no problem.

Did I Win?

Once an auction has concluded, Bidnapper will email you letting you know that it placed your bid and that you either won or lost. If you’ve won, you’ll go through the eBay payment process as you always would. Nothing more for Bidnapper to do at this point as it simply facilitated the bid to eBay.

You now have all of the tools to begin sniping through Bidnapper. Your assignment this week is to go out and buy something fabulous on eBay for the least amount of money possible, and report back your wins (and losses) to us here in the comments. If your significant other complains about your sudden shopping spree, send him/her my way — I’ll explain it’s an education-related expense. Have fun!

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