I've looked through the FAQ on Ebay and even called customer service, but the girl I talked to was an idiot and I couldn't get a straight answer.

So, I am currently the only bidder on an item, I bid the minimum amount at 16$

Lets say I want to increase my highest bid to increase my chances of winning, at 30$.

Someone else comes along and bids 17$.

I win the item.

Do I pay the 30$ or the 17$? Or would it be like 17.50$?

Now, let's say I increase my max bid to 30$, before anyone else bids, in anticipation for scalping during the last couple of minutes. But no one else bids on the item and I win. Would I then have to pay 30$? Or the last amount I bid, at 16$?

I know this seems silly to ask, but I'm used to using the Buy Now option, and I normally don't bid higher than the minimum to get ahead.

[moved to TS - kaoskat]

In the first case you'll get it at 17.5 or 18$
In the second case you'll get it at 16$

There's no silly question, we all wondered about bidding at some point!

A teacher of mine once said "if you have a question, someone may be wondering the same thing!"

It's incremental, so you only pay $30 if you were to outbid someone who put, say, $29.

Honestly I'm still a little confused. I understand the scenarios in the first post, but after looking at ebays bidding explanation I'm confused too. It states that other buyers and the seller are not aware of your maximum bid, but don't they have to be in order to have any chance of winning an item?

I'll use a real scenario from the other day. I saw a springy and a zebra, with a starting bid of $7.99. Someone had bid the starting $7.99, and I highballed it at $15 to have a good chance of winning.

Now for anyone else bidding, wouldn't they be required to bid more that $15.00, my maximum bid? Or would they only have to bid higher than $8.49, the next increment up? Because then ebay would be setting you up to fail since my maximum is higher than yours and they would just automatically increase my bid and I would have won. Why would ebay let you bid under someone else's maximum amount if they're just going to auto increase that persons bid so they win? Then it becomes a guessing game of what the other person's max bid is.

I ended up losing the auction, and they paid $15.50. So was their maximum bid higher than mine? That doesn't seem fair, because I was set up to lose from the beginning since I have no idea what their max bid is. Why wouldn't ebay just say what the max is so I could actually have some shot at the item?


I've got myself all confused now

its at 7.99.. you hav a 15 on it./.. so if i come and bid... say.. 10, it will tell me im Outbid, then ill put in 13, it will say im out bid.. so then i go to 15.01 and i will be the higest bidder.. Ebay will always bid i think its.20 higher than what i have put.. so, just say i give up at 13, then ebay put the bid at 13, and thats yours.. so you will pay that... simple??PS..

___________________________________

ps if you lost out.. it ment that they thought it was worth paying More than the 15... Normally they will wait till the last min to bid.. that way its harder for you to get your bid in on time..

[Please edit your previous post instead of posting after yourself. - kaoskat]

gizooty wrote:

its at 7.99.. you hav a 15 on it./.. so if i come and bid... say.. 10, it will tell me im Outbid, then ill put in 13, it will say im out bid.. so then i go to 15.01 and i will be the higest bidder.. Ebay will always bid i think its.20 higher than what i have put.. so, just say i give up at 13, then ebay put the bid at 13, and thats yours.. so you will pay that... simple??PS..

What I don't understand though is why ebay would even LET you bid $10, when my max is $15. That's just setting you up to fail. Why wouldn't they force you to start bidding above my maximum at $15.01 so you'd have a shot?

They display "sorry you've been outbid" in that case.

It's called the proxy bidding system I think? Or maybe an automatic bidding system?

Your high bid is kept secret, so other bidders do not know what they need to bid in order to outbid you.

So if you bid 30, and someone comes in and bids 15, e-bay automaticly updates the high bid to 16 (depending on the bid incriments set by the seller), and still shows you as the cuttent high bid. It's almost like e-bay is bidding on your behalf based on what your high bid is.

Now if that person bid 31, then it would show that you have been outbid, and that the new bidder is the high bidder on the auction.

