This is really more of a question to confirm what I’m reading in the bidding overview page.
There’s a collectable my wife really wants. We’ve done our research, reading feedback, googling/facebooking on the seller, emailing the seller asking some questions, etc, and we’re 99.9999+% sure that the item is genuine (unlike my “on-set Titanic script” way back in 2000 which was nothing more than the movie typed up in script form.)
Since I’ve been hearing about her desire for this type of collectable for a long, long (long!) time, I’m prepared to overpay. They don’t come on the market very often (this particular item was sold at an auction at a very reputable auction house in London, so I’ve traced its history).
Being unfamiliar with Ebay, I am wondering about the maximum bid and how it works. Assume the following:
My current max bid is $100,
Because of other bids, the actual highest bid is $50 (and I know that this highest bid is $50 because it is my bid), and
As higher bids are placed by other potential buyers, my max bid trumps theirs by $10.
What would be the amount that I pay if I raise my max bid to $300 (like I said, I’m willing to overpay) and the following occurs:
Nobody else bids on the item.
Somebody bids $150 on the item.
Judging from what I read in the above link, here is what I think the answers to these questions are:
Even though I tripled my max bid, I would still only pay $50.
I would pay $160 for the item
Given the rules of Ebay, am I correct? Or would I be forced to pay $300 for the item because I told Ebay that’s the maximum I’m willing to pay?
Also, how do I find out if there’s a sellers minimum on the item? I don’t see anything on the item itself that says there is one…
You are correct. You can raise your maximum bid, but it won’t affect the current price unless someone enters a higher bid. Then Ebay on your behalf would put in a new bid for you at the next higher bid level. (I don’t remember the bid increments off hand, but they are pretty small). Ebay will continue to bid for you right up to your max bid.
The problem I found with using Ebay to bid for you is that a less than honest seller can use a shill account to force your bid up. I prefer to watch an item that I am interested in and bid during the last few seconds. Sniping in other words. This keeps the shilling in check and can be effective in “stealing” an auction at the last minute. Of course if this is a must have item, sniping is probably not the way to go. In this case I think I would rely on the Ebay max bid option.
I disagree. Even if it’s a must-have item, I think sniping is always the way to go. Just put in your absolute maximum in the last few seconds of the auction.
I recommend going with two windows, one with the bid entered on the “bid confirmation” screen, and ready to hit the bid button. And the other window for watching the timer.
In your case your answer is exactly correct. Entering a new maximum bid when you’re currently the highest bid can up your bid in one circumstance.
You bid $150 and are currently high bid at $50
Someone else bids $149 – you are still currently high bid at $150
You increase your maximum bid to $200 – you are now currently high bid at $160.
eBay ups your bid to $10 (or whatever the minimum increment is at that level) over the competing bid. When some one bid $149 it could not do this for you as you’d previously bid only $150 as a maximum, but now it can do so, and does.
If there’ a seller’s minimum (called a “reserve”) it would be clearly indicated next to the current noted price and it would also be clear if the reserve had been met or not yet
If there is no reserve set, the seller must take the highest bid at the close of the auction, whatever it happens to be.
Many items, even high value items, do not have a reserve.
As others have already noted, you always pay the high winning bid, NOT the maximum you offered to pay. And there is no penalty for raising your maximum bid - you never “bid against yourself”. Ebay will always upbid you by the minimum needed to win, this is called “proxy bidding.”
So, let’s say the item is currently $50 with $10 bid increments, as you stated, and your maximum is set to 150. Another guy comes along and bids $60. Ebay instantly bids you up by the minimum needed for you to still be the winner ($70) It keeps doing this, if made necessary by other bidders, until your max is reached and another guy becomes the leader. if no other person comes along and bids, you will be the winner at $70. In a tie, the earlier bid wins, so a later bidder must always bid MORE than you did to outbid you. Let’s say you had maxed at $150, and another guy bid $150. As the earlier bid, you would still be the winner, at $150.
