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New Features for Spring 2024

posted: Apr 20, 2024

Here is the latest round of seven (7) great new features designed to enhance your bidding experience and streamline your interaction with our service. This time there are features for both free and premium users! We are also expanding the free service to include some of the formerly-Premium features.

1. Multi-Win Groups Are Here!

On the left sidebar of your dashboard, under Tools, there's a new entry, Bid Groups. You can now see all of your groups at-a-glance, as well as specify your number of desired wins. It also tallies wins for each group.

2. New "Notes" Icon in Grid View

The Grid View now includes a new "Notes" icon, enabling you to quickly add remarks and important information for each snipe. The notes themselves appear only in List View, however, underneath each title.

3. Mini-Bid-Charts in List View

Still a BidSlammer exclusive! You know those nifty little bid-activity charts when you preview a snipe? These are now displayed next to each snipe in your dashboard's List View. These show a graphical representation of bidding trends and history for each item. You can quickly assess the competition of all of your snipes in one view.

One neat feature about these charts is that it only shows the latest bid for each bidder. In order to show the retroactive nature of eBay's proxy bidding, the charts are designed to show proxy bids retroactively. Power users will definitely want to read the help page for Bid History Charts.

4. Auction Tribune Enhancements

Our daily notification service, Auction Tribune, has received several updates:

• Free: It's now available free for all users.
• Search Customization: You can toggle notifications for each search term individually in your Searches tab.
• Notification Frequency: The frequency setting has been removed. Alerts are now sent every 24 hours.
• "Auctions Only" Checkbox: Check this to reduce your search results to only auctions, including Buy-It-Now listings that can be (or have been) converted to auctions.
• No Repeats: To reduce clutter, items are only alerted one time.

5. Alexa (Echo) Smart Home Notifications

We have implemented the Alexa Notify Me Skill. You can toggle an alert for any snipe. It will report the title, closing price, and number of other bidders that you outbid.

To activate it, just instruct "Alexa, Add the Notify Me Skill." When you accept, the service will send you an API key. You cut and paste this API key into your Preferences, and you are ready to go. To activate an alert, click the "bell" icon next to any snipe.

6. Pre-Snipe Seller Restriction Checks

We are now able to detect and report several situations that sellers use to block bids. While you are previewing a snipe, you will be informed of any blocks due to due Buyer Strikes, feedback rating minimums, or purchase limits.

7. Toggle Win/Loss Status

On your Archive tab, you can toggle the win/loss status of snipes that weren't recorded properly.

Conclusion

We hope these changes will empower you for even greater success. Stay tuned for more enhancements later this summer, and thank you for choosing BidSlammer.

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All Snipes Adjusted for Time Change

posted: Mar 10, 2024

Notice: All snipes have been adjusted (refreshed) for the time change.

Fun fact #1: Most apps store dates in something called the "Unix Timestamp." It is an integer depicting the number of seconds that have passed since January 1, 1970, "the epoch." This number is based on UTC and is immune to the time change without having to constantly convert the date.

But we've found it so much easier to put everything in Pacific time, which eBay uses. So all of our computers and databases use Pacific time. It is far, far easier to respond to emergency situations when you can match things directly up to the time stamped on an eBay item page. It's hard enough to constantly account for the two-hour difference, as we're in Central time.

Fun fact #2: The above comes with a tradeoff. Twice a year, we have to get up early and be there at 5:00am to refresh all the snipes. Why 5am? Because the Pacific time zone hasn't experienced the change yet, but Central has. The time change itself moves from east to west across the globe an hour at a time. So at 2am PST, it's already 5am for us.

Developers know a LOT about time zones, but no one developer knows everything. Except for maybe this guy on Computerphile's YouTube channel. He says "you should never, ever, deal with time zones if you can help it." If you are technically minded, it's a great video, and worth the 10-minute investment.

Hope you enjoyed this little anecdote.

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New Features and Mobile Friendliness

posted: Dec 25, 2023

Good news – our site is now (mostly) rocking it on mobile. We've expanded the pages to full width and streamlined everything into the left-side navigation bar. For a smoother experience, we've also consolidated “Preferences” into a single page on the dashboard. Plus, the search engine has been integrated into the experience.

Charts Are Now Free

In line with our new layout, we've rolled out some neat new features. Here's the best part: Our charting functions---including that handy mini-chart in the item preview that shows the bidding activity over time---are now free for everyone.

Other New Features:

• Countdown Timers: A ticking clock for snipes ending soon, plus a pulsating auction as the snipe is executed, to add to the nail-biting suspense of winning that rare item.
• New Log Feature: Want to see the history of your snipe? Just click the new “log” icon for a detailed view of its journey.
• Authorization Checks: We’re now double-checking your eBay authorization 8, 16, and 24 hours before the auction ends, to ensure your snipes are all set.
• Improved Searching: For your saved searches, you can now specify min and max prices. The search also gets smarter with suggestions and spell checks.
• New API Call for Developers: For the tech-savvy, we've added a new API call, `checkSnipeStatus`, to keep you updated on your snipe's outcome.
• SMS Alerts: Win an auction? You'll get an immediate SMS alert, working perfectly now.
• Various Bug Fixes: We've ironed out the kinks for a smoother, more reliable experience.

We're excited about these updates and hope you find them as useful as we do. Enjoy the new and improved experience!

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