Rhini wrote:

gizooty wrote: its at 7.99.. you hav a 15 on it./.. so if i come and bid... say.. 10, it will tell me im Outbid, then ill put in 13, it will say im out bid.. so then i go to 15.01 and i will be the higest bidder.. Ebay will always bid i think its.20 higher than what i have put.. so, just say i give up at 13, then ebay put the bid at 13, and thats yours.. so you will pay that... simple??PS.. What I don't understand though is why ebay would even LET you bid $10, when my max is $15. That's just setting you up to fail. Why wouldn't they force you to start bidding above my maximum at $15.01 so you'd have a shot?

It wouldn't make sense if they didn't let other people bid just because you have the highest bid.

Then all you would have to do is put a bid for a million dollars on every item. Since no one is going to outbid you, the beginning bid would always be the last bid.

That wouldn't make much sense would it?

There is no bidding system that works that way except for silent auctions.

RockinPrettyBeats wrote:

Rhini wrote: gizooty wrote: its at 7.99.. you hav a 15 on it./.. so if i come and bid... say.. 10, it will tell me im Outbid, then ill put in 13, it will say im out bid.. so then i go to 15.01 and i will be the higest bidder.. Ebay will always bid i think its.20 higher than what i have put.. so, just say i give up at 13, then ebay put the bid at 13, and thats yours.. so you will pay that... simple??PS.. What I don't understand though is why ebay would even LET you bid $10, when my max is $15. That's just setting you up to fail. Why wouldn't they force you to start bidding above my maximum at $15.01 so you'd have a shot? It wouldn't make sense if they didn't let other people bid just because you have the highest bid. Then all you would have to do is put a bid for a million dollars on every item. Since no one is going to outbid you, the beginning bid would always be the last bid. That wouldn't make much sense would it? There is no bidding system that works that way except for silent auctions.

Actually, as I understand it, ebay is very similar a silent auction. It's a proxy auction. Wikipedia says it better than I can:

"In a standard first-price English auction the winner pays the amount of their bid, regardless of competitors' bids, and it is therefore desirable to place a bid that exceeds the current highest bid by the smallest possible increment. Under proxy bidding, however, the price paid is determined only by competitors' bids and not by the amount of the new bid, and so there is no economically rational incentive to place a bid below the amount one is willing to pay, or to place multiple increasing bids. An "economically rational" bidder will therefore bid the maximum amount they are willing to pay on their first bid, and never raise their bid."

I was under the impression that ebay was a standard English auction, since it does a very poor job of telling you otherwise, and I wasn't placing bids for the max amount I was willing to pay.

In truth, you do the other buyer a disservice by bidding at all. If I see an item I want and $10, and set my max bid at $20, only to be outbid, I have increased their price to $20.50 and will not continue to bid since that was my maximum price. Had I known there was a higher ceiling than I was willing to go, I wouldn't have bid in the first place, and they would have gotten the item for $10 barring any other bidders. They're obviously still getting a deal because they're not paying their max price, but they're definitely getting less of one because I unwittingly drove the price up. I suppose they use this system to prevent sniping, but if you snipe above the max bid it works anyways.

In the end, the result is the same if you have placed your max bid and someone goes higher. With this style of auction though you are forced to bid to be made aware of the other buyers true offer and will drive up the price for the other buyer. I suppose I simply prefer the openness of an English auction, instead of this bidding guessing game.

Quote::

In truth, you do the other buyer a disservice by bidding at all. If I see an item I want and $10, and set my max bid at $20, only to be outbid, I have increased their price to $20.50 and will not continue to bid since that was my maximum price.

No. If the other buyer is willing to pay more than you, it isn't a disservice at all. They may still feel they are getting a deal at that price, and often they are.

Ebay is a proxy auction. Your bid is always kept a secret. RPB has the right of it, if you could always bid a million and never be outbid it wouldn't be an auction, it would be a buy. Sniping is about the only way to get anything you really want. If you're not going to snipe, place you max bid and walk away. When the auction is over, you'll either have won or not. Then you won't have had to play "the guessing game" at all.

