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I have been watching and bidding on ebay for a couple of years and just since last year watch American Girl items regularly.
I found a retired outfit just a few minutes ago and bid, but lost to a snipe. But what was strange was that is was the person I was outbidding.
Went to another retired item and the price was right, this time I put in a snipe bid except I didn't look at my lead time, it was set at 8 seconds, but I was outbid again by another snipe bid and again it was the person I had outbid.
Is this a new trick on ebay that I am unaware of, place a bid just above the first person, then put in a snipe, in case someone outbids you, for a higher amount?
Bid early, put in a snipe for a higher amount that way the auction is not "bid up" to your max as we say over the course of the auction?
Anyone want to clue me in?
Thanks [img]graemlins/rose.gif[/img]
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I believe you lost to proxy bids, which is nothing new. A proxy bid on ebay is where you enter the highest amount of money you are willing to pay for an item.
If this person's proxy bid was higher than what you bid, the price goes up to the bidder with the proxy's price, and so forth and so on.
Oh! If someone bids the same as a buyer's top price in the proxy, the first bidder gets the item because they technically bid first.
I hope that helped!
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Exactly. Say the starting bid is $1.00. Bidder A might think "I'm willing to pay $19.99 max for this item." So bidder A bids $19.99 for the item, but on the auction page the current bid will be only $1.00. Bidder B might swing by and think "that looks cool, and wow, $1.00 is fairly low - I could snipe that at the last minute and get a good deal." So with 30 seconds to spare on the auction bidder B bids $2.00. Unfortunately for bidder B, the auction page now says the current bid is $3.00 in the name of bidder A. 20 seconds to spare, and bidder B can do one of two things. Bidder B can hope that bidder A's max bid is fairly low, and bid low again, or bidder B can guess that bidder A bid high, so bidder B would have to bid higher than that in order to win. Since bidder B in actuality has no idea what the max bid is that bidder A put, bidder B is put in a stressful situation... the time is ticking down quickly - make a bid or give up?!?
I think a lot of time many people get caught up in the whole bidding process and actually bid more than they initially intended just to beat the first bidder's high bid. That plus the competition between fellow snipers with faster fingers sometimes can make "shopping" on ebay more trouble than it is worth.
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No, I understand how the proxy bid works and it is instant, if I bid and bidder A has a higher max than it shows instantly, but this didn't happen. I was the highest bidder than 3 or 4 seconds left and I was outbid. Both auction happened this way.
I just didn't know if anyone else has had this happen to them.
Has someone figured out a new way to win??
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Oh that. I've always assumed that it was a fellow sniper with better timing skills than I have. I've noticed it a lot - it's so nice to see that I will be paying $10.00 over what it said my current bid was with 2 seconds left to spare. *sarcasm*
I've also wondered if there was some 3rd party service - some software perhaps that you could plug in the ending time and your bid and it would bid for you automatically with one or two seconds to spare. I've not actually seen such software, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. They have tons of hacks for computer games - it wouldn't be too hard to program a script to do the simple functions needed to place a bid on ebay.
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It could be that the person you outbid, and who ultimately outbid you was watching the auction to make sure they got the item. I have done that in the past. If it's an item I have been the high bidder on and I really want it, I will be online while it's ending to protect it against snipe bids.
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If this had been a fellow sniper, board member or anyone else it wouldn't have me wondering, but it was the person whom I outbid, one instance I bid with over a minute to spare, so she would have had plenty of time to make another bid, but this was too last second, a snipe for sure.
And if you snipe an auction and you're the highest bidder, what happens do you make the bid go up by say .50?
Each of my bids was outbid by .50 but if she put in a very high max bid it would have only ever been .50 over the last person's max.
In case you can't tell I really wanted those two items, one more than the other. [img]graemlins/cry_smile.gif[/img]
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I do know how you feel...
I was going after the bubble robe set a few days ago, and somebody outbid me at the LAST minute (13 seconds left). Then, there was another bubble robe set ending a few minutes later, I bid again, and the SAME user came and outbid me at the last second again. Why did they need two?! GAH! Somebody also did this yesterday with the weekend baking outfit.
I know that it's allowed and not technically wrong, but it's really annoying. [img]frown.gif[/img]
<font color="#33CCCC" size="1">[ July 17, 2006 04:35 PM: Message edited by: samo22 ]</font>
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I have twins and I often do that for two items, so I am guilty of bidding on two items right away! But, that is not very often.
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I have done exactly what you describe. When I see a doll outfit I figure no one will bid on except at the lowest possible price, I will place the opening bid for the minimum. If I really want the outfit, I will back up that bid with an eSnipe bid for the max I will pay. If all goes well, I get it for the minimum, but I will not be party to a bidding war, driving up the price before the close of the auction.
Taffy
