 Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 12:17 pm Post subject: |
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| As an addendum, losing by a bid increment is natural. If you bid 16.51 and the "winning bid" is 17.01, that just means that the winning bidder bid at least 0.50 more than you: he could have bid 20.00 more and eBay would still have declared him the winner for only 17.01. That's how eBay's proxy bidding system works. The "winning bid" is quite frequently much less than the actual amount of the winner's bid.
I highly recommend having a look at eBay's relevant help pages, for example http://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/bidding-overview.html http://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/automatic-bidding.html |
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| Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 12:09 pm Post subject: |
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It happens. I still remember a vintage set of books that I really wanted. The starting bid was 24.99 and there were three bids with the current price at around 34.00 when I bid. I wanted it badly, so I bid 251.15, but my opponent (who had bid three hours before) had bid 251.20 and so I lost by only 0.05! Bidding close to what someone else does is not as rare as one would expect. The way to win is to place the HIGHEST bid. In eBay auctions, SIZE matters much more than timing. |
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| Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2009 4:41 am Post subject: ok |
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| must be going out of my head, then! | |
| Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2009 3:32 pm Post subject: |
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| It seems quite clear to me - the winning bidder had a higher maximum bid than you; Once you placed your bid, ebay proxy bidding made sure he wins. The winning amount is your maximum bid (that Gixen placed for you) + bid increment.
There was no manual bid here at the last moment, except the one Gixen placed for you. |
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| Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2009 11:36 am Post subject: This is an excellent example (one of many, many) |
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| This an example of the problem I am having:
290287532052 T-COM Eumex 100 ISDN Terminal Adapter B-Ware (by feld 7) Group: 10, Offset: 3 ENDED 16.51 17.01 1 OUTBID It's grouped so the miami server does not bid, and besides there are several bids on the same items. The item itself is not rare; I am doing these bids mostly to figure out WTF is going on. Repeatedly, in my mind, someone with some pretty cool sw is finding out how much the bid price is, and/or out-bidding me (not just on this item, on many items on ebay.de having to do with computers), it seems! Maybe it's 'Brain' software? Please, mario, figure out what is going on... This is doing my head in. Otherwise, I am just-so-happened to bid right on the money of other people's bids. How in god's green earth could I be so close? This is really incredible. It happened a month ago with items costing 167 euros, four or five times!?! Now I know how to read the auction better. It looks like this winning bidder had their bid in well before the end, about 5 minutes or so, and won. But this is freaking me out; how come, well before the end, I just HAPPEN to 'guess' the price. Freaky. |
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| Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2009 2:43 am Post subject: |
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| No, John is absolutely right. You need to distinguish between the current highest bid (which you dont necessarily know from eBay until the next highest bid is within one bid increment of it) and the current auction price (which is the second highest bid plus up to one increment), it is the current auction price that the bid increment applies to. | |
| Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2009 12:30 am Post subject: thnx for the continuing support |
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| Are you are saying my bid must be at least one bid increment higher than the last bid, in which case 22.01 is a winning bid and 22.00 is not?
