Bid increment strategy?

[derekroff]

I think I understand how the bid increment can affect the winning bid. I'm wondering if there is a recommended strategy for dealing with the minimum bid increment in two slightly different cases.

Case 1) An auction will close in several hours or more, and I don't plan to be around to watch the ending. I am about to set a bid in Gixen for an item in the $1000 - $2499 range, so the minimum bid increment is $25. I would like to win the item for around $1500. Is there a strategy for selecting the maximum bid that I enter in Gixen, in order to improve my chances, in light of minimum bid increments? I can imagine that lots of people bid $1499 or $1500, so I would lose out with my $1500 Gixen bid. Is there some slightly higher value that would improve my odds of winning? Perhaps $1526.99? Or is eBay bidding too random to support any strategy of fine-tuning the exact maximum bid that I should enter?

Case 2) The same scenario as Case 1, but I am watching the bids in the last few minutes before the auction closes. I see that the showing high bid has climbed to a price $24 below my maximum, so I would lose out due to the minimum bid increment. What is the minimum time before the auction closing that I should edit my Gixen bid? Is there a strategy for how much I could increase my Gixen bid, in hopes of winning the item at a price near my original Gixen bid?

[Cupid]

Personally, if the maximum that I am happy to pay for an item is around $1500, I would be scheduling a snipe at $1500.01, perhaps $1500.02, because people do indeed seem to like to bid very neat amounts. I wouldn't go much more than that if I would not be disappointed for someone to win it for $1525. If however I would be disappointed in those circumstances I would, of course, set my snipe higher.

I make it so I'm comfortable if someone beats my bid, by any amount, even if it's less than a bid increment, but it's always a bit disappointing if someone gets it for less than my snipe amount... However, whatever you do, if you bid on enough auctions, you're going to have that happen occasionally... for me, with many snipers interested in the same items, it still tends to happen less than 1% of the time... I'm content with that.

As far as being around when auctions end... I try to make sure that it makes no difference to me, because I'm already comfortable with what I'm willing to pay and I've done the relevant research to ensure that's what the item is worth, to me.

In any case you must complete all updates to your snipes at least 2 minutes before that auction is due to complete, in order to give Gixen the chance to schedule the snipe properly, it's certainly not an instantaneous process, as some seem to think it must be... anything less and you're most likely just to cancel the bid you wanted to place, and not so likely to get a higher bid placed using this software... if you still find it necessary to change your mind about what you're prepared to bid in those last two minutes, it is best if you just enter that bid manually, on Ebay, yourself. Pretty much the only time I ever do that though is if I've only just found the auction in the last few minutes it has to run, and so there's not enough time to schedule even an initial snipe. let alone edit it... I think that's happened maybe once or twice in the past 5 years... and I bid on a lot of auctions...
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Mark

[derekroff]

Thank you, Cupid/Mark. I appreciate your sharing your advice and perspective. It is very useful information for me that you lose about 1% of your snipes to the minimum bid increment. Yesterday, I lost to a bid $22 below my maximum. It didn't break my heart, but since I don't bid very often, this failure was about 50% of my bids so far this year, on items in this price range.

In any case, your advice will help me with my future bids. Again, I thank you.

[Cupid]

Thanks for your kind words in acknowledging my response. It's always nice to get some feedback, and I'd say that even if it were not so positive, since discussion is nearly always the way to enhance better understanding, on all subjects.

Good luck with all your future sniping.
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Mark

[Gixen]