Are you ready for an amazing 2010?  I’d like to take this opportunity to provide you with a special, free gift.

Recently I launched new software that has quickly become THE leader in it’s category.  It’s called HotSniper and is now the #1 eBay Sniping software available anywhere…and coming in a few weeks is the first eBay sniping iPhone application as well.

In it’s initial launch, Hotsniper has had a $2.99 monthly fee for unlimited use.  This price is being raised to $9.99 in 2010 however, here’s my holiday gift to you.

Go here:

http://www.hotsniper.com/specialoffer.htm

This is a special opportunity for you to have access to the HotSniper software for NO CHARGE for LIFE.  Yes, this means you can use HotSniper to win every auction on eBay whenever you want.  No monthly fees.  No annual fees.  No upgrade fees.  No renewal fees.  No “pro version” fees. No trial period fees.

I think you get the point.  Sign up NOW, get HotSniper NOW, and take advantage of this Holiday Special. But don’t waitbecause this offer is set to expire in the new year!

http://www.hotsniper.com/specialoffer.htm

In a study that gives the lie to the notion that eggheads don’t like to eyeball online auctions like normal folks, a study by South Korean physicists confirms via some elaborate mathematical modeling that “sniping” — waiting for the very last second to submit your bid on that Elvis-shape throw rug — is indeed “a rational and effective strategy to win in an eBay auction.”

“Sniping,” bidding at the last minute to deny other bidders time to outbid you.

Savvy buyers have taken to the practice in swarms. And, to test whether sniping is a smart way to do things or just truncates normal bidding, the South Korean team at Seoul National University produced a “master equation” for how bidding proceeds (it’s nk(t+1) — nk(t) = w(k-1)(t)*n(k-1)(t) — wk(t)*nk(t) + sigma(k,1)*u(t), if you really want to know), and then tested it against a massive number of auction records, some 264,073 items sold in one day on eBay and another 287,018 items sold in one year by eBay’s Korean partner.

Plugging all those data into the model and testing the outcome in terms of how the auctions turned out, the team found that the probability of submitting a winning bid on an item indeed drops with each bid. “Our analysis explicitly shows that the winning strategy is to bid at the last moment as the first attempt rather than incremental bidding from the start.” The study appeared in the Physical Review E journal.

The finding is no surprise to Harvard economist Alvin Roth, who has studied sniping from an economics viewpoint since 2002 with colleague Axel Ockenfels of Germany’s University of Cologne. They came to similar conclusions. “I think you might do the most good if you advise bidders to form an opinion of how much they are willing to pay for an item, so that they don’t get caught up in a bidding war and pay more than they will be happy with,” says Roth, by e-mail. “But, that being said, if they know what proxy bid they want to submit, it won’t hurt them to submit it very near the end (but neither will it help them much, or often …) So, sniping is a good strategy, for those with the time to do it,” he adds.

A statement on the eBay site says: Sniping is part of the eBay experience, and all bids placed before a listing ends are valid — even if they’re placed one second before the listing ends.

http://www.hotsniper.com/specialoffer.htm

Introducing HotSniper – the #1 eBay Sniping Software – which let’s you bid on eBay automatically.

HotSniper gives you the power to effectively manage and win eBay auctions by placing bids for you during the last few seconds of an auction – a
practice commonly known as “sniping.” With HotSniper bidding for you, you can mask your interest in an item, protect your privacy, change or cancel bids, and more.

- HotSniper keeps you out of bidding wars. In a traditional auction, it’s good practice to set a price and stick to it. But those auctions last only
a minute or two. If you set your price early on eBay, other buyers have up to 10 days to outbid you. These bidding wars can be sharply reduced by
holding your bid until just a few seconds before the end of the auction. They won’t have a chance to outbid you! Try HotSniper NOW!

http://www.hotsniper.com/specialoffer.htm

- HotSniper keeps your bid secret. eBay has a Search by Bidder option. Suppose you’re a collector who’s found an unusual item in the wrong  category. The second you place your bid other users can find out about it easily using Search by Bidder. You want to keep others from finding  out about it. Use HotSniper to defer your bid until seconds before the auction ends. That way competitors using Search By Bidder won’t be able to dig up the same bargain by following your interests. Try HotSniper Free Now!

