what Happend???

Hey, another Steve! That makes at least three of us in the Forum.

You got beaten by a proxy bid. The winning bidder made a bid that equalled or exceeded your $550 snipe, and he placed it earlier than your bid. That means all the proxy bid had to do was match your bid to win and that's what happened. There's no way of telling how high his max bid really was, but obviously he wanted this item at least as badly as you did.

Wait for another to come along. One almost always does, you know.

Assuming that you are itadsup2, you got outsniped - milehigsr manually sniped with 8 minutes to go and he bid exactly $550. The eBay rule is that in the event of a tie, the first bidder prevails.

Had your snipe been $550.01, you would have won. This, I'm afraid, is an example of why snipers should never bid round numbers. The early bidder has only two advantages, the bid increment and the rule that in the event of a tie the first bidder wins. You can take away the second advantage by choosing an unlikely number of cents at the end of your bid. You can't do anything about the increment.

amh,

Wouldn't it had to have been $560?

Rick

Thanks for all the input on this I was confused but it now makes "cent's" to me
Steve

I Excel 4 money

quote:

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Originally posted by Steve:
Hey, another Steve! That makes at least three of us in the Forum.

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Actually, I think "The other Steve" has gone away. We haven't heard from him for awhile.

I hope I'm wrong.

Rick: You're right...$560. Maybe "the other Steve" is just on vacation or something.

amh: I don't consider a bid made with 8 minutes remaining to be a "snipe" in any sense of the word. Eight seconds, yes. Eight minutes, phooey.

"The other Steve" has been gone for a long time. It couldn't be a vacation. If you're out there ToS, let us hear from you.

quote:

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amh,

Wouldn't it had to have been $560?

Rick

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The previous high bid was $530.00, so when milehigsr bid with 8 minutes to go (and Steve I'm not going to argue about whether one should call that a "Snipe"), the displayed high bid would have been $540. We know that his actual bid was $550 because that was a tie with itadsup2.

At that point, $550.00 was a valid bid (hence it was accepted by eBay and appears in the bid history) and similarly $550.01 would have been a valid bid. Had itadsup2's snipe have been for $550.01 he would therefore have won!

Of course having bid $550 and seen milehigsr as the high bidder with a bid of the same amount, he would (if he had time) then have to bid $560, but that's not what we were discussing.

My point therefore remains valid. Snipers should never bid round amounts.

Andrew

Andrew,

You're right again. $550.01 would have done it!

Sorry to put you thru the trouble.

I enjoy it!

'Fraid I don't understand how a bid of $550.01, placed later than the $550 bid, would have won. Isn't the bid increment rule operative anymore?

The price was $540 (530 + 10) before the snipe went in. The next increment required $550, but a snipe at $550.01 would have taken it. amh is good at this stuff.

In a post dated June 11, at 4:38 AM (see above), amh stated, "Assuming that you are itadsup2, you got outsniped - milehigsr manually sniped with 8 minutes to go and he bid exactly $550. The eBay rule is that in the event of a tie, the first bidder prevails." ...Where this business of $540.00 being the bid comes from eludes me. That may have been what eBay showed as the high bid, but as of eight minutes away from the end of the auction the proxy amount was exactly $550.00.

Next, in the same post, amh wrote, "The early bidder has only two advantages, the bid increment and the rule that in the event of a tie the first bidder wins. You can take away the second advantage by choosing an unlikely number of cents at the end of your bid. You can't do anything about the increment." ...So, the winning bidder had the first advantage -- a real max of $550.00. Any bid later in the auction would have had to be $560.00 to beat the proxy by one increment, and a bid of $550.01 would have failed that test.

Have I missed something, or is the $10 increment still operative at that level?

I've had a lot of trouble with this one myself. After all I started this confustion.

At 20:09:27, milehigsr was high bid at $480 (475 prior bid + 5). At 20:17:26 miehigsr was still high bid at 540 (530 prior bid + 10). At that point all ebay required was a $550 bid ($540 + 10). Had isadsup2 placed 550.01 it would have statisfied ebay's bid increment, and since milehigsr bid was $550, itadsup2 would have won the auction by .01. milehigsr's proxy bid ran out at 550.

Once itadsup2 bidded $550, then yes, the next bid had to be 560+. But had itadsup2 placed a $550.01 instead of $550, he would have gotten it.

Here's another approach: Had itadsup2 placed a 550.01, the next increment bid would had to have been 560.01, which was 10.01 more than milehigsr' bid.

milehigsr - - - - - - - $550.00 Jun-11-03 20:09:27 PDT
itadsup2- - - - - - - -$550.00 Jun-11-03 20:17:29 PDT
bialowas@cs.dal.ca- -$530.00 Jun-11-03 20:17:26 PDT
skm999 - - - - - - - - $475.00 Jun-11-03 14:52:21 PDT

Rick, let's look at the three bidders who were at or near the top when the auction ended. All the others don't matter:

milehigsr - - - - $550.00 Jun-11-03 20:09:27 PDT
itadsup2- - - - - -$550.00 Jun-11-03 20:17:29 PDT
bialowas@cs.dal.ca-$530.00 Jun-11-03 20:17:26 PDT

The first bidder in this sequence was milehigsr, with a flat bid of $550.00. Note that at this point a bid of $560.00 would have been needed by another bidder to meet the increment requirement. Seven minutes and 59 seconds later, bialowas@cs.dal.ca bid $530.00, and was proxy outbid. Eight minutes and 2 seconds later our friend itadsup2 also bid $550.00. This took milehigsr to his max bid, but since mileigsr bid $550.00 first, he won on the tie rule. It is true that a bid of $550.01 would have topped milehigsr, but that bid would not meet the increment requirement. Thus, itadsup2 would not have won with that bid.

Bialowas' bid made the amount to beat $540.00. So long as someone didn't bid more than $10.00 more than that the eventual winner was safe. But an increment of $10.01 would indeed satisfy the increment requirement, which was not imposed on the high bidder but was operative for anybody else.

Came the dawn....

Steve,

I struggled with this one. I disagreed with Andrew on pricing on another auction and he turned out to be right. I was about to disagree with him on this one, but based on the result of the 1st auction, and his keeping with his position on this one, I decided I better spend more time.

No wonder Iwin wasn't sure.

Good thing we've got Andrew around.

This is exactly how I win a lot of my items by 1-7 cents all the time! I can't count the number of times I've beaten a proxy bid just a few pennies. I love it when I correctly guess the top proxy bid and top it by only a few cents.

"Guess," star_trkr? I'll bet you research your opponents and pick up their bidding patterns. That takes it out of the realm of guesswork and moves it more towards scientific methodology.

Mea culpa.