[Guest]

I've recently switched most of my bids to 3 seconds after being systematically outbid at the last second on several auctions from the same seller. It seems to be working since 3 seconds doesn't give them enough time to place more than 1 reactionary bid, whereas before I saw the other bidder put in 2 or sometimes 3 manual bids in rapid order.

If the item you're bidding on is one of a kind, 3 seconds is a good idea... but for bidders like Cupid who often bid on replaceable items, 8-10 seconds is better to take advantage of the bid increment rules and be more likely to win at a lower bid.

[Cupid]

A later bid is not more likely to be rejected for being too late. You are however more likely to have your bid rejected due to the bid increment rule. This is because the later you wait the more bids you allow to be placed before yours, that raise the price of the auction.

For is for this reason that I personally prefer offsets greater than the default 6 seconds.

You can set your offsets however you wish and it won't ever result in you paying more as a result because Ebay doesn't increase the price on an auction just as a result of bids from the same Ebay account. In fact it doesn't generally allow the same bid to be submitted twice at different times, so having both a 6 and a 3 second offset will only ever result in a bid being placed with 3 seconds left in the auction if the one scheduled for 6 seconds fails, which is quite a rare occurrence in itself.

There is no universally agreed 'best' setting for an offset that works in all different bidding scenarios, which is why they are left as options for you to set as you prefer based on your own preferences and beleif as to how bidding might proceed for any specific Ebay auction.

What you need to consider when thinking about offsets is how much time is required by another user to see your bid, decide that as a result they have now changed their mind about what it is worth, decide on a new amount they are wiling to pay and then submit that to Ebay ?

Anything other than changing their mind is pre planned behaviour which you need to counter in a different way, that is generally by bidding more than them and occasionally just earlier than them.

[RBEmerson]

Wanting to be the very last bidder, in hopes of not paying my "it almost hurts" limit, is there any value in going to three seconds? And... what are the odds that waiting until three seconds may be too late (i.e., time expires on eBay before the bid arrives)?

Can I have the main channel (whatever) bid at six seconds, in case three seconds is too fast and fails, and the mirror (whatever) bidding at three seconds? Or will I be bidding against myself?

Or am I over-thinking this? Six seconds is fine, even if it's one Gixen user trying to out-bid another Gixen user.