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Nectar Points ebay.co.uk

 
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Prawnographer
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 12, 2020 1:22 am    Post subject: Nectar Points ebay.co.uk Reply with quote

I had been scratching my head as to why I was not getting Nectar points on all my ebay.co.uk purchases, and finally got hold of eBay this morning and spoke to them about it. They said it was on transactions completed through eBay.com as the Nectar scheme points aren't honoured from the US site.

A recent purchase of a laptop for 565GBP (from a Buy it Now listing) resulted in an award of 300 Nectar points, whilst a winning bid placed on a desktop PC at 500GBP resulted in zero points (item no' 333522199015).

It turns out the Nectar points are forfeited whenever I snipe with Gixen. I've just had a look back at my Nectar history to make this connection. The amounts I am losing as a result of this are, worryingly, worth significantly more than I pay Gixen for the sniping service, which is a huge disappointment.

Is there something Gixen can change to avoid this continuing to be an issue for your United Kingdom subscribers? Confused
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Cupid



Joined: 09 Aug 2007
Posts: 7577
Location: Bristol, UK

PostPosted: Thu Mar 12, 2020 4:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have collected Nectar points on ebay.co.uk via Gixen for many years without issue.

I've just checked it and I'm still getting credited with them according to Ebay.co.uk, even with the introduction of the use of the new API by Gixen.

You do need to set your target to be the UK site on the Settings page though.
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Last edited by Cupid on Thu Mar 12, 2020 5:56 am; edited 1 time in total
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 12, 2020 5:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi Mark,

My target is already eBay.co.uk

The mirror server is configured to the US site.

If this was a one off I could understand it was a transient failover to the mirror, but I'm seeing this behaviour repeatly.

One transaction on 26 February was affected, another on 28 February was too, and then another cropped up on 01 March - whereby all these purchases were denied Nectar points by eBay.co.uk (screenshot has posted at... imgur.com/a/NfmXVkF)

When I spoke to eBay CS they were adamant I had been logged into eBay.com as opposed to my own ebay.co.uk site, except I wasn't.

Yulia
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Cupid



Joined: 09 Aug 2007
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 12, 2020 5:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have both Main and Mirror targets set to the UK site.
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 12, 2020 5:55 am    Post subject:

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 12, 2020 6:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

In terms of failover protection I rather thought setting your main and mirror options to the same site was completely futile.
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Cupid



Joined: 09 Aug 2007
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Location: Bristol, UK

PostPosted: Thu Mar 12, 2020 6:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Not really... The redundancy available via a Mirror subscription is on the Gixen side... Ebay handles redundancy on their side. They already have many servers for each of their domains... and all their servers are in California, no matter which domain they serve.

I guess it does help if Ebay roll out software, that doesn't work well, on different domains, which seems to be have always been their roll out strategy. Then having different ones targeted by Gixen would help, but I haven't seen that cause an issue to Gixen for many years now.

If you prefer to keep the Mirror targeted at the US site it might be an idea to set it's default offset much lower than your Main offset so that the Mirror only ever wins when the Gixen Main server has definitely not managed to place the bid. I can't be certain that is going to work for you though, as I have not tried it since the new API was introduced a couple of months ago.
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 12, 2020 12:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

As there is no indication on the snipe history page, or anywhere else to be perfectly honest, exactly how a snipe has been executed (eg; which server sent the last minute bid...) and given that failure of the "UK server" is undeniably resulting in your subscribers losing Nectar Points, it would seem to me that either the terms and condition of Gixens service, or your transparency of how exactly snipes are fired off, need up-dat-ing (hyphenated because of your silly spam filter...)

It's not very pleasant to discover the only way of determining this is to refer to your Nectar account regards your losses, and a fairly good indication of what's been happening at Gixen.

I have looked back over my Nectar Account for twelve months and I reckon my losses amount to eight times the annual Gixen subscription Evil or Very Mad
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Cupid



Joined: 09 Aug 2007
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Location: Bristol, UK

PostPosted: Thu Mar 12, 2020 1:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I can't really see any 'failure' here, Gixen is operating as described, placing bids as requested on the target site requested, all of which is configurable by the user.

There has never been any commitment to operate in conjunction with Ebay features like this and it's really a bonus that it can be configured to do so at all.