http://www.hotsniper.com/specialoffer.htm

- HotSniper uses proprietary technology including a group of custom programs running on multiple high-performance servers to deal with slow server performance, HotSniper and eBay network bottlenecks, peak bid placement periods, and the many other real-time performance issues that threaten the integrity of your bid. Try HotSniper Free Now!

http://www.hotsniper.com/specialoffer.htm

Don’t miss out…See for yourself why HotSniper has quickly become the #1 eBay Sniping Software. And you can even enter unlimited bids on unlimited auctions with no restrictions.  Just use our one-page signup to see how easy it is (and how much FUN it is) to win eBay auctions with HotSniper!

Happy and healthy New Year!

Adam
Chief Sniper!
http://www.hotsniper.com/specialoffer.htm

HotSniper – the world’s #1 eBay Sniping Software allows you to jump on the sniping bandwagon and there’s even an unlimited 10 day Free trial.  In my experience, HotSniper is the easiest sniping services that I have used.

Here’s how it works.  You log in at HotSniper.com, enter the item number to bid on and your maximum bid and you are done. It is that simple. You can then forget about remembering to place your bid… HotSniper will do it for you within seconds of the auction close.

A couple of things to keep in mind with eBay bidding and snipe tools…

1. eBay will auto-bid up to the bidders maximum so waiting until the last few seconds of an auction to bid really is no guarantee that some previous bidder has NOT entered a higher maximum bid than your maximum snipe bid.  This is called “proxy bidding”. Remember it isn’t the last bid that wins it is the highest bid and you should absolutely make sure that you always bid the maximum that you are willing to pay. (Keep those shipping charges in mind too!)

2. Understand the eBay bidding rules… Snipe tools have to follow them as well. You can’t expect it to place a snipe bid for you if your snipe bid amount is lower than the current bid, or if your snipe bid is not higher than eBay’s next bid increment. (Remember eBay requires your minimum bid to be at least one increment above the current bid and this increment depends on what the current bid amount is at the time you place your bid.)

Here’s the good news.  If your “bid” gets “outbid” – remember, no bid is actually placed on eBay until the end of the auction – you will get an email letting you know you have been outbid, what the new high bid is, and how much you must adjust your bid (at a minimum) to win the auction.  You will get several update notifications.

4. Set it and forget it… at least until you win. Remember you are responsible for all bidding even if you happen to forget that you place a snipe request and then later find a better deal but forget to cancel the snipe. If you win the auction you need to pay for the item!

While HotSniper is a great tool and increasing in popularity every day, sniping really is a phenomenon that is tied to bidder preference and education. As I state above… eBay will auto bid up to a bidder’s maximum bid amount. The idea behind a snipe is that you are going to swoop in at the end and place your bid before some previous bidder has time to re-bid for a higher amount. You are basically gambling that the previous bidders either don’t know how eBay’s bidding works, or that they decide at the very end as the bidding activity increases that they should increase their bid.

I think eBay is doing a much better job now at trying to get people to enter their maximum bid and explaining how the bidding process works. You see it in their email, on the item pages, bidding pages, etc… So the real value of HotSniper is to keep that bidder from having time to re-think their maximum and with more and more people using sniping tools my recommendation to you snipers is to make sure you’ve done your homework and know what the absolute maximum is that you will pay.

How I use sniping (HotSniper) in my eBay bidding…

* I snipe EVERY auction on eBay that I want to bid on.
* Set my snipe with the maximum that I will pay based on what I know about the item, research I have done on others that are on the site, activity from the bidders, etc… I always place my MAXIMUM bid into HotSniper because you want to be able to “set and forget”.

If your maximum bid is high enough, you will win the item.  If your maximum bid is too low, you will not.  This is true whether or not you use HotSniper.

Overall HotSniper has been working flawlessly. I would put it in my strongly recommend column as long as you use it understanding how eBay places bids.

HotSniper is here.  After 18 months of development HotSniper is avaible to the public for the very first time!

