Speed Bid Help Wiki - Recently Updated Pages

Product Help

markelsoft — Thu, 29 May 2008 11:33:23 CDT

MarkelSoft Wikis

MarkelSoft Speed Bid for eBay - allows an eBay user to easily place and monitor bids on eBay in real-time.

Some features include: auto sign-in, real-time time left auction clock for each auction item, item picture thumbnails, display by items bidding on, won, lost, watching or sniping, three types of bidding: regular bid; one click minimum bid; and snipe, add/cancel watches, won/lost tracking, enhanced searching, saving, printing and emailing of information, and telling others about interesting items. Also support for buying won items using PayPal. For Windows XP or Windows Vista Screen snapshot.

Speed Bid provides powerful bidding and monitoring functionality including one click bidding and sniping.

What is sniping and why should I use it?
When an eBay auction is placed it usually does not end for days. One person places his maximum bid. Later another person comes along and bids until he is the highest bidder. During the course of an auction this process often repeats itself many times, it is known as a “bidding war” and it drives the price of an auction up. To avoid the “bidding war” people have started bidding another way known as the "snipe," or "sniping". They wait until the final moments of the auction to submit their bid. Doing this often ensures that they get the item at the lowest price possible, but there are problems with this method. The first is that you have to bet on your computer when sniping.Speed Bid allows you to schedule a snipe and leave the pogram running to do all the work.

What are the benefits?

Easy sign-in: the program remembers all previous sign-ins without storing user credentials (credentials are all kept at eBay). Subsequent sign-ins involve clicking a username or signing in as another user.

Monitor you bids in real-time with a real-time time left clock.

PayPal integration: pay using PayPal or other eBay payment methods.

Visible paid indicators for “won” items.

One-click bids.

Normal set maximum bids.

Easy searching with bidding from search results.

Item thumbnails, actual full-size image, and various levels of item details.

Places your bid seconds before auction ends.

Schedule a snipe and leave the program running to do the work.

Send email reports on what you are bidding on or have won or lost.

Tell friends via email about interesting eBay items.

Easy sorting.

Inexpensive.

Features:

Copy information to the clipboard

markelsoft — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 21:22:26 CDT

Information for all views, except eBay View, can be copied to the clipboard.
Note: the information is in EXCEL tab delimited format.

Emailing information

markelsoft — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 21:21:50 CDT

Information for all views, except eBay View, can be emailed. Also an email note or tell email can be sent.An email note is an email containing any message you like.A tell email is used to tell someone about an interesting eBay item. Simply select the desired view then click the email toolbar button or menu to email view information.

Note: Emailed information is formatted in HTML format.

Email Note:

Note: Emailed information is in text format.

Sample emails in Yahoo! mail:

Note: Emailed tell information seen in Yahoo! mail.


	Note: Emailed Bidding Report information seen in Yahoo! mail.

Real-time auction time left clock

markelsoft — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 21:10:38 CDT

All items have a real-time auction time left clock which ticks off the actual time left in the auction. If the item auction has ended the text ENDED is displayed. In the Bid View below refer to the time Left column.Clicking on the time left, which is underlined, will display the real-time calendar and clock.


	Real-time left calendar and clock:



	Title is the title for the associated item. Ends at: denotes when the auction for the item ends. Today is: denotes when the current time. Time left: denotes when the time left in the auction for the item. This is the real-time and will tick the seconds off as you view it.

Real-time clock

markelsoft — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 21:04:46 CDT

A real-time clock is always displayed in the toolbar area:



Use the real-time clock in conjunction with the real-time time left clock for each item to determine how much time is left in auctions.Clicking the real-time clock display the clock window.


	The current date is selected in the calendar. The current date and running time are also displayed. Click today to reset the calendar to todays date.

