snipe fail

[carrizal]

Hi. Just another joker wondering what specifically caused this particular snipe to fail. The auction ended with the winning bid below my max. Mine didn't even appear to try.

Thanks!


eBay Item Number___Time To End____Bid___Current____Status______________
260878610594______________________________________________________
_________________ ENDED_______178.53__177.51___BID UNDER ASKING PRICE

[mario]

This is completely normal and expected. It's not enough that your bid is higher, it has to be higher for a full bid increment than the current high bid at the moment your bid is placed by Gixen.

Google for "ebay bid increments" and you will find an ebay page that explains this. It's also probably the #1 topic raised on this forum.

[Guest]

Ah! It took me a while to wrap my head around that, but now I understand. I've never faced that in any of my bids before, but I suppose it was only a matter of time.

Thanks so much for answering my question.

[carrizal]

Okay, I tried checking the entire forum to make sure this isn't covered somewhere else (like my initial question was...often )

I know that I should always put my ABSOLUTE MAXIMUM in the "maximum bid" slot and I usually put the most I am comfortable bidding. However, when my maximum would have been good enough, and I only lose because of the lousy bid increments,I get a little chafed.

So, is there a workaround to avoid short bid increment losses? I hate being punked by a lousy few cents.



p.s. - I wonder if there should be a sticky about "bid increments" at the top of this forum (in addition to the one in the FAQs...I know, I know )

[Gixen]

[Cupid]

There isn't really any way of knowing what the price will be when Gixen comes to place your bid... the best you can do is research what similar items have gone for in the past and see if there is a consistent low you can work to... but sometimes there isn't, or you would have to look back further than eBay allows you to to see a pattern.

eBay is not the only on-line retailer at which you can check prices/values/selling history.

One thing many recommend is to bid an odd amount so say you are wiling to pay about 10 dollars for an item that costs 2 dollars to ship, consider sniping at 8.02 dollars instead of 8 dollars exactly.

Another thing I would recommend is increasing your offset, then your bid is more likely to get placed before other snipers and you may block them in the same way that you have been.
_________________
Mark

[carrizal]

I definitely use as uneven a bid as I can come up with when strategizing for an auction. Since my lost auction, I figured I would start increasing the offset as one way to potentially block that issue.

I guess I was just curious to know if there was a feature that I was unfamiliar with (as I am new to Gixen) to assist with this issue of "losing even though I won" thanks to bid increments.

Anyway, I appreciate your reply.

[Sumflow]

Since tie bids are possible and the earliest bidder wins, it usually pays to bid odd penny amounts. Many items will have buyer resistance thresholds. Prices above which others are reluctant to go. Typical "ain't gonna go threre," thresholds are numbers that end in 0, or 00 or 000. A bid of $102.86 is much more likly to win than one of 98.37.

[mikenetone]

Please also note that you may not have won this auction anyway. Looking at the bid history the winner won with the next increment from the previous bidder. So his bid may have been much higher and even higher than yours.