I am confused. I thought when the last bid in was into the next bid increment level, this is the winning bid. You are saying rockman the bid must also be one bid increment higher than the last bid. ? What is the point of bidding into the next bid increment level, then? Sorry for my stupidity. |
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| Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2009 10:54 pm Post subject: |
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It's not quite that simple. The rule is that in order for your bid to be accepted, it must be at least one bid increment more than the current bid. Thus, if the current bid is 20.50, then your bid must be at least 21.00 (assuming a bid increment of 0.50). However, one can win by less if the current bid is less than the actual bid of the currently winning bidder. For example, suppose Mario bids 10.00 and I come along and bid 20.50. The current bid would be 10.50 and the minimum bid eBay would accept is 11.00. If you were to come along and bid 21.51, you would win for 21.51 because a) your bid would be at least 0.50 more than the current bid and b) your bid would be more than my bid by 0.01. In the case you are complaining about, I suspect that the current bid at the time Gixen placed your bid was 20.50, and thus your 20.51 bid was rejected by eBay for being too low. |
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| Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2009 10:28 pm Post subject: Bid increment |
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| I emailed you the details, yes, because the PM was disabled (it was not disabled the last time)
I thought bid increments worked like this: Bidding into the next bid increment automatically makes it the next higher bid! If bid increments are 50 Euro cents, and they are at 20-30 euros, then a 20.51 bid trumps a 20.50 bid. I've read numerous posts on the issues. Look for ebay.com help 'Bid increment', then change the .com to a .de, and you can see bid increments are different than USD denominated bid increments. Now please tell me what you think? |
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| Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2009 2:19 pm Post subject: |
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| So there was only 1 cent difference between your max bid and the winning price? That's well below the increment (50c).
I haven't received any PM on the board, as far as I remember I disabled it, but feel free to email me. |
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| Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2009 2:12 pm Post subject: test bids 'Bid Under Asking Price' |
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| I made some test bids at 3 seconds.
The auction ended. Gixen shows 'Bid under asking price'. My bid was 21.51, the bid increment is 50 cents, and the winning bid was 21.50. My bid was into the next highest bid increment, so I should have won, right? Mario, I PM'd you the details. |
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| Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2009 1:24 pm Post subject: |
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There have been a number of suggestions, some quite amusing, but apparently it doesn't 'mean' anything, its just the result of Mario trying to find a short domain name that was memorable, according to him he started with 'geek' and went from there until he found a combination of letters that was not already taken, boring I know but you did ask :-) If you would like his account it is here: http://www.gixen.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=453 |
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| Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2009 1:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Contrary to what many would expect, word "Gixen" does not have a meaning. 7-8 years ago, I was looking for a short word that sounds good and for which internet domain was not already purchased. This was tough to find even back then. I started with "geek", and after many variations found "Gixen". I thought it was a cool name and purchased the domain.
It took another 5-6 years to find a use for it. |
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| Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2009 1:12 pm Post subject: |
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A little outside the topic, but what does the word "Gixen" mean anyways? Is it some kind of Nordic word, or Germanic? |
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| Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2009 8:18 am Post subject: |
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| To clarify your final question - Gixen.de has nothing to do with Gixen. The domain was purchased by a competitor hoping to draw some Gixen traffic. | |
| Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2009 5:25 am Post subject: |
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| We discussed this posibility recently.
I am of the opinion that even if someone writes a piece of software that can react, in the last 6 seconds, to a bid and then place a higher one it makes no difference to the operation gixen should support. This is because using that bit of hypothetical software the user would still have to decide on their maximum bid well before the last 6 seconds when your bid is actually lodged with eBay, that is the whole point of sniping that no-one has time to react to your bid by deciding that they will bid higher after your bid has been submitted. So as long as you set a snipe with gixen for the maximum amount that you are prepared to pay, as you always should do anyway, it is of no significance as to whether the software you describe exists or not, gixen doesnt need changing in any case. Also as has been pointed out on many occasions the fact that you are outbid by a single incremant doesn't mean that the other bidder was only willing to pay a small amount more than you, its just how the eBay bidding sysytem works in terms of its bid increments, its only an indication that you were prepared to pay the second highest price for the item. It has always been the case and always will be that if someone is prepared to submit a bid, at any time, that is at most one increment more than you then they still are going to have a higher bid than you at the end of the auction. |
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| Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2009 3:00 am Post subject: 3 second offset question |
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| The Gixen system warns against 3 second offset.
In Germany, it seems the techno-dweebs (sniping experts) keep getting their one-increment bid higher in at the last second, although the offset is 6 seconds. Thus there is enough time for their sniping solution (software, online) to outbid me, several times on similar items. Is this Gixen.de -> MySnipe or ? Please, feedback. Many thanks! |
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