[Cupid]

When Ebay has 'private listing' for the bidder it means the bidder names (apart from your own to which you are logged in) are suppressed so there may have been more than two bidders on this auction.

The bids above and below yours were indeed submitted at the same time... perhaps not by the same bidder, but if they were then probably via some automated tool since it would be difficult to submit two bids in the same second manually using a browser. I note that the two bids lower than that were also placed at the same time, perhaps someone was testing a bidding tool?

Ebay only displays the amount required to win the auction, the winning bid may have been much higher than yours but the winner is only required to pay one bid increment more than your, second highest bid.

Sniping will never win an auction when someone has already placed a higher bid.. sniping only helps to prevent others from reacting to your bid.

[1205western]

I missed a bid on an item, and am curious how to read the bid listings. If anyone can enlighten me, I would be appreciative.

Only two bidders, me and another.

Note the timing sequence. The winning bid is earlier than my bid. I used Gixen. Also, the winning bidder's last two bids were shown at the same time. How could a winning bid precede my bid by 14 hours?

Bidder Bid Amount Bid Time
private listing US $14.50 Oct-24-14 06:35:21 PDT
1205western US $14.00 Oct-24-14 20:45:13 PDT
private listing US $10.55 Oct-24-14 06:35:21 PDT
private listing US $10.05 Oct-18-14 23:39:49 PDT
private listing US $9.99 Oct-18-14 23:39:49 PDT
Starting Price US $9.99 Oct-17-14 20:45:19 PDT