Watch auctions and snipe using Jbidwatcher
December 10, 2008 by Clair Ching
Filed under General
I’ve personally been on a book buying spree because it’s Christmas and I want to give them as gifts to friends and to myself. There are some books I can’t seem to buy locally so Ebay.com is the place to go and Jbidwatcher lets me watch the items I am considering.
Jbidwatcher, image from Clair Ching, 2008
What I could do with JBidwatcher:
1. Watch my ebay items.
2. Snipe! Sometimes that’s the thrill of shopping online. When you are sniping for a book you’ve always wanted or whatever it is you want to buy.
(image from Clair Ching’s flickr account, 2008)
3. Multi-snipe! Unfortunately the items I am interested in are private auctions so multi-snipe isn’t supported.
4. Buy! Of course, it’s Ebay and I want to buy something, right?
What I liked about it:
1. The summary of items is easy to view and understand. There’s a color-coding system which is explained in the Help file. Color conventions like red for items you’re not winning and green for the one where you are the highest bidder (thus far) helps in knowing your bid’s status. There is also a preview of the item when you hover over the line of the item. Icons like the Buy It Now image and the PayPal icon are also available in the summary part just so you know.
(image from Clair Ching, 2008)
2. The tabs for your current items, what you are selling and what has been completed are separated from each other instead of you having one messy list. Things get harder to track when they’re all together in one tab.
3. You could still view the items you’re bidding on in a browser. If there are more images in the actual page, you could easily view all of them.
4. It has a graphical user interface. It makes it easier to click on the items and view them.
What I don’t quite like:
1. I can’t view items from ebay.ph 
That means I can’t track all of the items I am interested in using Jbidwatcher.
2. My Ebay items don’t seem to get synchronized with the application. I tried adding a new item to “My Ebay” list but it didn’t get reflected in the application.
I hope that this is useful to you especially now that it’s Christmas and you might be doing some last minute online shopping for presents. 