Information is organized in tabbed views

markelsoft — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 20:53:49 CDT

The views (My Bids, Search For Auction Items, Items Won/Lost, Go To eBay, and Activity Summary) are organized in tabs. This allows for easily switching between the desired information.e.g. if you perform a search using the search view, you can bid on an item listed in the search view. The item you successfully bid on will be added to the My Bids View. To view the Search for Auction Items view click on the Search For Auction Items tab or to view the My Bids view click on the My Bids tab.

Item images and thumbnails

markelsoft — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 20:11:32 CDT

Item Images and Thumbnails are displayed in the Expanded Views for Bid, Search and Won/Lost.If an image exists for the auction item, a thumbnail of the images is displayed.You can view the full size image by clicking on the thumbnail.You can toggle the thumbnail image size by clicking in the picture heading for the image.

Image full size view:


	Toggle image thumbnail: Click on the picture heading to toggle the image thumbnail size.

Bid view options

markelsoft — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 20:09:25 CDT

The Bid View is the initial view the Speed Bid for eBay user sees when starting the program.The bidding view displays information on items being on or that have been bidded on. This can be controlled using the Show options.The defaults are Items I’m Bidding On, Items I’m Winning, and Items I’m Watching for the past 30 days.

Items I’m Bidding On - shows only items you are bidding on. Items I’m Winning - shows only those auction items you are currently winning. Items I Won - shows only those auction items you won.Thse auction items will also appear n the Won/Lost view. Items I Lost - shows only those auction items you lost.Thse auction items will also appear n the Won/Lost view. Items I’m Watching - shows only those auction items you are watching. Items I’m Sniping - shows only those auction items you are sniping.Sniping allows you to place a bid X seconds before an items auction ends.

Expand or collapse views

markelsoft — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 19:54:41 CDT

All view, except Go To eBay view, have expanded and collapsed views. Expanded view is the normal full details view. A collapsed view is a less detailed view that takes up less screen space. An example of the My Bids View collapsed:

Sign-in once using secure single sign-in

markelsoft — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 19:53:02 CDT

Secure single Sign-In allows you to sgn-in securely as you normally would to eBay. Speed Bid for eBay then remembers your sign-in and can automiatically sign you in when restarting the program. eBay keeps track of all sign-in information.

Options for first time users

markelsoft — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 19:50:04 CDT

The first time you use the program you are presented with these options:


	Register for eBay - allows you to register for eBay if you do not have an eBay User ID already. Register for PayPal - allows you to register for PayPal if you do not have an PayPal account already. Continue - continue and start the program.

Search view

markelsoft — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 20:45:04 CDT

The Search For Items View is the view used to perform searches for specific items.The search can be tailored to search for All Items, AuctionItems Only or Fixed Price Items in All Categories or a specific category for specific text.

e.g. the Search View below is a search of All Items in All Categories for the text hat. The user may bid, bid the minimum (bid+), buy, watch, snipe, or tell about applicable items as well as view a real-time timeleft clock for each item.Once you bid, watch, or snipe an item successfully the item will show up in the Bid View. See the Bid View help for details on bidding, buying, watching and sniping. If you are winning the bid, the bid action has a green background.If you are watching an item, the watch action button background is green.if you are sniping an item, the snipe action button background is green.If the auction has ended, you have won, thePayPal action is displayed.If you do not have a PayPal account you can still pay using credit card.

By default the display is sorted by Time Left, earliest first. To sort by any other column simply click on that column heading.To toggle between ascending and descending sort for a column click the column heading again.


	The Search View:


	Search Field Help

Item details

markelsoft — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 20:35:23 CDT

Item Details are available by clicking on the underlined item number:


	Details - goes to eBay to show all the details for this item. Print - prints the item picture and details.

Bid view

markelsoft — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 20:32:24 CDT

	The Bids View is the initial view the Speed Bid for eBay user sees when starting the program. The bid view displays information on items being on or that have been bidded on. This can be controlled using the Show options. The defaults are Items I’m Bidding On, Items I’m Winning, and Items I’m Watching for the past 30 days.





