Auto bidding question

[jg846]

I lost a bid that I used Gixen to snipe. My bid was not high enough so I understand that I was not going to win it, however, I noted that the bid I placed via Gixen and the prior bid were more that the incremental amount that eBay would require.

Item 300574689248

Bid History from eBay:

Bidder Bid Amount Bid Time
m***i( 491 US $115.48 Jul-08-11 22:40:04 PDT

jg846( 13) US $112.98 Jul-08-11 22:40:03 PDT

p***t( 112) US $97.00 Jul-08-11 15:53:11 PDT

l***d( 1239)US $84.01 Jul-08-11 22:40:03 PDT

e***0( 51) US $82.00 Jul-08-11 20:48:29 PDT

p***t( 112) US $75.00 Jul-07-11 18:30:28 PDT

Is the time (6 sec offset) too minimal for the incremental bidding of the eBay system to process the bid correctly ie. $98.00. It appears that my maximum amount ($112.98) was the only bid, except that another bidder sniped my bid one second afterwards.

1. Curious why my max was bid and not the incremental amount.
2. Would a better strategy be to set them mirror at 3 seconds and the Chicago server at 6 seconds.

Thank you,

James

[Cupid]

James,

eBay implements the incremantal bidding system (they call it proxy bidding) so it is not necessary for Gixen to do anything other than submit your maximum bid ay yje end of the auction.

EBay works out what you will have to pay based on your bid and crucially that of the next highest bidder... in this case you are the second highest bidder so your bid was used t0o calculate what the winner had to pay.

Had that winning bid not been placed you may well have won at a price lower than your bid and eBay would never have revealed what you were actually willing to pay.

A different offset wouldn't make much difference, in this case your bid would have neen later than the winning bid, but it would not have won as we know that bid was higher than yours, it would have just pushed the price up, with exactly the same end result in terms of what the winner had to pay.

In any case your suggestion of 6 seconds on one server and 3 on another generally means your bid is placed at 6 seconds before the auction end... only when that server fails to place a bid would you get a 3 second snipe from the other. So exactly the same as the result you saw.
_________________
Mark