For most eBay bidders, buying on eBay is a common disappointment. They submit the highest offer in the last few minutes of bidding (if they are sitting in front of the computer and their internet doesn’t stop working), confident in the likelihood of winning.

Then suddenly, with seconds to go, someone else swoops in with an even higher offer. Oh, and before this person has time to retaliate, the auction closes.

In eBay jargon, the second-to-last bidder has been hit by a sniper.

“It’s a phenomenon that can only exist in the online auction world,” says one savvy eBay buyer.  “It’s not uncommon to see moderately priced items surge several hundred dollars in the final seconds of bidding.”

Although sniping has existed in one form or another almost since the inception of eBay, the practice has grown increasingly prevalent of late, fueled by experienced auction buyers competing for bargains.

The truth is – if you really want to get a great price on eBay for an item up for auction, you need to snipe it.

Go Now and try it out – there’s no cost to do so…

HotSniper

Have you ever won an auction with 2 seconds to go?  It’s such a rush!  Of course, those people that lose out on the auction don’t think it’s fair, but it’s such a great way to win an auction and get an amazing price.

“We know it’s there,” said eBay spokesman Kevin Pursglove. “It’s a tool that many of our users like, and it’s a tool that frustrates many of our users. But it’s up to our users whether or not they want to use a sniping tool.”

Sniping isn’t against eBay policy. It’s fun – it’s simple – it’s effective – and it’s addicting.

Go now and check it out…

HotSniper

According to Adam Ginsberg, when buy on eBay and want to virtually “guarantee” a win every time…you’ll want to use a technique called “sniping”.

Sniping is the art of bidding at the last possible moment – let’s say, with less than 30 seconds to go in the auction.

Don’t worry, sniping is perfectly legal on eBay.  Of course, it’s annoying when someone does it to you but it’s a highly effective way to win auctions…the challenge is that you have to be sitting at the computer ready to bid, just before the auction ends.

Here’s the challenge – you can’t always be on hand each time a selected auction reaches its final moments. It can mean having to log in many times each day or perhaps even in the middle of the night. According the Adam Ginsberg, the answer is using special sniping software.

So what is sniping software and how does it work?

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Make Sure to Check Out HotSniper.com Today!

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Basically, it’s sophisticated software that enables you to choose your high bid in advance then let the software bid for you with a few seconds to go.  It works automatically, regardless of whether your computer is on or off. So, you can pre-set your maximum bid and then do what you need to do away for the computer.  In essence, it’s a “set and forget” bidding system. And, it’s very simple to use.

Here’s what you do.  First, enter the details of each auction you’re interested in (i.e. the auction number) and second input the maximum amount you’re prepared to pay for the item.

That’s it.

Then, the software places your bid on your behalf in the very last SECONDS of the auction. This means that anyone bidding against you just hasn’t the time to place a counter bid. Auto snipers claim to be around 95 – 99 per cent successful in enabling you to win auctions this way.

If you are a buyer on eBay, this is a must have tool.  In today’s busy environment who has time to sit in front of the computer when you can automate the entire process?

Adam Ginsberg recommends HotSniper.com for your buyer needs.  HotSniper.com is the #1 sniping software available for auction success!

What the headings mean

• URL length shows how many characters (including the http:// at the front) the shortened URL generated for this site’s homepage was. The first figure is the base length (EG http://shortenme.net/ is 20 characters), the second number is the short code generated (this can vary from 4 to 6 characters at most services – popular services have used up all the 4-character ones already, so it might be good to start using a new service!  The result is that you can expect ShortenMe.net to change to 20+5 if this post is very popular!), and the final number is the total.
• Custom name – whether you can choose your own memorable short-code or not (rather than the random string of letters automatically generated). Not all services offer this feature
  .

It simple and easy to use.  For example, if I wanted to promote something at AdamGinsbergBlog.com I might use ShortenMe.net reduce the number of characters in the URL.  If you wanted to promote an Adam Ginsberg affiliate offer – or any affiliate offer for that matter, you could use a URL shortening service like ShortenMe.net to “mask” and shorten your affiliate link.

I purchased this service for 2 reasons.  First, I thought it would be cool to own a shortening website.  And, secondly I really liked the name.

