Bidding on eBay auctions at the last minute seems like the best way to get a good bargain. However, I’ve been missing the end of auctions because the e-mail reminder arrives far too early. By the time the auction actually ends i’ve moved on to something else. Ideally then, i would get a text message a couple of minutes before the auction end, so I can nip online and snap up a bargain. eBay offer the service to send you a text message alert, but each of them costs money, so i’ve set about how I can do this for free.

STEP 1. SET UP YOUR GOOGLE CALENDAR WITH FREE SMS REMINDERS

I’ve been using the Google calendar service for a while now and i’m impressed. It’s really very useful and useable. For each calendar event you can set up multiple e-mail and text message reminders, and schedule them to arrive at the time you specify. Plus, this is free, so register with Google Calendar if you’ve not already got an account. Then, to enable the text message reminders, go to the Google Calendar ‘Settings’ page and change your ‘Mobile Setup’. Follow this advice for more information.

STEP 2. ADD AN EBAY AUCTION AS A REMINDER

Now you have free SMS, you just need to get the end of the auction as an event in your calendar. The Google Calendar interface is pretty slick, but its a little cumbersome if you want to just quickly add an event, so i’ve made a little form below to help speed things up a bit.

Simply type in the eBay item number and click the ‘fetch’ button. A little window should appear below showing the auction details, click the ‘remind me’ icon and you will be directed to your calendar for confirmation.

Whilst confirming the event, you can click ‘options’ and tweak your SMS reminder settings. I prefer to set up one about half an hour before as a kind of ‘heads up’, then one at five minutes to go so we’re ready to jump in to action. But i’ll leave that up to you, happy bidding!