eBay proxy behavior when sniping OVER the reserve price?

[Andyman Perth]

Hi All/Mario,

Long time Fan. first time poster.

I am curious to how the ebay proxy bid works with reserve bids. I have had a look at a few posts but I am not sure if they answer my question directly.

I do not know what the reserve price is. Lets say it is $1000.

If the reserve has not been met yet (assume it starts at $500 and no one else bids).


If I put a snipe in for $2000 what will happen?

1) The proxy bid puts a bid in at the reserve price ($1000) and goes from there.

2) The bid is put in at the snipe price.

3) Something else


These sums are representative. I'm about to bid on a car. Can anyone properly confirm any of these scenarios? My opinion (hope) is that it starts from the reserve but I have never experianced it. Anyone confirm? Big dollars for me.

Cheers everyone

Andy

[Cupid]

Assuming that no one else bids in your scenario you will get the item at $1000.

The way tha eBay bidding works with reserves is the same as normal bidding, above and below the reserve, but below the reserve, though you may be the high bidder, the seller is not obliged to sell to you. The real difference comes when a bidder places a bid that is higher than the reserve, then the auction price immediately jumps to that price (in your scenario $1000) without any other bidder having placed a bid near that amount, from then on the seller is obliged to sell as the reserve has been met. If somone else bids $1500 in the last second of the auction you will still win in the normal way at $1500 plus one increment.

So, in summary, you should act in exactly the same way as you normally would with gixen and place a snipe at the maximum you are willing to pay. The only different scenario that can occur from normal is that you bid the highest price on the auction but at a price below the reserve in that case the seller does not have to sell at that price.

Since the bidding is the same for all bids below the reserve it is possible that the final auction price is well below the reserve price even if your bid was not well below it. In your scenario if you bid $999, and the next highest bid was $700 then the final auction price (with you as the high bidder) would be $700 plus one increment... but since thats below the reserve the seller does not have to sell to you, even though they would have had to sell at $1000 if you had bid that amount.
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Mark

[Guest]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the quick and concise reply. I know where I stand now.

Andy

[juangrande]

Another way of thinking about a reserve price is to view it as a bid and viewing reserve not met as being "outbid" by the reserve. The only significant difference between this and what actually happens is that a bid increment is not added to your bid when you "outbid" (meet) the reserve (and the reserve is never shown as "winning" at a bid increment higher than a lower bid, it is shown as "not met").

In fact, one form of shilling (and reserve fee avoidance) that unscrupulous sellers engage in is to set a low starting bid and then place a bid at the lowest price they would be willing to accept. This has essentially the same effect as setting a reserve, but cheats eBay out of its reserve fee.
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John

If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
--- Yogi Berra

[Gixen]

[Cupid]

[Andyman Perth]

Cheers guys,

I use Gixen to counter shill bidding in a different context.

If there is something I like I NEVER add the item to my watch list anymore. Adding an item to watch list alerts seller of interest and then you can watch the item go up in price in neat sequential $25 segments within 30 minutes. eBay of course doesn' t care

Straying back to my topic, if the auction ends UNDER reserve with me being the highest, will the seller see my full price or the highest proxy bid?

[juangrande]

[Andyman Perth]

Thanks guys, great support.

Your earlier comment john was perfect. To visualise the situation as bidding against the reserve price. Its like setting up a snipe against another snipe.

Game on!

Andy

[juangrande]

Thanks for your kind comment, Andy. We're just volunteers who like to think they're helping out Mario and it's nice to be told when we are.

By the way, it is reasonable to ask the seller to state the amount of the reserve: many will. In fact, many sellers will just state the amount of the reserve in the listing since it doesn't really make any sense to hide the reserve.
_________________
John

If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
--- Yogi Berra

[mario]

[juangrande]

Thanks, Mario. I appreciate it.
_________________
John

If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
--- Yogi Berra