ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

Yo all ...

Ok, I'm new to ebay and do not know all the tricks. ..

Anyway, I bid on an item I know would not be required by many - it was a specific piece of radiation monitoring equipment for which only a few of us would want (or have any idea was it was).

I put a bid in on Friday (the only bid) .... then 10 seconds before the bid closed this Sunday evening, somone came in with a higher bid ....

Its got to be a bot ...seriously, I do not believe someone was sitting there clicking the mouse ready to out bid me ...

Am I missing something here ... ??

cheers

MArk :mad:

Re: ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

It happens, to be fair Ebay does advise you to monitor the item you have bid on.
I guess someone ou there knew what it was and wanted it. After all they are now obliged to pay for it.

Re: ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

he would have seen the date the thing eneded and then got as close to possible and waitied

Re: ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

Its called sniping. You wait untill the last minute and then bid. Most people do it, its pretty common practise really.

Re: ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

If your prepared to pay more you could have bid more and then the snipe might not have reached your bid.

Sniping can be automated as well, so the person that sniped you may not have even been logged on.

Re: ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

Yeah, I do this often, use the proxy feature of ebay to try and outbid anybody who waits until the last possible second.

Re: ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

Kind of makes a mockery of the auction being open for several days if all the action takes place by bot in the last few seconds!

Re: ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

I've just sold something on EBay this evening, 10 day auction item sat at £30 until 2 hours before closure and it went to £60 and in the last 10 minutes went to £95 (mostly in the last 60 seconds) - If you want something put your Max bid on proxy and hope it's enough

Re: ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

Exactly - what ebay should do is to randomly close an auction 1 minute early to stop that nonsense.

Re: ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

Or extend the auction after every bid. After all thats what happens in a really auction.

Re: ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

Thats what used to happen with Yahoo auctions.........a great feature!!

Re: ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

That happened with my dads old JVC Video Camera. It went upto something like £230 in the last 30 seconds.

Re: ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

ALWAYS proxy bid the amount you would be happy to pay, and not just the amount required to currently hold a winning bid - you can raise your bid, even if you are currently holding the winning bid.

The anti-snipe measure that I recall at another one, was the option to automatically extend by 5 minutes on any activity - ok, a bidder that's WATCHING, could still snipe, but it would take the advantage away from robot autosniping - that is just unsporting!

I've sniped, and I probably never bid early unless probing to see if the reserve is within my limit.

Re: ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

I like that idea. :tu:

Re: ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

In *some* types of auction...!

Ever been to a (Reverse) "Dutch Auction"?

In a Dutch Auction the price starts at, eg £200 and drops by eg £5 increments until someone bids, at which point the auction closes.

In a Reverse Dutch Auction, there's a timer (IIRC it used to be a candle set to burn through a string that would drop a hammer on a bell) that determines when the auction closes, the last bid received before the bell gets the item.

It's a way of ensuring that auctions don't go on too long.

Re: ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

An anagram of snipe is penis

Re: ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

If you have a radio controlled clock or watch then click to confirm your bid EXACTLY one second before the auction closes. That way your bid ends up tagged with the same time as the auction close. And remember, always bid the maximum amount that you are willing to pay and NOT the amount shown as the minimum bid the last time you looked - others will be doing the same.

I'm not sure why eBay doesn't extend auctions for at least 10 minutes after a bid. I have a vague recollection that they used to. Perhaps they could list it as, yet another, charged-for service.

;)

Re: ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

:confused: Ebay dont do reverse dutch auctions and no one was talking about reverse dutch auctions. We were talking about the type of auction that ebay runs and sniping. :confused:

Re: ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

No need to charge, if the sale price goes up because of it then Ebay gets more money anyway.

Re: ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

Something that I often do when buying on ebay is to put my max bid at £n plus a few pence... I often see people putting their max bid at a round figure, so a bid of just 1 penny more than theirs will be enough to secure you as the winner ;) ....if you're as tight-fisted as I am

Re: ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

You made a statement that that was "what happened in real auctions". I was just pedantically pointing out that it's not *all* auctions.

