Sniping after getting rid of the "Buy It Now" Feature

Lucijay, you will have no problem, as it is impossible to bid against oneself on eBay. If you bid $20 for an item that someone else has a maximum bid of $10 for, your bid does not immediately go up to $20; it stays at $10.50 until someone else bids higher. Then your bid goes up to the next increment necessary to be the highest bidder, until someone outbids you.

So in the example, your bid shows at $10.50, even though your reserve amount is $20. When someone else comes along and bids $15, your bid amount then shows as $15.50, which is one increment above the other bidder's $15 bid. You are still the top bidder, until someone else bids $20.50 or higher, in which case he takes the high bid.

Even if you go back and put in a higher bid (say $25), if no one else bids above the $15 guy, then you still take the auction for $15.50, even though you put in a higher bid "against yourself." Ebay's proxy bid system only uses the amount necessary to win, regardless of how many bids you put in.

In the case of Auction Sniper, they put the bid in for you, but it still shows up as YOUR bid. Ebay has no way of knowing that your bid was placed by AS, so the same rules described above still apply. A last minute snipe may be higher than your original bid (the one designed to get rid of Buy It Now), but eBay will still only use the amount necessary for you to win; you cannot bid against yourself.

The situation you describe is the only time that most of us AS snipers put in our own manual bid early in the auction: to get rid of a very high Buy It Now price. (If the BIN price is remotely reasonable, I usually just buy it then.) Otherwise we lie in wait until the final seconds!

There's just one thing about using AS when you've already bid manually on an item. If your manual bid is enough to win and you place a bid through AS as well, you have to pay AS its commission for the win even though it was your manual bid that won, not the snipe bid that turned out to be unnecessary. The rules are that if you place a bid through AS and you win the auction you owe AS their fee. This is true in ALL cases.

and one other small factor. If you have the high bid (say USD15) which is showing at USD10 and have a snipe at USD20, it could result in the price going up in the following scenario. (I think this is right).

If another bidder bids USD15, your bid takes priority at USD15 because your bid was first in time. If you bid again (through AS), you lose the time priority and the bid will go up by one increment.

Beg your pardon, but that doesn't sound right to me, amh. You're still the high bidder in that scenario, and you can't "up the ante" by bidding against yourself when you're high bidder. In effect, the tying bid from another buyer would be meaningless to eBay unless you withdrew your bid for some reason. I think that eBay would consider your higher bid as a proxy reserve, though.

The second bid, the snipe, would simply be accepted as an additional proxy reserve. The earlier high bid would remain so.

Sorry guys, but I am right. See http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/basics/f-faq.html#31

Q. I bid against myself, and yet the bid increased. Why?

A. Normally a bidder cannot bid against themselves but there are two cases where this will occur:

Increasing your maximum bid by placing a second (or later) bid in this auction will cause you to lose your earlier bid position. If you are tied with another bidder for the high bid, and you hold the official high bid position due to your earlier bid, your new bid will cause you to lose that position. Consequently, as a later bidder in this auction, your bid will have to be increased to one bid increment more than the previous bidder, in order for you to keep your position as high bidder.

The other case is when the current bid amount is between round bid increments. A round bid increment is any amount that is evenly divided by the current bid increment amount. For example, if your bid is £15.50 with your current maximum bid set at, say, £20.00 and you rebid your maximum to £25.00 (any amount over the current maximum), the current bid will raise to the next round bid increment, in this case, £16.50.

Sonomagun! Point, set, and match to amh.

Thanks! All good stuff. Excellent point ~ will be charged AS fees even if manual bid wins it. And *YES*, placing bid early to get rid of "Buy It Now" feature is the ONLY reason a dedicated sniper would bid early! Makes me question the wisdom of Sellers using that feature when putting a wide spread between that and the starting bid. Naturally we are going to want to get the item as low as possible. I only "Buy It Now" when it's close to the minimum bid.