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Yet More New Features

posted: Aug 29, 2020

Last month, when we announced BidSlammer's last set of new features, we said we still have a few irons in the fire. Here is the next round of features!

TL;DR: Screen Shots

If you prefer, you can skip this article and go directly to the new BidSlammer screenshots page that showcases all of our new features.

Update to the Preview Box

Last release, we introduced a preview box that opens underneath the form. It summarizes several need-to-know parameters for the auction of interest.

We have added the following to the Preview:

• Relists - if you try to enter a snipe into the Add Snipe box for an auction that has ended, it will direct you to load the relisted item instead (if it was relisted).
• Item Conditions - these are now displayed. Example values are New, Used, Broken, etc. Item Conditions also show in the search results.
• Buyer Requirements - we will pre-check the item for seller blocks. When possible, we will see if you are eligible to bid on the seller's listing, for example, if the seller does not ship to your country.
• Bidding History Charts - one of our coolest features yet. See below for details.

Remove from Watch List

For auctions listed in your Watched tab, there is now a Remove from Watch List button. This will remove the auction from both BidSlammer and eBay.

Message Browser

The next feature is the Message Browser, which is an improved way to read through your emails, Gmail-style. This is a Power Pack feature. No more sifting through My eBay and waiting for all those page loads! Through us, you now have the ability to load up to 3 months and see them on one page. After 3 months, messages are deleted permanently from our system.

This feature is disabled by default for privacy reasons. You must turn it on first in BidSlammer Preferences.

The Message Browser also has the ability to search through all of your messages simultaneously. It is very fast, because we used technology that caches the messages in your browser.

Where applicable, each message has a "Reply" link, which takes you directly to the message on My eBay. But we do not send the messages. You will still use eBay's system to send messages, so that the emails use eBay's masthead. We are not involved in the sending in any way. After you send messages, you can import them into BidSlammer, too.

Image Gallery and Inspector

In the left sidebar on your Dashboard, you will see two new options for photos: Image Gallery and Photo Inspector.

The Image Gallery, shown in the snapshot below, is a spread of every photo from every auction, styled in the popular Pinterest format.

Your Image Gallery defaults to private, but you can set it to Public in your BidSlammer Preferences and share the link with others. None of your personal information ever appears -- only the public URLs to the photos.

The Image Inspector is a slideshow, but with the ability to zoom in on high-definition images.

Real-Time Bidding History Charts

We saved the best for last! We think this next feature is so cool that even eBay might eventually try to adopt it. Surely someone will.

We want to make this feature available to all users, but it use one heck of a lot of CPU power to crunch the data to make it available in real time. So instead of requiring an upgrade, we're offering it FREE via promotional offer. We are still in the testing phase and starting the process of enabling this for all accounts, which will require several months. Watch for your invitation in the upcoming month or two.

A picture says a thousand words. We think this is true of our new Bid History Charts that are now built into the Preview box when you load a new snipe.

We think these charts provide far more insight into the data than a table of data. Charting the bid history gives a whole new perspective on the auction. The charts betray the bid patterns and the strategies your competition uses. A lot of neat patterns arise.

Customers tell us that in general, they look at the bid history for these reasons:

• To see if Proxy bids lurking in the shadows.
• To see if their snipe prevailed in a last-second bidding war.
• To see how many bidders are interested in the auction.

We think the charts show all of that in a single glance:

The X-axis is linear time, going left to right. However, to make things interesting, we connect the dots in the order that the bids were placed. This brings attention to how the proxy bidding system calculates the current price, i.e., the second-highest bid plus one bid increment.

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We hope that you enjoy the new features. Good luck sniping!

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Even More New Features

posted: Jun 26, 2020

We have released a new revision of software with several improvements:

Unlimited Import Watch List

Import Watch List is Now Free. There are no restrictions on importing. Some customers like to do all of their scouting on the eBay site, and then return to BidSlammer. This can be done smoothly now.

Also, the "Import Watch List" button has moved from Preferences to the "Watched" tab on your dashboard. It has been separated into "Import Watch List" and "Import Bid List" buttons.

Manual Archive Feature

You can now voluntarily archive items, i.e., send them from the "Completed" tab to the "Archive" tab. Listings will continue to be archived automatically after 60 days.

Changes to Search Engine

The following enhancements were made to the search engine:

1. Native search. The "Search eBay" form (in the upper-left corner of your dashboard) now searches your native country by default.
2. Price range search. You can specify a minimum and maximum price for your searches.
3. Bid indicator. Search results will now indicate items for which you already have a bid scheduled. Instead of a "Load Snipe" button, your bid will be shown with the icon.
4. Buyer Shipping Detection. When you load an item with the Add Snipe form on your dashboard, it will warn that you are responsible for shipping.
5. Item Conditions. The condition of the item is shown, e.g., New, New with Defects, Refurbished, Like New, Used, Very Good, Good, Acceptable, and For Parts or Not Working.
6. Pagination and Item Counts now update correctly if "Hide Losses" is checked.

We hope you will enjoy the new features. We're still not done yet, however: we still have a few irons in the fire for 2020.

Good luck sniping!

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New 1- and 2-Second Snipe Options

posted: May 26, 2020

Hello Snipers,

We are happy to announce new 1- and 2-second lead time options as part of our regular Power Pack service offering.

Some of you may have noticed that we sneaked these options into the pull-down menu about a month ago. We're happy to report that the 2-second setting works just fine. Our connections to eBay require less than a tenth of a second now when, back in the day, a bid required several seconds. And, we noticed that they are processing bids in less than a second these days. So, we're giving this a try.

We also added a 1-second sniping option. Please note that it is marked as "(experimental)" for the time being. We are still accumulating data on the 1-second lead time. When we're satisfied we can guarantee it, we'll remove "(experimental)" from the menu.

The idea for this arose when we were looking at competitor sites using WayBackMachine. Many of them didn't start advertising a 3-second option until a few months after we did. We were not the first sniping service to offer a 3-second option, but we definitely set the bar. We are responsible for making it a staple for sniping services.

We took screen snapshots of all of our competitors' pages that boast a 3-second option. It will be interesting to see if those pages change in time.

Enjoy the new feature, and good luck sniping!

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