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3 cents higher

H hanemcmMember
Hi,
I'm wondering why I didn't win something. It's item #7924566961 . It was won for 3.14. My bid for 3.17 was never placed. I gave it an 8 second leeway, because it didn't end on an even 15 minute interval. I know ebay will let you win something even if it's not a whole bid interval above the last bid. There are only 2 other bids.

The status on AS says "READY" - still, even though the auction has ended.
Please help!

Thanks - Janie
Last edited {1}
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puppyraiserpuppyraiserMember
... but the minimum bid is one increment above the current price. If the current price is 3.14, the minumum bid would have been 3.39.

Maximum bids can be within one increment and it IS possible to win by less than a full increment, but minumum bids are always a full increment above current price.

Any bid for 3 cents above the 'current price' will be rejected by eBay as invalid.
C chatterMember
Hane, if the CURRENT winning bid is $3.14, then any bids after that would have to be at least $3.39 to be accepted by eBay. Hence, your $3.17 snipe did not qualify. Bear in mind that you do not know what the winning bidder's max was; you just know that $3.14 was enough to keep him one increment ahead of the second-place bidder.

It IS possible to win by less than a full increment, but this happens only when your snipe comes in first and nearly its entire amount is needed to make you the top bidder, then someone else comes along in the final seconds and his bid is high enough (in terms of increment) to be accepted, but not enough to beat yours, but is a few cents shy of it.

To use your example: Let us say that the full amount of the winning bid is actually $3.68, though it still shows as $3.14. You come along with eight seconds remaining and bid $4.17, so if you could see the auction screen during those fleeting final seconds, you would appear as top bidder at $3.93, which is one .25¢ increment above the now-second place bid of $3.68. (Of course, you probably will not see the screen like that, as this all happens in a matter of seconds.)

Then, with five seconds remaining, another bidder (a sniper, like yourself) places a bid of $4.16. His bid is enough to be accepted by eBay, as it is at least one .25¢ increment above the current high bid of $3.93, and his max amount is posted in the bid history, because it is still lower than your top bid and is entirely used up in his attempt to win.

BUT, since your bid had already been accepted by eBay, and his came after yours (but still met the .25¢ increment he needed to have his bid accepted), his full $4.16 bid appears, but your slightly earlier $4.17 bid prevails, leading you to win the auction by one cent!

It is a tad confusing and happens very, very rarely, and depends on precise amounts being bid at precise times. This should not change one's sniping strategy, because there is no way to anticipate it. Just bid your max ath the last second through AS, and you will be happy. Smile
H hanemcmMember
Chatter, first, I have to say thanks for the time you put into your post. I really appreciate it.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Chatter:
Hane, if the CURRENT winning bid is $3.14, then any bids after that would have to be at least $3.39 to be accepted by eBay. Hence, your $3.17 snipe did not qualify."

But I do it many times!! my last one was item #5325407375
History of bidding:

User ID Bid Amount Date of bid

hanemcm US $34.07 Sep-27-04 09:21:05PDT
helprosemary US $34.00 Sep-27-04 09:14:35PDT
helprosemary US $30.00 Sep-22-04 20:08:16 PDT

I won this item by a mere 7 cents! This has to be because of the ebay rule:

" A bidder may be outbid by less than a full increment. This would happen if the winning bidder's maximum bid beats the second highest maximum by an amount less than the full increment."

My bid of $34.07 beat her bid, because apparently, helprosemary had a max bid of exactly $34.00.

My most recent transaction bid history(the one prompting my original post) was:

User ID Bid Amount Date of bid

kcalm4 US $3.14 Oct-02-04 16:09:53 PDT
librarimom US $2.89 Sep-29-04 12:34:30 PDT

My bid of $3.17 wasn't entered because kcalm4 apparently had a max bid of HIGHER than $3.17.

Puppy, you said "Any bid for 3 cents above the 'current price' will be rejected by eBay as invalid." I think you're wrong here - it's happened to me too many times. I always snipe with odd pennies and very often, I win the item just by those pennies!

I've emailed ebay for what they have to say about it. I'll let you know what they say. Thanks again for your help, everyone.
Hane

J jabbergahMember
Hi Hane!

First off, if Chatter & Puppy explanations haven't cleared this up for you, I certainly don't think I'll be able to do better. I'll just muddle around and see if any thing "clicks" for you.

