Contingency Groups

[MusicalMan]

This is probably a stupid question but I just want to make sure. In settings, for contingency groups, it says:

Contingency bidding is the opposite of normal group bids. Unlike group bidding, with contingency bidding the remaining snipes in a group are canceled when you LOSE your first item.

This states when you lose your FIRST item, but if there are three or more items in the group, if you WIN the first item, but then LOSE the second item, that would still cancel all subsequent snipes, correct?

Thanks!

[mario]

Correct. You are still stuck with the first one that you won though, you can't undo that.

[MusicalMan]

Thanks. My problem is I want ALL the subsequent ones, but only if I win the FIRST one. I can't figure out how to do that---manually I suppose.

I also love it with both types of groups (regular & contingency) when the seller lists the items in the 'wrong' order!

[mario]

Unfortunately there are no groups that do that. What I would do would probably depend on timing of the auctions. The first two items you are fine either way, so I would add these to a contingency group.

As for the subsequent ones, I would use notifications, and after seeing the status of the first auction, set up individual snipes (if first one won).

[Gixen]

[Cupid]

I still maintain that this is the way contingency groups should work... I have never seen anyone provide an argument that supports the present operation.
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Mark

[mario]

You may be right Mark, but that someone may show up angry if I change things now. It's probably a mistake I initially made, and now have to deal with it. I can't discontinue contingency groups as they are now, but I may implement another type of group (not sure how to even name it) that would do this.

[Cupid]

Having thought about it for a while the best that I can come up with is 'Inclusive Group' since the function is to include all items in the Group if the first is won. I guess there is an argumant that the current normal group could be renamed 'Exclusive Group' since the function is to exclude all subsequent items after one of them has been won.
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Mark

[mario]

Actually "Inclusive group" sounds pretty good. Users would still need an explanation, but it sounds good. Not sure when I'll have the time to implement them... They will be, in fact, more difficult to implement than either normal or contingency groups.

[Cupid]

I see the function for an 'Inclusive Group' being that when one exists and an item is lost it cancels the rest of the snipes in that 'Inclusive Group' as it presently does when an item is won in a normal Group. When it finds an item in an 'Inclusive Group' and that item is won it removes the grouping completely on the rest of the snipes in that 'Inclusive Group' so it does not do any different processing of the snipes from then on.
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Mark

[mario]

Correct, that's exactly how it should be implemented.

[hmm]

I realize I'm way late to do the OP any good on the items he had in mind, but here are my thoughts:

1. "Contingency groups" as I understand it, means a best attempt at "all or nothing". The current implementation (as described above) makes good sense to me.

2. "Contingency groups" is a fair name for the feature, and I think it makes more sense this way, vs. what the Cupid suggested.

3. "Inclusive groups" seems like a reasonable name for the proposed feature.

4. Is it already possible with the current implementation to do an "inclusive group"*, by creating multiple contingency groups? Say all groups would include the same first item, at [the same or different?] snipe bids. Then, only one of the contingency groups would execute the winning snipe, but all would detect(?) whether that first item was won or lost, and so each contingency group would then bid / not bid on their respective second items accordingly.


* "Inclusive group" meaning bid on all others if the first is won; don't if it's lost. No decisions are made based on the outcome of items 2 or later.

[Cupid]

Unfortunately 4 is not possible with Gixen at the moment because you are not allowed to add an item to more than one group.
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Mark

[Peter]

Hi Mario,

I have the same problem with contingency groups as described in the first post of this topic.

I had assumed that within a contingency group, if you LOSE the FIRST item all subsequent items will be canceled, but if you WIN the first item, all subsequent bids will be executed as scheduled.

However now I happened to experience a situation were I won the first item in a 5-item contingency group, but lost the second, and all remaining items were canceled, which was not what I expected. I had expected all other bids to be executed.

From your postings I understand that this behaviour is not an error, but that it has actually been designed this way.

I would be very happy if you could introduce a new kind of contingency group that does exactly what I need: cancel the remaining items of a group ONLY if the FIRST item is not won.

