I Want Contigency Bids NOW!!

You might want to also send this request to suggestions@auctionsniper.com. It’s a great idea, and seems like it has a fair amount of interest with the users, even if AS support disagrees.

Thanks - I just emailed them!

I have given up asking for that type of bid groups. I was gray when I started, now I have one claw in the grave and the other on a cactus.

They just do not want to do something we all want. Just something they want I think.

Well... they are not really interested in improving the service per se. At this point they are really only interested in selling out to Google and so contingency bidding is not planned as this does not materially enhance the saleability of the enterprise, because Google could add the function in short order with about 10 hours of programming/engineering time

Sweet, AuctionSniperTube.com

Come and get us Google, lol!

Actually we aren't adding that feature because few if any would use it, and it would complicate the site and user interface which would actually cost us money.

If we added it would you pay 3%? We may need to up the fees for bid groups as well. Very few use that and we end up doing 10x the work because far more bids are needed to finally win the item. It results in far more support as well. Then when it breaks, because we have to be super sure that they haven't already won an item, people lose confidence. It probably costs us more in lost customers than the feature makes.

quote:

We may need to up the fees for bid groups as well. Very few use that

Really?!? The majority of my snipes are fired out of bid groups.

quote:

Originally posted by Sniper Sara B.:

If we added it would you pay 3%?

Yes, I personally would. It means more to overseas bidders, I imagine, of which I'm one, but there are many many overseas bidders who use AS, I'm sure. It's very often that I wish there were a contingency bidding function, because shipment costs are a huge component of my all-in cost, and combined shipping means a lot.

If one just looks at how often ebay sellers like to emphasize that they are indeed happy to combine shipping, that alone should indicate how relevant and important contingency bidding may be for AS users.

Maybe I could ask... has AS done any actual market research in this? By market research, I mean like simply an email to AS subscribers (or, hell, just overseas subscribers), asking them if they would find the function
A. Very useful
B. Possibly useful or
C. Not useful.
(And if you answered A or B, would you be willing to pay more than usual for successful bids in that context, A. yes, B. maybe, C. no and don't bother me any more)
Well, I bet AS hasn't done any research of the sort. So how does AS actually know the demand does not justify the trouble. AS doesn't. It's pure guessing on AS's part, isn't it? Why not at least try a survey like that. Just limit it to overseas registrants if you like.

quote:

Originally posted by Sniper Sara B.:
We may need to up the fees for bid groups as well. Very few use that and we end up doing 10x the work because far more bids are needed to finally win the item. It results in far more support as well. Then when it breaks, because we have to be super sure that they haven't already won an item, people lose confidence. It probably costs us more in lost customers than the feature makes.

That's a rather defeatist-sounding thing to say. "...when it breaks...". Ha! For example I would use bid groups a lot more often if it hadn't friggin "broken" both times I used it. Also, whenever anyone sets bidgroups for Sunday night, it might help if AS flashed a bright red warning that AS recommend that the intervals between items would have to be much longer than usual in order to be confident bidgroups will function correctly, due to insuperable difficulties in ensuring log-ons. Like some peopple like R2 have repeatedly suggested, open and clear information and warnings would be a great way of minimizing discontent following failed bidgroups, and other hiccups. (Incidentally, in retrospect I see that both times I tried and failed with bidgroups, these were items that ended on the dreaded Sunday nite.) Of course, the first order of business would be technical improvements if possible, to try to reduce log-on problems and so forth, but very simple (I imagine) enhancements like added reminders and warnings would help.

Here are some previous posts on contingency bidding:

quote:

Originally posted by Sniper Sara B.:
We'd like to add this feature if we get a chance. It's on the list. However, it's one of those type of things where most people wouldnt use it. So we generally try to add things that would be useful to the most people when we add them. Eventually we'll run out of those types of things and will end up adding this

quote:

Originally posted by Sniper Sara B.:
Yes, the feature has been requested before, and one we've thought of for just the reason you mention, to save on shipping.

It's one of the better suggestions made as far as functionality, but as Steve mentioned our main concerns are how many people would use it, and how much would it clutter the already busy interface we have or confush people using the other bid group type.