Quote::

I ended up losing the auction, and they paid $15.50. So was their maximum bid higher than mine? That doesn't seem fair, because I was set up to lose from the beginning since I have no idea what their max bid is. Why wouldn't ebay just say what the max is so I could actually have some shot at the item?

Yep. it's fair. What you are supposed to do, is enter the maximum YOU are willing to spend. So, if you lose. Oh well, someone else wanted it more. If you do this too early in an auction, someone else will often bid, and bid, and bid and needlessly drive up the price. It's wiser to wait until it's close to ending if possible. (I ONLY bid early if it's a single, low bid). Don't listen to ebay "bid early, bid often" That is only good for them, and the seller!

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).

I like that no one can see what my real maximum is. Could you imagine? "Uh, I see you won my auction. It ended for $25, but I see you were willing to spent $100. I'd like the $100, or I'll cancel and relist" Or, someone else coming along and bidding $99- JUST to make you pay more. No thanks!

I can't imagine how anyone can thinking the bidding system on Ebay is unfair. I mean, there is a lot of things wrong with Ebay, but this is not one of them.

No, a silent auction is when everyone puts in their top bids. They will only pay their top bids and no less. The person that is selling the item picks the person with the top bid and sells it to them at that price. as you can see, that's not at all what Ebay does.

What do you mean by English auctions?

If you go to a real live auction you are doing the exact same thing. The only difference is that the "top bid" for a person is in their head, rather than entered into a computer. So you are still doing a "disservice" by bidding at all.

Maybe you just don't like auctions? Some people by nature don't like bidding, bargaining, negotiating, etc and prefer set prices. Many people get offended at the thought of there not being a set price for everything for some reason.

Skeen wrote:

Quote:: In truth, you do the other buyer a disservice by bidding at all. If I see an item I want and $10, and set my max bid at $20, only to be outbid, I have increased their price to $20.50 and will not continue to bid since that was my maximum price. No. If the other buyer is willing to pay more than you, it isn't a disservice at all. They may still feel they are getting a deal at that price, and often they are. Ebay is a proxy auction. Your bid is always kept a secret. RPB has the right of it, if you could always bid a million and never be outbid it wouldn't be an auction, it would be a buy. Sniping is about the only way to get anything you really want. If you're not going to snipe, place you max bid and walk away. When the auction is over, you'll either have won or not. Then you won't have had to play "the guessing game" at all.

Like I stated right after "They're obviously still getting a deal because they're not paying their max price, but they're definitely getting less of one because I unwittingly drove the price up."

I think RPB misunderstands what I meant. Certainly it wouldn't be fair to let someone control auctions with ridiculous high bids, but if it were a standard system if you bid a million, you'd pay a million. I just think it's so much easier to do things the way you would at any live auction and pay the amount you bid.

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.

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).

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.

RockinPrettyBeats wrote:

I can't imagine how anyone can thinking the bidding system on Ebay is unfair. I mean, there is a lot of things wrong with Ebay, but this is not one of them. No, a silent auction is when everyone puts in their top bids. They will only pay their top bids and no less. The person that is selling the item picks the person with the top bid and sells it to them at that price. as you can see, that's not at all what Ebay does. What do you mean by English auctions? If you go to a real live auction you are doing the exact same thing. The only difference is that the "top bid" for a person is in their head, rather than entered into a computer. So you are still doing a "disservice" by bidding at all. Maybe you just don't like auctions? Some people by nature don't like bidding, bargaining, negotiating, etc and prefer set prices. Many people get offended at the thought of there not being a set price for everything for some reason.

I suppose not unfair, but disappointing when I think I have a chance at winning something because it says the bid is only $8.50, only to realize the other seller is actually offering way more than that.

How is that not similar? On ebay, theoretically everyone puts in their top bids as well and if you don't meet the maximum bid (which you dont know, same as a silent auction) you lose. You just get much quicker feedback on if you've lost or not.

I like bidding/bargaining/etc just fine and always haggle when I have an opportunity.

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