Quick summary: Chatter & Puppy are CORRECT! Your understanding of how bidding and proxy bids work is a little fuzzy.

quote:
=======
Originally posted by Chatter:
Hane, if the CURRENT winning bid is $3.14, then any bids after that would have to be at least $3.39 to be accepted by eBay. Hence, your $3.17 snipe did not qualify."
=======

But I do it many times!! my last one was item #5325407375
History of bidding:

User ID Bid Amount Date of bid

hanemcm US $34.07 Sep-27-04 09:21:05PDT
helprosemary US $34.00 Sep-27-04 09:14:35PDT
helprosemary US $30.00 Sep-22-04 20:08:16 PDT
The reason you won this auction is because the CURRENT BID of the auction when you placed your bid was $30.00 with helprose's $34 max proxy bid held by Ebay. (NOTE: Ebay would not allow helprose to bid against self!) At that point, the minimum required bid would be $31.00 ($1.00 minimum bid increment at that level). Your bid of $34.07 was above the minimum required, and so was accepted by Ebay as a valid bid. It ALSO happened to be higher than the $34 bid held in proxy, and so you won! Congrats!

BTW, as you already figured out, NOT bidding even amounts is a GOOD IDEA! Wink
quote:
My most recent transaction bid history(the one prompting my original post) was:

User ID Bid Amount Date of bid

kcalm4 US $3.14 Oct-02-04 16:09:53 PDT
librarimom US $2.89 Sep-29-04 12:34:30 PDT

My bid of $3.17 wasn't entered because kcalm4 apparently had a max bid of HIGHER than $3.17.
NOPE! Kcalm4's max bid could have been EXACTLY $3.14 and the exact same thing would have happened in the handling of your bid. The auction starting bid was $2.00. Libr. placed bid of $2.89. When kcalm4 came along, the winning bid displayed on auction screen was $2.00 held by libr. The minimum allowable bid was $2.25 ($0.25 bid increment at this level). Kcalm4 placed a max bid which we have no way of knowing, but it was AT LEAST $3.14. When you came along, the winning bid displayed on the auction screen was $3.14 held by kcalm4. The minimum allowable bid was $3.39 (still $0.25 minimum bid increment). When AS attempted to place your bid of $3.17, ebay would reject it since it didn't exceed the $3.39 minimum allowable bid.
quote:
Puppy, you said "Any bid for 3 cents above the 'current price' will be rejected by eBay as invalid." I think you're wrong here - it's happened to me too many times. I always snipe with odd pennies and very often, I win the item just by those pennies!
Puppy's right, but perhaps a clearer(?) way to say it would be: "Any bid for less than 1 bid increment above the CURRENT AUCTION WINNING BID will be rejected by eBay as invalid." If you doubt this statement, go to ANY auction and try to bid LESS than what ebay states is the minimum valid bid -- ebay will not allow it.
quote:
I've emailed ebay for what they have to say about it. I'll let you know what they say.
It will be interesting to see if they have ANYTHING to say about it other than to refer you to the bid increment help page. <Like this>

Understanding/analyzing bid histories will be simple and even fun for you once you "get it"! Smile
Last edited by jabbergah
puppyraiserpuppyraiserMember
Lets try this another way.

Lets suppose there is an auction with an opening price of $10. Bidder A places a proxy bid of $20. eBay shows a current price of $10 with Bidder A winning. The minimum bid for the next bidder would be 10.50. (one increment above current price)

You come along and snipe for 20.03, and that would be fine with eBay because 20.03 is above the minimum. (10.50) You would also win by 3 cents.

Now, before your snipe, suppose bidder B had joined in and placed a proxy bid for 19.25. eBay would show bidder A still in the lead, but the current price has been raised to $19.75

Your snipe for 20.03 isn't accepted in this case, because it's not a full increment above the current price. Your bid would have to be at least $20.25 (one increment above 19.75)
H hanemcmMember
Hey - Anyone have anymore of that humble pie?? I think I could eat a few more pieces!!

You guys are REALLY good - and THOROUGH!! Wonderful and clear explanations - all of them - and better than what I got from ebay! They did explain it, but not in the detail that I got from you!
I do stand corrected and enlightened!! Yes, thanks to your perserverance, it has finally sunk in. Did you all feel like you were beating me over the head with it? Sometimes that's what it takes!

I said I'd pass on what I got from ebay. Here it is:
***************************
"In regards to your bid for $20.01, ... If an item's current
price is at $20.00 the system won't even allow it. You will see
something to the effect of please place a bid of "Please enter $20.50 or
more."
However, if the item's current price is at $19.50, you can place a bid
for $20.01. So when another person comes along and bids $20.00. The bid
of $20.01 will still win."
***************************

Thank you all for your patience AND the time you took to help me out!! I truly do get it now!
Now, you'll have to excuse me while I get back to my pie!

