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#16: Re: How does bidding on Ebay work? Author: Skeen,

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Rhini wrote:

Sniping doesn't always work with proxy bidding though, because you can snipe for $35 but if their max bid is $40 you've still lost.

That's why you snipe with 1-Click Bid on. If you don't win with 3 seconds left you have time to hit the button once or twice more. And anyway, if your max is $35 and theirs is $40, they'll win regardless of when you bid.

FantasticFirefly wrote:

So, lets say I see that auction, and I *really* want the pony. So I wait until it's almost over and bid $100. Your bid was $15, so I end up winning for $15.50. So it looks like just .50 cents more, but it had the potential to be way more then that. (and, if someone else bid $20, they'd be outbid straight away at $20.50 from that $100 bid).

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The problem with that is, what if someone else did the same thing and their max bid was $90, so now you're paying $90.50. Not the safest method by far.

But if you're willing to pay $100 and you get it for only $90.50, you still got it for less than you were willing to pay. What's not safe about that? If you don't want to possibly pay that much, don't bid that much.

#17: Re: How does bidding on Ebay work? Author: Jemofirongate, Location: Essex, United Kingdom

Posted: 0
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Edit: An English auction is the regular I bid $5 you bid $6 you win etc. No ceilings or max bids.

But in a real auction (like in an auction room) there is a ceiling/max bid- this is the amount of money that you have decided before you enter the room that is the maximum amount of money you are willing to spend, and just like on ebay - the guy across the room bidding against you also has a figure in his head. Now he might have fifty bucks in his pocket or he might be loaded and have $1000 but you don't know that!

Either way whether in ebay or in real life, the guy willing to spend most money will win, and how much he pays depends on whether or not their are other bidders and what their maximum bids are because these will push up the price. Sure, even with a max budget of $100, he'd love to win the item for $10 but if someone is willing to pay $50, then he's got to to $60 if he still wants to win.

As to sniping, as others have said if your high bid is less than the other guys, then sniping makes no difference at all to helping you win. The only reason sniping works is because on ebay, the end of an auction is determined by time, not like in an auction room when the auction ends when there are no other people bidding against the high bidder. In this way ebay makes less money, because the chances are that there is someone out there who was willing to bid more than the winning price, but just didn't do it in time. In an auction room that would not happen because the bidding would continue until the 'last man standing'.

I believe your chance of sniping success also relies to a degree on the people your're up against not putting on their max bids, but putting on less, with the intention of increasing it later. Also, I think sometimes people put in their max bid but later decide they are so desperate for the item that they stretch themselves and whack up their limit just before the auction ends in the hope this will win them the item (and then worry about how much theyv'e spent later!)

Jem Happy Pony

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