eSnipe will offer free auction "snipes" for the evening of Aug. 9, 2002. Free sniping is scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. PST and end at 6 a.m. PST the following morning.

"Sniping" is a term used for online bidding that takes place during the last few minutes of an auction. Initially, sniping began manually among auction enthusiasts who kept multiple browser windows running with timing mechanisms set to snipe at the last possible moment. Now there are many software and hosted solutions that offer sniping services, entering bids at the last second automatically.

eSnipe supports sniping on the eBay auction site. The company says its bid-placing engine, Rovatron, places more than 12,000 bids a day (and more than 18,000 on Sundays).

The idea for the free sniping session came from eSnipe's president, Tom Campbell. He has been doing more online shopping lately to make himself feel better about the lousy stock market. Interestingly, Campbell won the eSnipe business when the original founder put the site up for sale on eBay two years ago. Campbell won the auction using eSnipe to place the winning bid.

To take advantage of eSnipe's free snipes for a night, registered and new users will need to visit http://www.esnipe.com/hardday between the designated hours on Aug. 9, and follow instructions to ensure that they are properly registered for the evening's free sniping.