So, try it out today and see how it works.  Go there now and have fun!

ShortenMe.net

Get the New Social Media Magazine FREE Today at AdamGinsberg.com

In today’s difficult economic times – and when it’s more competitive than ever to sell on eBay – you must lower your costs to maximize your profits if you are going to succeed.  eBay fees are stedily increasing so it’ more important than ever to use 3rd party eBay listing tools to increase your bottom live.  With Adam Ginsberg’s Template Optimizer, you have have incredible software that is a solution, a way to create quality listings quickly and easily without draining your budget.

To be successful you must adapt and change.  You also need to do things differently then way other people might be selling on eBay.  And by automating your business you will take it to the next level which will further set you apart from other people who sell on the world’s #1 auction site.

Scheduling

Scheduling allows you to list items in advance to go live when you want them to—which can help you maximize end-of-auction bidding and spread out your listings. eBay will charge you 10 cents per listing for this convenience—and when you multiply that by several listings, the cost quickly adds up. But Template Optimizer users pay no additional fee to schedule listings. So why pay for something you can get for free? You could use the money you save to invest in new inventory.

Image hosting

Adam Ginsberg’s Template Optimizer image hosting can save you even more per listing—and help increase your profit potential. When it comes time to list new goods, you’ll want to reassure buyers that what they see is what they’ll get and Adam Ginsberg’s Template Optimizer image hosting tools can help you do this. eBay will let you post one image for free, but each additional photo will cost 15 cents. To get Supersizing, you have to pay 75 cents per listing. with a maximum of 12 pictures per listing.  You don’t have to worry about these fees with Template Optimizer—or about counting images. Adam Ginsberg’s Template Optimizer listing tools support up unlimited Supersized images per listing at no additional charge.

Professionally-designed templates

Another tool to gain customers’ trust—and save you money—is professional listing templates. Template Optimizer has hundreds of these customizable skins that will make your listings pop and add a professional touch. While eBay does offer these, they are hard to customize and come at an additional cost.  As well, they are not attractive. Template Optimizer offers hundreds of templates, so you’ll be sure to find the perfect design to suit your business. And again, you don’t pay any additional fees.

Take your online business to the next level

As you can see, Adam Ginsberg’s Template Optimizer not only makes it easier to list on eBay, it also saves you money. Are you ready to take your business to the nextl level? Be sure to check out Template Optimizer today!

I have had a chance to use Bing.com to search the web and I’m very impressed.  In reality, it beats Google in important areas. It will help Microsoft gain share in the search business. It’s surprisingly competitive with Google. It’s simple, easy, intuitive and fun to use.

Bing has only been available to the public for a short time and is already gaining market share.  Beginning June 3rd Bing became Microsoft’s new default search. Here’s a couple of facts, insights and thoughts about Bling search.

In search presentation, Bing wins. It uses technology to display refined versions of your query down the left side of the page. For example, I searched for the game “iPhone 3Gs” on Google and Bing. While Google gave me good results, Bing gave me a menu of “related searches,” that included Walkthrough, News, and so on.

Bing also shows a useful “Related Searches” box.

Bing has pop ups that show an excerpt of the text on a search result if you hover over it. This saves a lot of time if you’re not quite sure if you want to follow a result.

In the content of search results, Bing is not consistently superior to Google. In many searches I did (not the sample searches Microsoft sent me), the Google results were more relevant and useful. Not by miles, mind you, but in many cases Google delivered the goods just enough better than Bing to make me question the wisdom of adopting Bing as a replacement search engine. Just one example: Searching for “Best house paint for humid climates” gave me better advice links at the top of the search results with Google than with Bing.

When searching for product reviews, Google’s search result pages were just slightly better than Bing’s — although, again, not by a lot. However, Bing also collates user and expert reviews on many products, and this gives you a great overview. This feature doesn’t always show up, though; and I wouldn’t even have known about it had it not been for the Wired review of Bing.

When you want to shop for an item, both services have very strong “shopping” tabs that organize results well. Google gives you seller ratings, which Bing doesn’t. But Bing offers a cashback program, which is hard to beat.