It'll remain something high up on our list of features and if we can think of a way, or our site ever changes in a way that allows it to be added we can do it then.

quote:

Originally posted by Sniper Sara B.:
This is something we call contigency bidding and we dont have such a feature yet.

It basically allows you to set a condition whereby a snipe is only placed if you won an item of your choosing before that snipe.

I think it would be a cool feature but I've only heard it asked for once before. It would probably be something hard to program and most people wouldn't use or know how to use so it's not something likely to be added, but you never know.

Sara does/did seem to like the idea.

1. I doubt if I am the only person who has asked for it. Since they say only one person asked.

2. I use bid groups all the time. That is normally the only way I bid.

3. As I said earlier in this thread. I have given up asking for this feature. I have gotten tired of sounding like a parrot instead of the old buzzard that I am.

quote:

Originally posted by Sniper Sara B.:
Actually we aren't adding that feature because few if any would use it

Who would have thought that during declining consumption of coffee the public would be willing to pay $3.00 for a cup of coffee? Starbucks did! Who would have thought that the public would be willing to pay premium prices at grocery stores when that industry’s conventional wisdom was that the lowest priced provider would be the winner? Whole Foods did! Who would have thought that the Edsel . . . retract that example.

I don’t understand why AS hasn’t provided contingency bid groups when there has been demand for it (at least on the forum) and ebay doesn’t provide that service, nor does anyone else. But then, I don’t understand why AS did provide “My Watches” when there was no demand for it (at least on the forum) and ebay does provide that service, and a better one. Guess it’s time to give up my dream of being a sniping service mogul.

quote:

I don’t understand why AS...<snip>... my dream of being a sniping service mogul.

EXCELLENT argument!

Hi everyone,

I'm new to this forum, but not to Auction Sniper.

I have a couple of comments on this topic:

Regarding the question of whether enough people would make use of a contingency bid function - I have been using A.S. for years, and I never even knew that Bid Groups existed. I'm not complaining about that, because I could have looked around the website at any time. My point is that maybe more A.S. users would use Bid Groups if they knew it existed! Therefore, it only seems logical that if a contingency bid function were created, a whole lot of people would use it if they knew it existed. I mean, what a great idea! There's a lot of money to be made there.

To A.S. staff: Why don't you try a simple email to everyone telling of the existence of Bid Groups, and see what happens?

My second point: regarding Sara B.'s comment as to the difficulty of programming a contingency bid system - it's not likely to be any more difficult than creating the Bid Group function was. In fact, it's likely to be much easier because you're not reinventing the wheel.

Yes we ran a poll and received about 1000 replies. Hardly anyone wanted it.

Do people know about bidgroups? We wondered about that too and asked that in the poll.

and the survey said?

Results of AS’ Marketing Survey

999 respondents wanted to know what “contingency” meant.
999 respondents wanted “My Watches” added.



All right – confess. Which one of you voted wrong?

What DOES "contingancy" mean?? I can't find it in my dictionary?!?

quote:

Originally posted by Jabbergah:
What DOES "contingancy" mean?? I can't find it in my dictionary?!?

c/o WordWeb:
Noun: contingency
1. A possible event or occurrence or result
2. The state of being contingent on something

It's always good to start with the correct spelling.

Jabber must have gotten AS’ market survey.

Apologies for not being thorough in supplying ALL the results of the survey. Over 50% of those that responded stated that they had recently sighted Elvis.

quote:

responded stated that they had recently sighted Elvis.

Why of course! I'm wearing a pair right now! Oh wait....you said ELVIS...I thought you said LEVIS! DANG THAT DISLEXIA!!!

quote:

Originally posted by Jabbergah:
Why of course! I'm wearing a pair right now! Oh wait....you said ELVIS...I thought you said LEVIS! DANG THAT DISLEXIA!!!

Please dont use my name in vain...oh?..never mind

quote:

Please dont use my name in vain...oh?..never mind

I got it...eventually!

meh, I know, it was a poorly attempt, but I should get credit for trying!!

I'm new here, so bear with if I ask some dumb questions. Q1: I know what "contingency" means, but can someone point me to a good explanation of contingency I]bidding[/I]?

