Snipping doesn't counter the bids being placed, it simply dumps your max bid in with only a few seconds left in the auction... So there is no reaction time, as it's simply placing a bid the idea it to limit the other persons reaction time, snipe goes in with 3 seconds left and Ebay processes it, by the time Ebay process that bid and the other people hit refresh and see your bid @ 1 maybe 2 seconds left there isn't enough time to type in a new bid and get it processed, it can take that long for the page to refresh, let along leave you enough time to enter a counter bid...
You forget, one can refresh on one page and bid on another.
So which sniping software do you use? EZ snipe lets you set the bid time. With three seconds left you are relying on the software to bid without even knowing the course of the bidding yourself. How exactly would you change your maximum then if in the last five seconds your own maximum bid is exceeded even before the sniping software bids?
Set your bidding interval
Use strategy when to bid, even if it is very late in your auctions. Five seconds is a good general rule if you are using our sniper service. Our system automatically adjusts for busy and slower times on eBay. However, don't put too much emphasis on making your bid the last one to arrive at eBay. If someone bids after you, the proxy system will instantly raise your bid above his. Sometimes, if you expect other snipers to bid very late, it may help to bid before them at fifteen or twenty seconds before the close. eBay's rules state an earlier bid equal to a later bid takes precedent.
And this earlier bid must be made 17 milliseconds prior. If it is 15 milliseconds prior, it won't succeed.
For Auction Sniper:
Enter your lead time. The lead time is the amount of seconds before the item end time that you want your bid to be place. We recommend a lead time of 5 seconds.
GIXEN:
Wider choice of snipe time choices (3,6,8,10,12 and 15 seconds).
So they only allow 6 or 3 seconds. And you wouldn't have time to change your own maximum with three seconds left using the software.
Bidnapper:
When you submit a bid manually, or with another snipping service, it is important to know how long it takes to send the bid to the auction site, and have the confirmation return to you. And, you may want to add a few additional seconds to safeguard against a slow connection or heavy traffic. That is how long before the close of the auction you should send a bid. You can call it a buffer, or a margin, or an offset.
Transmission delay for a bid to make it to ebay and then return the result is around 1-2 seconds, depending on network speed. The one-way trip could be as short as 350 milliseconds. This assumes the software is perfectly synchronized to ebay's clock (if it has that feature), which itself will be synchronized to some unknown source. Then there is the matter of when your own sniping software snipes in relation to other sniping software users. If you are setting standard snipe times of 3, 5, or 6 or even 10 seconds, those bids will all come in at once. However, the different user's sniping software's chronological reference may be slightly off with respect to one another. Depending on which bid is earlier, a difference of 2 ms may matter.....
For Max-Bid-Timer II software:
Using Network Time Protocol and a host of free Network Timeservers, Max-Bid-Timer can offer a timing accuracy of [+/-] 1 Second, giving you the edge over many other sniper systems currently available.
So if that is what they call "an edge", plus or minus 1 full second amounts to a range of three seconds :confused. A lot can happen in three seconds. If you set the sniping software to snipe at 3 seconds, it might snipe at 4, or at 2, or at 3. If you set it for 5 seconds, it may bid at 4, at 6, or at 5.
Although:
Because SnipeRight uses our high-performance servers to place bids, it has very accurate timers. The timing of your bids is accurate to within milliseconds.
Or so they claim.
To me it still makes more sense to watch the bids and then put in your final bid rather than relying on sniper software which won't give you time to react if the bid is higher. Of course if you have the time then you wouldn't use the software to begin with I suppose.