And in some searches, Bing won on results outright. When searching for “Facebook sandberg” on Google, the top link was a story from 2008. On Bing, the top item was “News about facebook sandberg” with three sublinks to very recent articles. When searching for “Obama Supreme Court,” Google did show news results, but the top link was a day-old story. Bing’s was from 32 minutes ago.

To be fair to Google, you can also click through to Google News on any result and sort results by date. But that’s extra clicks. Bing is more aggressive about including news.

All search engines have their strengths, and many of Bing’s lie in areas where Microsoft has its own content companies. For example, Microsoft owns the airfare prediction service Farecast, and it includes Farecast buying advice whenever you search for airplane travel. Bing also displays some medical data inside the search engine itself.

Bing also does very well in at least one area where Google should do better. The video search result page for “Thomas Jefferson” in Google gives you a vertical list of videos. On Bing, you get a big grid that’s easier to scan, and a list of related videos on the left for “George Washington,” “James Madison,” and so on. The search results are about equivalent, but Bing’s presentation is far superior.

You should use Bing

As I said, it’s fun, intuitive AND different.  After using Google for so many years it’s nice to have a different search experience.  The new game in search is parsing information and displaying it in the engine itself (see Wolfram Alpha for the extreme example of this). Both Google and Bing, and other search products, have areas where they will collate and format information for you, instead of just linking you to external pages where the data reside. Bing does an extremely good job at this in several popular areas — like product reviews, movie listings, weather, travel, and stock prices.

While the service doesn’t reveal all its riches at once, it rewards exploration and yields pleasant surprises to users who poke around.

Google keeps improving in the area of in-search collation and display as well, but Bing makes Google look complacent, and that’s not good for Google. For the moment, Bing’s on top in this game. Try this search engine. I do not think you will regret it.

Check it out at http://bing.com

There are so many myths out there that tell you the best ending day – how about we just answer the question with the right information so you can immediately apply it and start to make money on eBay.

The best day to close a listing on eBay is:

Well it really depends. Not a straight answer, but hang in there and I will reveal some secrets to help you find the straight answer for your products.

THE MYTH

There is a myth out there that Sunday is the overall best day to end on eBay. This myth came from an announcement eBay made some time ago that the highest traffic on the site was on Sunday.

Since then, the myth that Sunday is the best ending day has spread throughout the discussion boards.

But highest website traffic doesn’t mean that everyone is making a purchase on that day. Perhaps some people are browsing for items that they will purchase later in the week.

While it may be different than popular wisdom, I am here to tell you that Sunday is not the best ending day for your listings if you want to get the most for your item.

The Best Ending Day Depends Upon Two Things

If it’s not Sunday, what is the best ending day? Is it the best if you get the most bids? Is it the best if you sell the most items? Or is it the best if you make the highest sales price?

My point here is that best for one person’s sales may not be for another person’s. What works for you and your product may not work for another seller.

Essentially, the best ending day hinges upon two factors:

Your selling strategy

Your product

Your Selling Strategy

As I pointed out earlier, what does the best end day even mean? What is best for one seller isn’t always best for another, because each seller has a different strategy.

Essentially, all selling strategies are founded upon one of two options:

High Volume, Low Profit
Low Volume, High Profit
Your selling strategy ultimately will determine your best ending day. If you are not sure which selling strategy you are using, let me point out some characteristics of each.

1. High Volume, Low Profit

This strategy is used when you have a very large inventory of the same product. You most likely bought in bulk, which means you got a low cost for each individual item. This means you are more concerned with selling all of your products at a lower price, just to make sure you are not stuck with a left-over inventory.

A research tool like Auction Optimizer (which has a 10 day free trial) can help you determine the best ending day for this strategy to ensure you are increasing your chances of making the sale on the first time.

So, if you are a high-volume, low-profit seller, then you want to select the ending day that increasing your listing success rate. This allows you to sell more products and re-list fewer.

2. Low Volume, High Profit

Use this strategy when you have a smaller inventory of the same product, or a large inventory of several different products. Doing this allows you to focus on maximizing your sales price, thus increasing money in your pocket.

The Bottom Line

When it comes to the best ending day, there is no general rule of thumb. And not just because it depends upon your selling strategy and your product.