Also: Is there a way we could authorize AS to attempt in the few seconds remaining to "add pennies" if there's, say, less than a dollar difference between our snipe and a higher proxy bid? I just lost an item even though I was high bidder! Arrrgh.

Tom

Contingency bidding is a decision based process - if I win (or lose) this item then do (or don't) bid on this other item. Bid groups allow you to bid until you win (or run out of items in the group).
Tom, read up on proxy bidding and increments on ebay help to see what happened with your recent bid. I guess AS isn't able to make decisions on your behalf - what if the next increment was pounds/dollars/euros higher - would it be OK for AS to up your snipe? I guess not...

R2

I have given up asking for this. I was an old buzzard to start with. My my little snipes are my age.

They are called contingency bid groups because they are contingent on a miracle taking place at AS.

Alright, Alright, Alright.

We all know what is going to happen with the contingency bidding option:

Someone is going to wake up and bring it to life. The problem is that it will not be AS, and by the time AS smells the fire, most of us will have all our contingency snipes locked into another snipe service, and we'll be getting our email inboxes bombed by AS special offers in hopes that we'll return to their new and improved format! I have a programmer friend in Tokyo that does his own automated sniping without the assistance of a service, and there is no way that he is the only one out there. So, keep keepin' on! We will find our contingency bidding playground with or without the help of AS.

Umm.....
You might want to check out the AS Bid Groups. Don't know how long it has been out but I've been using it for a couple of weeks.

Enjoy!

Bid Groups = bid until you win

Contingency Bids = bid if you win

R2

I have given up even asking for them, let alone begging, pleading, crawling along, etc.

I would like to add my voice to the request for contingency bids. They would be a great addition. They would not necessarily add complexity to the user interface of most users as you could simply have an advanced "add snipe" option to show more options - such as the snipes which the current snipe is contingent on.

To summarise, I would love AS to have an option on snipes to only bid IF another snipe has won.

Thanks.

Thank you for your added comment.

But, I will not be holding my breath waiting for them to ablige us.

mominutah, can you explain why you want this so badly? My understanding is that you still have to purchase previously won items (in this kind of group) even when you lose one, right?

So it's not like it's all or nothing - you still have to buy whatever you win, am I right about this?

Welcome, Miss Jane. Alas, since the OP posted only twice last September, I doubt that he will see your post.

This feature still isn't on our horizon. We are listening and it could change if demand were high enough, but it's still not an overwhelmingly requested feature.

I just want to add another voice to the request for contingency planning.

I use AS fairly regularly, and bid groups are a great feature. I've regularly come across combos of items that I wished I could use a contingency bidding feature on, but only today did I manage to get motivated enough to search through the AS site to see if I could do it. That's when I came across this thread.

How many other customers are out there wishing they had the same feature, but don't make the effort to ask for it, or hunt the site?

I often come across groups of items that a bidder has for sale that are linked. e.g the items that prompted me to look today were a set of roof bars for a car, and a set of ski brackets for said roof bars. The seller has posted the items a couple of minutes apart, and at an anti-social time of night. I dont mind getting the roof bars (1st item to complete) without the ski brackets, but the ski brackets are completely useless without the former. I dont want to stay up half the night to watch the auctions to cancel my second bid if the first doesnt win.

Please reconsider developing this! I'm sure it could be implemented in a very similar way to bid groups, to keep it simple, but with the different logic behind. (i.e. only bid for the second item if the first wins, instead of only bid for the second item if the first doesnt win)

quote:

Also: Is there a way we could authorize AS to attempt in the few seconds remaining to "add pennies" if there's, say, less than a dollar difference between our snipe and a higher proxy bid? I just lost an item even though I was high bidder! Arrrgh.

When considering my high bid, I always add $1.00 just b/c of this.

I mean, usually I'm looking to save $5 to 50 to more, so one more buck doesn't break my heart - I've had the same thing happen and it sucks.

Contingency bids would be useful for me. I'm a camera collector, so sometimes I might want Lens X, but only if I've won the auction for Camera Y a few hours before.

Having said that, be careful what you wish for. Auction Sniper does not have the technical ability to keep their site running at a basic level of functionality. Do you really want to add one more level of complexity for them to screw up?