Resources: eBay Alert Unshackles Buyers From Their PCs

October 29th, 2005 by Laurie Barak

Steve Ciolino really wanted that Ping sand wedge listed on eBay. So the attorney and CPA did what most of us do: He placed a bid and hoped that when the auction closed, his would be the highest.

It was not.

Ciolino was not able to monitor the auction for the coveted golf club in its final minutes because he was at work. And since about 50 percent of all eBay bids are placed during the final 5 minutes of listings, if you’re not bidding at the very end of an auction, chances are you will not win.

Thus, when Ciolino came across a couple of CDs he wanted, and a fleece coat made “for a little dachshund,” he realized it was time to change his approach to bidding. He went to UnWired Buyer and signed up for its free service. The Austin, Texas-based Web site specializes in cutting the cord between eBay bidders and their computers.

Indeed, without UnWired Buyer, Ciolino was like most of eBay’s 157 million members: a slave to his PC in the closing minutes of an auction. With UnWired Buyer, Ciolino’s bidding process for that fleece coat went like this: Upon discovering the auction, he added it to his watch list.

Days later, UnWired Buyer sent Ciolino’s mobile phone a text message indicating that the auction was to end in about 20 minutes, and that he soon would receive a phone call from the company.

Sure enough, with three minutes of bidding time left, Ciolino’s phone rang. An automated woman’s voice was on the other end of the line. She informed him what the current bid on the puppy sweater was.

Then, just like on eBay, Ciolino had two choices: He could enter a minimum bid increase or he could enter a proxy bid indicating the maximum he would spend on the dachshund coat. He pressed the “7″ button on his phone, followed by two pushes of the “0″ button. He bid $7.

Immediately, the automated voice told him he was winning the auction and how much time was left. He was updated every five seconds or so, until the auction ended. He was told he won. Without a PC and an Internet connection, the dachshund had its sweater.

“This will be very beneficial as it gets closer to Christmas,” Ciolino said. “I don’t have to check the prices on eBay throughout the day, and right at the end it lets me know what’s going on.”