As I’m sure you have noticed, eBay is a very fluctuating market. What works one month may not work the next. When I first started selling on eBay, I found that Saturday was the best day to end to increase my sales price. A few months later, it had changed to Thursday. A month after that, it was Friday.

So, the bottom line, is to remove the guesswork and rules of thumb and rely upon the facts using a research tool like Auction Optimizer.

Make the most of your auctions with research – Get Started Today with Auction Optimizer for FREE!

I’ve read lots of reviews online for Template Optimizer – most have been favorable and some comments not so positive. This will be true when anything is reviewed on the internet.  But, the simple fact is this: Template Optimizer 8.1, which was just released in Beta, is the most powerful eBay Template Software every developed and released to the public. This isn’t a review of Template Opitmizer 8.1, and doesn’t provide a list of all the new features and benefits. I will say that this version of Template Optimizer has been build from the ground up. It’s not an “update” or “fix” or “add-on” to version 7.1 – but a completely new, revolutionary way of creating listings for eBay.

Since version 8.1 is still in BETA, you can check out Template Optimizer in it’s current form.  Then, once you’re in your account simply click on the “Try Template Optimizer 8.1″ link.  You can test and use the entire system for 30 days for $1. Check it out for yourself and see what others are saying is the “Biggest breakthrough ever” for creating powerful eBay listings.

Ok, now the purpose of this article.  What the heck are eBay auction templates in the first place anyway?

In simplest terms, an auction template is a specialized ad layout that an online auction seller uses to showcase any item they are selling. Some sellers will use the same layout (as their own customized template) for all their listings while others will use a variety of template backgrounds and layouts for a variety of items for sale.

An auction template consists of HTML code written to create the layout of the auction ad, customization, and image hostings.  The template will also consist of unique graphics.  A professional listing template will also provide you with ability to insert blocks of text that don’t change from auction to auction (such as general payment terms, etc.).

Are auction templates a necessity to sell in an auction format?
That depends on who you ask. Malcom Gladwell, in his NY Times Bestseller “Blink” says that you only have 7 seconds to make a first impression.  So, while auction templates aren’t really necessary, using a profession auction template will help you to distninguish yourself from your competition.

There are many reasons that sellers make the decision to work with an auction template. Here are just a few:

• To promote a professional presence to their prospective bidders.
• To reduce the necessity of retyping information that does not change from auction to auction.
• To reduce image hosting costs.

Let’s take a look at each of these in greater detail.

Use an auction template to promote a professional presence.
Let’s face it. A buyer’s first impression of an online auction seller is the description of the item being auctioned. We don’t click into an auction and immediately look at a seller’s feedback. We first look at the item’s pictures and read the details that are of interest to us. If a buyer sees a block of plain text, they immediately wonder if this is a new seller… or maybe someone that’s just quickly trying to rid themselves of a particular item. Plain text does not say “Hello. I am a seasoned seller that is going to deliver a top-quality product in a timely fashion.”

Use an auction template to reduce repetitive typing.
Successful auction sellers have a set of selling policies that they have created – and that they use on all their listings.  This would include “Shipping Policies”, “Payment Policies”, Terms, etc. When using eBay template software you’ll want to look for a system that stores this information for you and then gives you the ability to insert it into each listing you create.  Your time is important to you – and having software that quickly speeds up the process of creating listings.

Use an auction template to reduce image hosting costs.
On eBay, you pay for each picture you insert in your listing (after the first one, which is free). The cost of these pictures will vary depending on which eBay site you list on. As well, you are limited to only 12 pictures (max) per listing.  When you use eBay template software to create professional eBay templates you have the ability to feature your pictures, upload unlimited pictures per listing and NEVER pay eBay picture hosting fees. This feature alone can save the average eBay seller thousands of dollars in picture hosting fees ever year!

Now you should know what an Auction Template is. It’s time to decide which software you’re going to use to enable you to get the best value, the simplest to use, and most importantly the software that is going to help increase what you sell and for how much you sell it for.

Try out Template Optimizer today for only $1 for 30 days. Then, while you’re in your account, be sure to check out the all new, revolutionary Template Optimizer 8.1 BETA.