It actually isn't possible to configure Gixen to work with most cashback sites because the way these are implemented is completely incompatible with having bids set from a remote server at the end of the auction.

I have also managed to get it to work with easyfundraising, but I keep having to remember to reconfigure that otherwise those donations get missed too, but I'm not about to complain about that.

I think there's a valid argument for an item about Nectar to be included as an item on the Gixen FAQ page, and I'm sure if anyone would like to suggest the specifics as to how that could be worded that Mario might look favourably on including such a section there.
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 13, 2020 6:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Cupid wrote:
I can't really see any 'failure' here, Gixen is operating as described, placing bids as requested on the target site requested, all of which is configurable by the user.


Well I could simply that you're not the one suffering any loss here, and it's always a subjective matter n'est-ce pas? I am annoyed as it's affected my purchases and my finances, in exactly the same way I would be annoyed if I was overcharged by a company I choose to do business with.

Cupid wrote:
There has never been any commitment to operate in conjunction with Ebay features like this and it's really a bonus that it can be configured to do so at all.


The truth is there's nothing for Gixen to configure, so please don't imply the contrary! It might be interpreted as deliberately misleading. I've never read anything that says Gixen doesn't work on eBay.co.uk in any differing f-a-s-h-i-o-n to a customer placing their own bids in person.

Cupid wrote:
It actually isn't possible to configure Gixen to work with most c-a-s-h-b-a-c-k sites because the way these are implemented is completely incompatible with having bids set from a remote server at the end of the auction.


Nectar points are an eBay feature in the UK, it does not involve any kind of 'c-a-s-h-b-a-c-k' deal, there is nothing to be done on Nectars site, and nothing by way of configuration at Gixen. All that is requisite is that Gixen snipes need to reliably fire as specified in the users preferences.

The problem is evidently created when Gixen, for whatever reasons, simply disregards the subscribers wishes, and switches to firing bids by a means other than that primarily chosen by the subscriber. I'm seeing this all too frequently reflected in my Nectar points manifest on eBay (on three different but closely grouped days, recently, for instance...) so it seems like there's an issue arising between yourselves and eBay.co.uk as regards bids being placed.

Above all I need to clarify that the Nectar Points scheme is operated by eBay.co.uk in person, and was instituted by them, and not by Nectar. It does not involve Gixen doing anything except placing eBay bids as per the subscribers stated preferences.

Cupid wrote:
I think there's a valid argument for an item about Nectar to be included as an item on the Gixen FAQ page, and I'm sure if anyone would like to suggest the specifics as to how that could be worded that Mario might look favourably on including such a section there.


I'd respectfully suggest that you need to think in terms of explaining in what circumstances the bidders snipes have to be switched to a mirror, how often it happens in reality, and what the effects of doing so are (eg; loss of Nectar points, or anything else in other eBay domains) to the subscriber.

May I suggest you implement this by adding a further 'mirror used' field under the 'bid history' section, so we can all see when, and how often, this occurs.
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 13, 2020 5:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The mirror server bid is always sent, it's not switched off whether the main server comes before or after it. If you have both servers set to the same offset then there's no way to specify which server's bid reaches ebay first.

The best solution here is to set both servers to ebay.co.uk and/or set the main server to 8 or 6 seconds with the mirror server set to 6 or 4 seconds (at least 2 seconds later). Then you'll be guaranteed to get Nectar points.
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 31, 2020 10:45 am    Post subject: Yup, mirror site fixes the Nectar card issue Reply with quote

Anonymous wrote:
The mirror server bid is always sent, it's not switched off whether the main server comes before or after it. If you have both servers set to the same offset then there's no way to specify which server's bid reaches ebay first.

The best solution here is to set both servers to ebay.co.uk and/or set the main server to 8 or 6 seconds with the mirror server set to 6 or 4 seconds (at least 2 seconds later). Then you'll be guaranteed to get Nectar points.



Hi, New to Gixen after manually sniping for years. And I missed out on Nectar the first 3 test runs, then read this. I have changed both mirror and prime server to submit bids to the UK site. No loss of bid redundancy, just whichever bid hits ebay.co.uk first ensures it is to the UK site and the Nectar points are credited. As soon as i made that change, it worked.

Simple fix to implement. And thanks to Mario for providing this automated bid facility. Well worth $6. Thanks
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