Outsniped at last second?

[Ymgreen]

I am relatively new to gixen and only used it twice so far and lost both times. The first time was a test run and I lost due to low price, but this recent lost really confused me. Item :261195226301. I was watching gixen bidding for me. It worked well putting my bid at the last couple of seconds $81.95(my max bidding price). Then at less than a second, this bid coming from nowhere beat me with $82.95. Did i lose because of insufficient max price or the other sniper's program? Also, gixen put my max bid up there instead of 1 dollar increment than the last bid, is it because that bidder's max bid was $81? Any inputs will be appreciated!

[Cupid]

Looking at the bids page on ebay, the bid that won was placed before your bid, so you were outbid.

Ebay decides the final price based on all the bids that are accepted during the auction, the winner only ever pays at most one bid increment more than the next highest bidder.

Even if the bid had come in later it is very unlikely that it would have been a reaction to your bid, just someone else deciding to place a higher bid later than yours.

This is all entirely normal and in no way reflects any deficiency in the Gixen software.
_________________
Mark

[Ymgreen]

In another word, if I had a higher max bid, I could have won? I thought the whole point of sniping was so that the other bidders do not have enough time to react to your bid. In my case, that's what the winning bidder/sniper achieved. His bid came on within less than a second.

[mario]

Sniping helps you against bidders who change their mind about their maximum bid... if they *already* have their maximum bid submitted at ebay that's higher than yours, which is the case here, sniping will not help you, and you will be outbid by the ebay proxy bidder.

[Gixen]

[keyondneila]

re: bidding on item 271184523808
First, thanks for an amazing service - kudos!

Can you clarify something for me - I was recently outsniped by a bid arriving 2 seconds later than mine (fine) and the winning bid was also slightly higher (his/hers GBP 236.66, mine GBP 234.99), but I thought that an advantage of not having the latest bid was that any later bid would have to be at least one bid increment higher, in this case
234.99+5.00=239.99

... yet they won with 236.66 - which is less than the GBP 5 minimum increment AND was placed later than my bid.

How come their sniping service was not rejected with a "bid not high enough to meet ebay rules" type of message?

Q2 - Can we conclude from ebay's proxy bidding rules that 236.99 was their maximum bid?

K

[Cupid]

The rule is that the bid must be at least one bid increment more than the current auction price, not more than the highest bid.

After your bid was placed by Gixen the auction price was GBP 221.00 so the bid of GBP 236.66 met the bid increment rule, it was also greater than your bid so it won the auction.

Yes, we now know that was their actual bid because ebay will make a buyer pay up to 1 bid increment more than the next highest bid... and as you noted this is less than 1 bid increment more than your high bid.

The winner could still have won this auction if they had bid GBP 235 just 1 penny more than your bid.

Bidding earlier is an advantage when you are bidding close to the auction price because later bids, that are not more than a bid increment above the auction price are rejected... but it is not an alternative to bidding higher since you don't know until after your bid is placed what others have already decided was their maximum.

In this case the advantage you had was over later bids up to GBP 225.99, if that later bid had been in that range it would have been rejected by ebay and you would have only had to pay GBP 221.
_________________
Mark

[keyondneila]

Many thanks, Mark, especially for the very swift reply. It is much clearer to me (and hopefully other users too).

So, the post-mortem with explanation is (correct me if I am wrong!):
The results looked like this:

1) v***r: GBP 236.66 12-Apr-13 12:00:02

2) keyondneila: GBP 234.99 12-Apr-13 12:00:00

3) keyondneila: GBP 221.00 12-Apr-13 12:00:00 (hidden)

4) r***t: GBP 216.00 12-Apr-13 11:59:25

commentary:
1) their actual max, revealed by proxy, but they would have paid 239.99 if they had they bid/sniped 240.00 or higher - correct?)

2) my actual max - which was displayed by the proxy due to a new higher bid in existence)


3) automatic greyed out/hidden bid in 'bid history' by ebay proxy as 216.00 +5.00 increment)[/color]

4) previous highest before Gixen entered my bid for me[/b]



The winners attempted bid would have been rejected as too small an increment, only if, the auction price was currently at 231.67 or higher (236.66-5.00 =231.66) when his snipe/bid was entered. However, even though it was not displayed, the actual bid level was at 221.00, and so the bid/snipe was accepted.

Which begs the question, why does ebay not display (by default) the 221.00 bid as it played an important part in the bidding history? - (though of course that is Ebay's, and not Gixen's issue)

[Cupid]

Yes, that all looks correct to me.

You can make ebay display the intermediate auction prices if you select the 'Show automatic bids' link at the top right of the list of bids, they don't display them as default, they have made the decision only to display the actual bid amounts of the losing bids and the amount the buyer has to pay.
_________________
Mark