(This would be useful when bidding on multiple items from a single seller: once you have won one item, it often makes sense to bid on other items as well because you will save on shipping cost.)

Thanks, Peter

[mario]

Peter, this has already been proposed, but I just don't see enough interest to pursue it. Very few users use or need this feature.

[Cupid]

I still think more people would use it if the function was useful to them... I rejected ever using it once I realised that it did not provide a feature that was useful to me, due to the way that it is implemented... I may not be alone in that.
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Mark

[mario]

Well let me see what I can do... I will find some time to implement this new group, hopefully. What did we say in the past the best name for this new group type would be?

[Cupid]

I think we agreed the exact function, how it would be implemented, and the name 'Inclusive Group' earlier in this thread.
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Mark

[Guest]

Whilst this is an old discussion I just wanted to pitch in that the way I need this to work is the way it currently works, showing that different people have different needs, and I'm perfectly happy with the functionality as it is! Just because one or two people don't like the way it works doesn't mean that everyone shares the same view

[Cupid]

[t2sa]

Hi all. I'm joining the thread as I'm also experiencing the same issue. I'm bidding for lots often in foreign countries, and the shipping charges are an important factor. The \"Inclusive group\" would really help in cases when an expensive lot appears at first. If I win that lot, I could add any other cheapest lots. If not, I would just pass for those. Thank you in advance!

[pto199]

I found this thread while searching for the use of groups and wanted to weigh in here. I see there's multi win groups now, but its still not quite what a use can might be for what people are requesting here.

And example might be a bicycle auction and 6 accessories. If you win auction 1( (the bike), you then want to bid on the 6 accessories, but you dont want bidding to stop just because you lost auction 3, a bike pump. Auction 5, a bike helmet is still something you want to bid on, but again, only if you won the bike, even if you lost the pump.

But I dont think a new group is the answer. You can add a new group, but the current roster of 3 groups is already confusing and there's so many more scenarios. I think it would be best if groups were removed completely and a \"if, then\" system replaced them

Imagine every snipe you enter you can add an after auction \"if\" statement. So i place my bid for item 1 then I click a + or something and it expands to show this option under it | \"if item is ________ , then set item # _______ to _______ .\" The 1st blank would give the option of selecting between WON or LOST. The 2nd blank lets you select an item number from another snipe you have setup and the 3rd blank let's you select between ACTIVE or INACTIVE. Then you can hit the + button again and add another if statement... as many as you want. This would replace all groups and give you way more control over how you wanted bidding to occur And make it less confusing. Now I can set any number of auctions to cancel if I lost this particular one, or even bid on certain auctions and cancel others all depending on how this goes.

Heres an example scenario. Say I have 5 items, bike1, bike2, bike3, helmet and pump. I only want helmet and pump IF I win a bike, and I only want to win 1 bike. There's just no way to set this up on the current group system, because if you contingency group the bikes, then theres no way to also regular group the accesories. And even if tou could, or there was only 1 bike, you would still want the pump if the helmet loses and losing the helmet would then cancel the pump. I could do all this easily however with the \"if\" options.

On Bike1 I would add these options:
+ IF item is WON, then set item# bike2 to INACTIVE
+ IF item is WON, then set item# bike3 to INACTIVE
+ IF Item is LOST, then set item# helmet to INACTIVE
+ IF Item is LOST, then set item# pump to INACTIVE

On Bike 2 I add this option:
+ IF item is WON, then set item# bike3 to INACTIVE
+ IF Item is WON, then set item# helmet to ACTIVE
+ IF Item is WON, then set item# pump to ACTIVE

On Bike 3 I add this option:
+ IF Item is WON, then set item# helmet to ACTIVE
+ IF Item is WON, then set item# pump to ACTIVE

Basically its just a simple set of instructions you can enter that are executed after an item ends, to dictate how other snipes behave. Works way better than any group system. Im not sure how much work would need to be done to implement this (Snipes would need to be given a status of active/inactive for example), but it would solve all the problems and bring much more control over bidding.