Auctions with Buy-It-Now option

[mario]

I want to clarify one important technical change to how bidding is done by Gixen on auctions that have a buy-it-now option that is lower than the user's maximum bid.

You may ask yourself - why would anyone specify their maximum bid higher than buy-it-now option instead of using the option right away? Users do this for various reasons. Sometimes they want to win the item for less than buy-it-now, but are still ready to pay more if necessary, as buy-it-now option can disappear after the first bid, if seller set it that way. Sometimes they don't notice buy-it-now option, and sometimes sellers modify the listing and add buy-it-now after users already scheduled their snipe.

The problem is - eBay does not allow auction bid higher than buy-it-now option, and having a maximum bid higher than buy-it-now used to cause failures. It's not a problem if buy-it-now option disappears after the first bid (if set so by the seller), but there is no way to know ahead of time if auction is set this way.

From now on, Gixen will, when the first bid fails due to maximum bid higher than buy-it-now, send another bid equal to (buy-it-now - 0.01). In order to allow enough time for this, any bid offset lower than 6 seconds for such auctions will be increased to 6 seconds.

I welcome all comments to this change.

[Cupid]

OK, so what happens if:

1> there are no bidders on the listing at all yet,
2> the BIN is 10.00,
3> the Gixen snipe is scheduled at 15.00,
4> another sniper has a snipe scheduled for 2 seconds before the end at 13.00.

From what you've said, my guess is that, the 15.00 fails so Gixen submits 9.99 perhaps with 4 seconds to go until the auction ends and is winning for a second or so before the other bidders 13.00 comes in and wins (assuming the BIN was removed as a result of that 9.99 being accepted). The result being an unhappy Gixen user that has lost the item for less than the snipe amount they entered.
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Mark

[mario]

Mark,

It's a great observation - such scenario is possible, but in practice I expect it to be very rare.

What I implemented is not a perfect solution, but it beats what is currently in place. A perfect solution can only be implemented by eBay. I am talking to someone in eBay about it, but realistically I don't expect them to change this any time soon, if ever.

[BIN]

You could add in one more bid whether there is a competing bid or not, of the user's top bid... so 1st attempt fails, then a bid of BIN -1c followed 1-2 seconds later by the user's actual max bid

[Gixen]

[mario]

I could do that, but not sure if there will be enough time left.

[vegaquarker]

What if you add a "seconds" field for users and multiple bids for single items like IE:
BID 1: 20 seconds before bid to 12USD (in the previous example would fail and be at 9.99)
BID 2: 5 seconds before bid to 15USD (would work and overbid the 13USD sniper)

Maybe it's a clear overcomplication for rare scenarios, but idk, just giving my 2 cents here.

[MrT]

Hoping I didn't read it wrong, but my immediate question is: does this affect items without any BIN at time of listing (or perhaps added later?) - i.e. will we be seeing the 6 seconds added as a minimum for any bids set quicker than this for non-BIN at listing end?

[Cupid]

My reading of

[Guest]

What about placing a minimum bid before the end of the auction just to have the BIN disappear and then schedule whatever bid you want in Gixen?

[Guest]

Of course you could end up paying more, but you could also end up paying less.
Once I did the above and the BIN disappeared of course, but then I ended up paying more than the BIN...
It is difficult, actually impossible of course, to know what is going to happen. Auctions are unpredictable. If someone is willing to pay a bit more in order to have the chance to possibly pay less, I guess it might be a solution.

[ewand]

Here's another edge case scenario that could be useful...

* seller lists an item with regular auction at a low start price;
* sniper sets up a snipe at (say) $100
* buyers bombard the seller with messages asking what their best price is
* seller agrees to add a BIN at $80
* some other waster snaps it up and the sniper loses out...

Would it be possible to add logic to check if a watched item (ie one with an active snipe is set up) has a BIN added which is below the max snipe value, and then hit the Buy It Now immediately?

I suppose there are cases when I might put a snipe in at $100 and expect it to fetch $40, and the seller adds an optimistic BIN for $95, but that would teach me to be too punchy with the snipe amount

cheers
Ewan

[Blagbox]

I’m a little confused.....
Don’t ALL auctions that have a BIN option automatically remove the BIN option as soon as a bid is placed?
I’ve never seen an auction with bids on it that still has a BIN in place.

If an auction listing starting at $3 with a BIN of say $20 interests me, there are as far as I can see 3 options.
1. You pay the BIN price straight away.
2. You place a lower snipe (say $14) and hope no-one else uses BIN before a bid comes in.
3. To prevent someone else using BIN you immediately place a bid at start price of $3 to cancel the BIN option and place your snipe for $14 to fire a few seconds before end.

I often employ option 3. The BIN is too high for me to pay but I’m sure someone will be happy to pay it. By placing the lowest bid possible you cancel the BIN and give yourself the chance of sniping at a lower price. You’re rather foolish if you then set your snipe higher than the BIN was!

There may of course be instances where an item originally HAD a low BIN you would have paid but someone has already placed a bid, rendering the BIN obsolete. Of course you won’t know that, to you it just looks like a regular auction, so you might set your snipe higher than the original BIN was.

[Cupid]

This was always the argument I gave whenever someone complained about it.

However, people continued to place snipes at amounts above the BIN price and then complain that they didn't win the items concerned due to the way Ebay rejects such a bid. Mario's original post explains the reasons people often gave for doing this.

I think Mario was eventually persuaded that the Gixen operation couldn't be justified in the face of the many complaints that we had over the years.

As for when BINs disappear, I think to a certain extent it depends on the category of the item in question as well as possibly seller preference (though I accept that Ebay may have since removed some of those seller options).
_________________
Mark

[Blagbox]

Seems to be a bit of a faff just to placate people who can’t make up their mind.
Accepting a BIN or placing a lower snipe is sometimes a tough choice.
Being unwilling to pay the BIN but being prepared to pay MORE is sheer lunacy!
/* Redacted off-topic political comment */

[Cupid]

I think it's probably best if we don't start discussing peoples political opinions on this site, even as they might relate to their behaviour when it comes to sniping.

Accordingly, all I'm prepared to contribute here, as an outsider to American politics (having lived all my life in the United Kingdom), is that my own personal political alignment is somewhat more progressive than the current Democratic party candidate.
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Mark