Re: ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

Re: ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

I'm pretty sure there is that option, but it is up to the seller to turn it on. If a bid is made in the last minute or so the auction gets extended by ten minutes.

Re: ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

I just had a look and couldnt see anything. I might be wrong though.

Re: ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

It does a bit, but the advantage of having it run for several days is that you get your items seen for longer, get on to people's watch lists etc. I recently decided to flog off about 100 CDs that were surplus to my collection, so stuck them on eBay for a 9 day listing. You can see day by day how you get on to people's watch lists, plus you do get quite a few bids in the days before.

But as everyone says, it's the last few 10 mins or so when it gets interesting - my pot went from 120 quid to over 200 quid in a few mins!


Sounds like a good idea.

:LOL:

And I thought it was just me that did that!!

The bottom line to winning any auction, against a person or against an automated sniper program, is to bid more money than the other person. If you decide that an item is worth £y but the person using the sniper reckons it's worth £x then you will win the auction plain and simple.

It's part of the fun of using eBay, some you win some you lose!

Re: ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

I don't think this will work.

Let's say in the last few moments of an auction you bid £50.01 and someone else bids £50. If you are first then, even if you had bid £50, you will win. But if you are second, your bid will not be accepted by eBay 'cos it doesn't exceed the previous bid by £1 (or whatever the increment is at that price level) - hence you lose.

Re: ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

But it does work the other way around - if you place your £50.01 before the person comes along at the last second bidding £50.00 then you will win the auction. If you do this around 10 seconds before it ends, then it's unlikely the other person will see the increase even if they keep refreshing, as it takes about 4 seconds to compose the page. Damn I'm sounding sad now, I'm gonna shut up!

If they bid £50.02 in the last seconds, they won't win, becuase you're in there with £50.01 before them and the increments would be wrong. Of course if they bid £60 then you've lost!

Re: ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

I snipe at 5 seconds with a exorbiantly high amount of cash that im willing to pay for an item, even if they do respond with a counter bid, I still out-bid them and get my item for a good price :)

Re: ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

Why not snipe on the line and avoid giving them the opportunity to bump up the price you pay?

Re: ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

This should answer all questions link hope this is not :notopic:This really is quite funny - click play in the tiny box at the top...

Re: ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

I put one of my domains ard.co.uk up for sale on Ebay on a 15 day listing it sat at £25 for 14 days and got to £26 two hours before close of auction. It then jumped to £253.00 but it did not hit the reserve I had set. I had one guy phone me at the start and offered £200.00 too sell the domain out of Ebay, he also emailed me, then when the auction closed he phoned me again and offered the £253 closing bid. I didnâ₠¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢t sell it to him, I may put it back on Ebay with a lower reserve price, but the point of posting this info was it all took place in the last two hours. I did make one big mistake by having it end on a Sunday; I think it may have got a few higher bids with an end mid week?

Re: ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

I think it depends on what your're selling. If it's something business related then it would make sense to have it end during the working week and in office hours.

If you're selling CDs then the weekend is the best time, I had mine end around 7pm on a Sunday evening, as most people would be at home at that time.

Re: ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

I looked at the Ebay bidding section & although it mentions proxy bidding (Learn More: Don't get outbid again! Let eBay bid on your behalf with proxy bidding) i think this is pointless why not show the most price the buyer is willing to pay instead of the minimum after all the seller doesnt recieve the lowest amount that other buyers see when they are prompted to make another bid.

Also another noticable worrying thought i have noticed sellers asking for payment by Personal cheque, Postal Order or Banker's Draft what protection does the buyer have of getting ripped off especially if the seller has no history of selling/buying.

Also there is nothing stopping a seller asking a few mates to bid on his/her items to purposely push the price up further.

Re: ebay .. outbid ... what the point ?
 

Wow, you're suspicious!

I think most people are good honest individuals, both sellers and buyers, and that is why eBay works so well.