Thanks for attempting to explain this new AuctionSniper feature that, frankly, I think has quite a few of us confused!
I must admit I'm with FearlessCrusader. If I set a "max" bid that I would like AS to adjust upward by several bid increments, then that "max" wasn't my "TRUE max" at all!
(Before I go any further, I must apologize for the example I presented in my last post. I set my snipe in my hypothetical situation in the vicinty of a bid increment change (from $0.50 to $1.00 at a $25 bid). That was unintentional and only serves to add to the confusion!
SORRY!)OK, I think you may be mistaken in explaining how the bid increment feature works in your hypothetical case 1. With a max snipe bid set at $30 and bid increment set at 3, I would think AS would place my adjusted snipe at $33. Yet you're suggesting that AS would place a snipe at $83?!?
That would be a full 53 bid increments above my snipe price!?! If that's indeed the case, I KNOW I won't be using the feature!! Now I don't think that's the way it works because I've already tried the feature in two auctions. In both auctions, by the end of the auction the winning bid had moved well beyond my max snipe price plus my set added bid increments, and AS did NOT place a bid (which is what I would expect it to do).Now you went to great lengths to explain why 1 bid increment just doesn't make any sense in the new bid enhancement feature. Yet, I'm not convinced. Actually, I'm even more resolved that ONE bid increment is the ONLY setting that makes any sense, and is the one I'd be likely to use REGULARLY! Let me explain.
I, like all veteran snipers, have learned to carefully determine what our TRUE MAXIMUM bid is to load into the sniper software. This is the price at which I'd be happy to win. If the winning bid exceeds my max, I'll be disappointed I lost the auction, but NOT disappointed that I didn't bid higher amount. If it turns out I AM disappointed that I didn't bid a higher amount, then I didn't really set my TRUE MAX in the first place! If I'm setting my MAX BID correctly, and the bidding goes beyond my MAX, then I DON'T WANT TO WIN! -- NOT at THAT PRICE!
Now here is where the 1 bid increment makes sense. I have on occasion LOST an auction to a bidder for LESS than my set snipe MAX price. My snipe doesn't fire because of the bid increment constraints. Here's an example: I set a snipe at $50. The winning bid when it is time for the snipe to fire stands at $49.01. My snipe won't fire in this case because the next legal bid due to bid increments is $50.01, which exceeds my max snipe amount. In fact, I will lose to ALL the lower bids from $49.01 up to and including my snipe amount of $50.00. IN THIS CASE, I think I'm willing most of the time to exceed my MAX snipe by JUST ONE BID INCREMENT to avoid missing out bidding against that $49.01, $49.24, $49.59 bid and all those other bids less than 1 bid increment lower than my set snipe max.
Actually, now that I think about it and work thru this hypothetical case, I think I can make a strong case for a 1/2 bid increment setting!! I may be willing to give it a go against bids of $49.01 thru $49.50, but I REALLY don't want to bid more than $50.50, which would represent a half a bid increment over my predetermined MAX! Thereby, I would be willing to concede victory to bids $49.51 thru $50. To my way of thinking, bid enhancement settings of 1/2, 1, 1.5 make a whole lot more sense to me than the current 2, 3, 4, etc. Personally, I probably would only ever use either the 1/2 or 1 bid increment settings because in most cases I'm pretty firm on what my predetermined MAXIMUM BID is.
I hope this makes sense and adds to the discussion.
Now I'm still a little unclear about how the current system is setup to work? In the above case with a $50 snipe, if the bid enhancement is set to 2 bid increments what actually happens?
If the pre snipe winning bid is $49.01, what bid does AS place? $50.01? $51.01? $52?
If the pre snipe winning bid is $49.95, what bid does AS place? $50.95? $51.95? $52?
If the pre snipe winning bid is $50.08, what bid does AS place? $51.08? $52?
In all cases, I'm thinking the sniped bid would be $52. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
If the pre snipe winning bid is $48.50, what bid does AS place? $50? $52? or $50 THEN $52 if necessary?
It doesn't make sense to me for AS to be placing more than one snipe -- it feels like nibbling instead of sniping! It also doesn't make sense to me for the feature to even come into play unless the current bid exceeds the preset snipe max bid OR AS is constrained from bidding because of bid increment issues (as described above).