Enlightened in Dowingtown,
Janie

rickrickMember
quote:
Originally posted by jakedduck:
Thanks for not mentioning any names Puppy
How about that? d’Duck is a Pre-Millennium ebayer by almost a year!!! Puppy might be runner up. Hopefully I haven’t created yet another legend in his own mind. Sorry Chatter; you aren’t even in the competition on this one. If d’Jake starts posting the number of months he’s been on ebay, then it will be something I have to live with.

Anybody that likes cats has potential.
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2004-2/639552/Megan.gif

Anybody that likes ANY ANIMAL has potential.
rickrickMember
quote:
I've signed up with them, but can't seem to figure out how to find their animated cartoons. Do you know how to get to them?
If you search Internet for “animated” or “cartoons” you find a bunch of stuff. I don’t have any sites, but that is *definitely* Mrs. M’s area of expertise.

quote:
by the way, Megan is a beautiful cat - is she yours?
No. She belongs to Jake. She IS a beauty (the cat - don't have a picture of Jake).
mrsmmrsmMember
Janie, hope you don't mind, I copied it from your post!!

I use Village also, but if I want animations I go to google as others here do also. A good all around animation site is http://www.animationlibrary.com/a-l/ Although, you will find thousands more on google. I generally use Village for storage. If you look at the top of the sign on page, you will see where to look at anyone's open animations. Not usually too thrilling.
rickrickMember
M said:
quote:
I use Village also, but if I want animations I go to google as others here do also. A good all around animation site is http://www.animationlibrary.com/a-l/ Although, you will find thousands more on google. I generally use Village for storage. If you look at the top of the sign on page, you will see where to look at anyone's open animations. Not usually too thrilling.
Was I right, or was I right? The animation queen.
F feedingseagullsMember
This thread prompted me to a thought about the manual sniping I used to do. I used to go through the 'place a bid' button and enter the figure on the next page then confirm it but on the next page not 'submit' yet. 2 'backs' then gets you to the item decscription to monitor it - in the last few secs you go 'forward' 2 pages and hit submit.

NOW for the 'meat'

Because the 'current' winning bid value is checked on the screen where the new bid figures were entered perhaps 10 mins ago this check is done on old data. So my question is whether this can lead you to a lower than standard increment win?

Scenario: I get my bid ready to go when the item price is 10 and prepare a bid of 20.66 - then go and monitor the situation and keep track of time - say a new bidder 'Fred' comes in and is shown as having a highest bid of 14.50 - then as I head off through the 'forward' keys to submit my bid someone else has processed a bid of 20.50 in the face of Fred's bid which had a max of 20.25 - now I don't know about this as I hit the 'submit' button - my question is whether this bid would be rejected - because the check is normally carried out on the page I bypassed at the end of the auction - and when I keyed it it was ok.

I have a sneaking suspicion that in these circumstances my new bid might stand and win the auction. It could happen fairly normally with two bidders both placing bids at almost the same time so both going the the usual increment check against an earlier and lower bid - then both hitting submit.

Anyone got any opinions on this?
puppyraiserpuppyraiserMember
Most manual snipers use two windows rather than the forward and back buttons, and have the submit screen ready for 10 minutes or more. You're idea is logical, but don't believe it would work that way. eBay must go through all the checks again once the submit button is hit. Otherwise, we might see it quite often on sniped auctions.

I *have* seen 'invalid' bids recorded at eBay in the bid history. It does happen, however not for the reason you suspect.

Lets suppose there is an auction with an opening price of $10... no bids yet, but two snipers want to bid. Sniper A bids 10.01 and sniper B bids 10.02

If sniper A bids first, B's bid should be rejected as too low. It's rare, but sometimes B's bid is accepted!!! Here's why.

The two bids arrive at eBay very close together, (guessing here... within 1 or 2 milliseconds of each other). A's bid arrives and processing at eBay begins. If B's bid arrives before eBay finishes processing and recording A's bid, eBay will accept B's bid and 'work it out' at auction end. Both bids are recorded in the history, and B wins by one cent. If the bids are the same amount, A wins the tie, even if only by a few milliseconds.
rickrickMember
quote:
I have a sneaking suspicion that in these circumstances my new bid might stand and win the auction.
If I’m understanding this correctly, it's hard to believe that ebay wouldn’t have already discovered this problem, especially considering the number of bids they have processed. One way to test this is to try this on the start of some auction. Leave the “confirm” window open and wait for someone to bid. It might take a day or two, but then you could do it on multiple auctions.

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