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Cupid
PostPosted: Thu Aug 19, 2021 8:19 am    Post subject:
A reserve can be regarded as the legitimate way for a seller to place their bid on their own auction without them having to pay anything other than the price Ebay charge to provide that service when the price doesn't reach that amount.

As stated in the FAQ:

Quote:
All Gixen does is enter your maximum bid on eBay just before the auction closes


Gixen does not operate differently whether or not there is a reserve.

Ebay does however only ever make you pay at most one bid increment more than any other accepted bid.

It wouldn't work for Gixen to limit the amount of the bid because there is usually no way to tell what the current high bidders actual bid was.

For instance, in the case of the auction you won, Ebay would have only been displaying a price of $884.00 before your bid was placed, even though that bidder had placed two higher bids up to a maximum of $905.00. So, if Gixen only acted on the displayed price it would often have to make multiple bids, below the maximum that you are willing to pay, until it got confirmation that it had outbid all other bids, there simply isn't time for that kind of operation.

Start earlier then, you might well argue, and yes that would be possible, but wouldn't really help, not just because it would result in snipes being placed earlier than people want and often ending up with a bid lower than the buyer is actually willing to pay. and then what happens if another sniper has just scheduled their snipe later ?... The amount you are willing to pay still isn't registered with Ebay so that later snipe can win the auction at a lower price than you were willing to pay... which certainly wouldn't be popular either, in fact it would be a complete failure.

The way Gixen works, submitting your maximum bid with just a few seconds before the end of the auction is the only way it's possible to work whilst ensuring you only have to pay at most one bid increment more than any other buyer is prepared to bid, while also ensuring they can't walk away with it with a bid that is lower than a bid increment below yours.
Guest
PostPosted: Thu Aug 19, 2021 7:46 am    Post subject:
I see, thank you for investigating this.

Would it be safe to assume if I bet on other items that don't have a reserve, Given would just bet the minimum required to win the auction?
Cupid
PostPosted: Thu Aug 19, 2021 7:22 am    Post subject:
OK,

So, it would appear that the seller had a reserve, which must have finally been updated to be 950.

From the listing you can select the:
"Last updated on Aug 18, 2021 13:27:04 PDT View all revisions" link which gives you this:

https://www.ebay.com/rvh/124850606075?rt=nc

indicating the the seller updated the reserve price a few times before the auction ended.

Before an auction ends you can usually see that it says 'Reserve Not Met' before the bidding reaches the level the seller has set; after the auction completes it's a lot harder to tell that was the case. You usually also get a 'Reserve Met' indication on the bidding page when it's the last bid that finally meets it. I would have expected that here too, perhaps Ebay have removed that feature recently.
Guest
PostPosted: Thu Aug 19, 2021 7:02 am    Post subject:
Sure,

Ebay Item #: 124850606075

Thanks for the help.
Cupid
PostPosted: Thu Aug 19, 2021 6:36 am    Post subject:
Can you provide the auction number, please ?

Since there are a number of reasons why you might have been asked, by Ebay, to pay the full amount of your bid, it would just be speculation without being able to see the details of the actual auction under discussion.
thasupavillain
PostPosted: Thu Aug 19, 2021 6:15 am    Post subject: Pay Max Bids?
So I won an item (which is great), however I noticed the better prior to me only had 905, and I could have won with just a small increment above him. I put my bet at 950 in Gixen thinking it would act as a cap or the max amount I wanted to bet and would bet in increments up to the bid I set, not the actual amount I wanted to pay.

Perhaps I misread the FAQ:

Quote:
If I enter my maximum bid in Gixen, will I have to pay that amount if I win?
Not necessarily (except for Dutch auctions). All Gixen does is enter your maximum bid on eBay just before the auction closes, and then eBay's proxy bidding system takes over. The winning bid amount will be the second-highest bid plus up to one increment, which could be much less than your maximum bid. Thus, you should always enter your maximum bid in Gixen, just as you would if you entered it manually directly on eBay. An important exception are Dutch (multiple-item) auctions, in which you pay what you enter (provided you win).


For future reference, can someone explain this to me? It seems to me I'm misunderstanding something. I'm appreciative of Gixen's services as I wasn't home to bid myself, but I could have saved about 40 bucks so, kind of bitter sweet.

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