“Sniping” is when someone attempts to upbid by the minimum in the last seconds of the auction. This is generally unsucessful if you’ve used the proxy bidding system, because the sniper would only win if he correctly guessed your maximum bid. Some people are silly and manually increase their bids as the auction goes along, instead of setting the max they were willing to pay from the beginning. They can be more easily sniped.
No - upbidding by the minimum in the last few seconds is called snibbling. As you mentioned, it’s only effective against another nibbler who was banking on a chance to come back and do the same thing if he’s outbid. It won’t work against an early proxy bidder who’s got his maximum in place.
Sniping is bidding your maximum, all at once, in the last few seconds of the auction. Basically, it’s exactly the same as proxy bidding, it’s just timed. And the sniper’s timing makes absolutely no difference to an early proxy bidder who’s also bid his or her max. If you bid $150 and I bid $100, you’ll win for $110 (given the theoretical increment), regardless of when in the auction each of us bids.
No, its exactly the same as snibbling, because a sniper won’t win either except against another nibbler, or if his max was the highest anyway, in which case there is no reason to wait for the last few seconds.
ETA: at the end of the day it’s not terribly important what term is used. Let’s not get off on a digression. I’ll say no more on the subject.
We’ve had some heated discussions about ebay here, with arguments for and against sniping.
I think most experienced ebayers think sniping works.
An inexperienced sniper tries to guess what he/she can get it for based on the current price in the waning seconds of an auction.
An smarter approach is to bid the absolute highest amount you’d feel good about in the final seconds. Going from $150 to $300 sounds impressive----until you find another sniper who’s willing to pay $310, WITH 2 SECONDS LEFT.
If $500 is actually the sum you’d feel good about, bid the $500. As the other posters have told you—and you surmised from reading the rules—the ebay proxy system won’t force you to pay the $500; only one bid increment over the next higher bidder.
I’ve bid $1000 for an item that I reasonably sure wouldn’t go over $400, but I was willing to way over pay, and I was concerned that there might be another sniper out there who wanted as bad as I did.
Be careful though…there may be someone out there who is willing over pay also. If you bid the $500, you may be forced to actually pay it.
ETA. Internet connections can be fickle. I’ve played around and gotten within 2 seconds of an auction ending.
I’ve also lost an auction because I cut it too close. I have a standard Time Warner broadband connection and my bid goes in 10-15 seconds before the end of the auction.
I agree with this. Especially on a rare item, there may be someone else willing to overpay. If you bid a high amount in advance, someone may nibble at it (i.e. bid up incrementally) over time. It may motivate them to outbid you. If you put in your maximum bid just before closing, they won’t have time to react.
I generally use a proxy bidding service (bidnapper.com) for those must-have items.
I definitely agree with the sniping recommendation, as a long-time eBay buyer and seller. I use Bid-o-matic, which is free. But the Help files are in German, so you might not want to try it out on a must-have item.
So, given my desire for this item, what I’m getting from this thread is that the optimum strategy is to do nothing until ~2-3 minutes prior to auction ending, then snipe with my maximum bid, hoping that I leave all others without enough time to break my winning bid.
So in the above scenario, I wouldn’t enter that $300 bid until the bid timer is ~2 minutes. I should still do the $300 bid regardless of whether my $50 is the highest bid, as there may be somebody who wants to trump that $50 and wants to snipe with a $100 bid.
I can see the wisdom in this as it prevents emotions from running high - last thing I want to do is get the other bidders emotionally invested in beating me as all that does is raise the price.
Ending time on this item is during the work day, but at a time where I can take a lunch break and be at home. So I’ll likely do the two windows thing - one for the timer, the other with my max bid already entered, ready for me to click the button.
I’ve found the ipad app is very fast and alerts me with a pop-up (provided you enable push notifications) as soon as somebody has outbid me. Using this ap, I have been able to respond by increasing my bid even with very few seconds left on the clock. On the other hand, the email notification can take several minutes to arrive.
They don’t come on the market very often (this particular item was sold at an auction at a very reputable auction house in London, so I’ve traced its history).