		The available actions are bid, bid the minimum (bid+), buy, snipe,watch, pay using PayPal and tell.Only the actions that apply to the item are displayed.If the auction item is a “Buy Now” then the buy action is available.If the auction has ended, you have won, the PayPal action is displayed.If you do not have a PayPal account you can still pay using credit card. If you are winning the bid, the bid action button has a green background. if you are watching an item, the watch action button background is green.if you are sniping an item, the snipe action button background is green. If an auction for an item has not ended, the tell button is visible.This is useful for telling other eBay users about an interesting auction item. By default the display is sorted by Time Left, earliest first. To sort by any other column simply click on that column heading.To toggle between ascending and descending sort for a column click the column heading again. For bidding (bid, bid+) a green background color denotes having winning bid, so far. For sniping a green background indicates having scheduled a snipe. For PayPal a green background denotes having paid using PayPal. Clicking the bid action button displays the following window.



		Clicking the bid+ action button places the minimum bid possible for the item.A window is not displayed.This is a one-click operation. Clicking the buy action button displays the window:



		If a watch does not exist for the item clicking the watch action button displays the following window which can be used to add a watch for the item.Use this action to watch not bid on an an item of interest.



		If a watch already exist for the item clicking the watch action button displays the following window which can be used to cancel the watch.



		Clicking the snipe action button displays the following window.Snipes are used to place an automatic bid at the very end of an auction to win the auction.This helps minimize a lot of the bid-back-and-forth action that happens in a lot of auctions.An initial minimum bid is placed on the item then at the time specified (just before auction close) a final bid is placed.



		Clicking the Tell button displays the following window. An email is sent to the specified user notifying them about the specified auction item. The recipient may click on a link in the email to go to eBay and view the auction item.Note: the email is in html format.



		Clicking the PayPal action button displays the following window. If you have a PayPal account you can proceed to pay with PayPay or pay with a credit card if you desire. If you do not have a PayPal account you can pay with credit card using PayPal. *This is a new service from PayPal that does not require that you have a PayPal account.

User details

markelsoft — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 20:13:30 CDT

User Details are available by clicking a User ID.This can be the sign-in user id displayed to the right of the toolbar or the high bidder user id for an item.Payment address information is displayed if it is available.


	Unavailable denotes that the user information could not be found or acquired. Sign-in User ID displayed in the toobar area:


	High bidder displayed in Bid View:

Special on exit options

markelsoft — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 20:08:03 CDT

There are various options when exiting the program.


	OK - exits the program normally. Exit and keep running - hides the program and does not exit.This is useful when monitoring and auction while doing some other task. Cancel - does not exit the program.

Printing information

markelsoft — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 19:49:26 CDT

Information for all views, except eBay View, can be printed.
Simply select the desired view then click the print toolbar button or menu to print view information.

System tray access

markelsoft — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 19:14:01 CDT

Once Speed Bid for eBay is running, an icon is added to the system tray areas (bottom right-hand corner of screen). When right-clicked the icon displays the following menu for easy access to program functions:

Items won/lost view

markelsoft — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 18:42:28 CDT

The Won/Lost View displays a summary of items won and/or lost for the last 30 days.This can be controlled using the Show options.The defaults are Items I Won and Items I Lost for the past 30 days.
If you have won and can pay using PayPal, the PayPal action is displayed.

denotes you have won the item. denotes you have lost the item.
Show: is used to show won and/or lost items.If you desire only to see items that you have won check “Items I Won” and uncheck “Items I Lost” then click the refresh button.To show only items you lost the reverse applies. By default the display is sorted by Sales Date. To sort by any other column simply click on that column heading.To toggle between ascending and descending sort for a column click the column heading again.


	The Won/Lost View:

Exporting information

markelsoft — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 18:37:27 CDT

Information for all views, except eBay View, can be exported.
Simply select the desired view then click the export toolbar button or menu to export the view information to a file. Use can also use Export in EXCEL format to export the information to a file in EXCEL, tab-delimitted format. However, the default export exports in Excel format.