How about fetcing number of bids when getting prices?

[rickajho]

Surprised I couldn't find mention of this one. It would be helpful to know the number of bids placed in context of an eBay ("High Bid") price. Would that be difficult to add another column and fetch the number of bids when getting prices?

My context for wanting that information is to determine if there is any interest showing up on an item, and how much interest. As it is if an item has an opening bid of, say, $1.00 you cannot tell in gixen if someone put up an opening bid or not. It either case the "high bid" amount will be reported the same.

This would be helpful for those items where you have snipes placed days or weeks out from the end of an auction. I'm not expecting it to help out at all in the last two minutes of bidding. But if activity shows up you may want to reconsider your bid amount.

Just a thought...

[Gixen]

[Cupid]

Gixen already fetches that information and takes account of it where appropriate.

If you have a snipe bid scheduled that is within one bid increment of the starting bid you will find that the snipe only turns yellow (indicating that the bid can no longer be placed) after there is a bid on the item.

I don't see much advantage in displaying it since it would never affect the amount that I chose for my snipe. That is because, in my view, a successful sniper should do in depth research on value and then not take any account of what other people decide to do on any specific auction they are interested in bidding on.
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Mark

[rickajho]

Other snipe sites do provide the number of bids along with the high bid price and IMO it is useful information. It's not a matter of knowing if your snipe is within on bid increment, it's more a matter of knowing if there is any interest/activity at all in what is in your snipe list.

I'm not advocating setting your bid offers that close to the edge that you are always within one bid increment of losing. But if it is an item that you really want, and you know "bid x" now represents 13 bids five days before auction end, then you know what you are up against and are better informed as to if you want to just pass on that one or up your snipe amount.

Also, If a seller stipulates a fairly high opening bid gixen with report those opening amounts as the "High Bid" when the real scenario may be that there may have been no bids placed at all. In this scenario all I'm saying is that an opening minimum required bid doesn't equate to an acutal bid placed. That's a case where viewing a "High Bid" via gixen is a bit misleading. Might be a high bid, could also be an item with no bids heading for a relisting.

[Cupid]

What I am suggesting as that any activity on an open Ebay auction is of little use in determining the actual value.

After an auction completes the bidding information is of much greater use.

I know the value I place on an item before I even add a snipe... the activity between that time and the completion of the auction is not relevant to me, it only ever results in my deleting the snipe if the price goes above what I am willing to pay.
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Mark

[Guest]

Listing number of bids would be very usefull for me to help understand the interest in certain items.

I love your software - tried other snipers before- you are the best!

Anders from Sweden

[fire_bad]

[marc_5891]

I agree that this piece of information completes the picture as to what kind of war you are going to. You can do all your research, but in the end you also want to know just how many dudes are out there trying to get what you are after.

So please devs, read our posts and move Gixen forward with new features what will make the Premium version even more enticing.

Regards,
m.

[smitty]

I agree -- seeing the number of bidders is very useful because Gixen's display is NO different if there is NO initial bidder or the item has its first bidder -- the display LOOKS the same.

BUT there is a big difference -- you now have competition that may occur since you now have some "action". Without a change in display, you would have to manually check the item (which also shows interest if a counter is used).

I guess that I am not as good as some people here who absolutely KNOW the value of the item that they bid on.

I'm simply trying to get the items as inexpensively as possible and sometimes I don't know the exact "value" and have to make changes as I see others bidding. Some items do NOT have a "brisk" trade and are unique.

If I bid slightly more than the initial amount myself (through ebay), it then shows interest in the item to others (and that makes THEM place a higher initial bid). That recently happened and it was extremely likely that it cost me an extra $25+.

While I may know the current price, having immediate knowledge of the current situation can save money.

And isn't that ONE of the purposes of using Gixen -- to save money? (In addition to not having to run you life based on ebay auction closings in the early AM.)

[klondyke]

I use Gixen as way to keep track of everything I am interested in, not just to make proxy bids. For example, if a lot is getting more or fewer bids than I expect then maybe I should look at the lot more closely to see if I should modify my proxy bid, either up or down.

This should take very little effort to implement. You just need to parse the eBay page for the number of bids & place the result (in parens) in the Current column.

[Cupid]

As mentioned earlier in this thread Gixen already fetches this information and uses it where appropriate.
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Mark

[GrahamB]

This topic has been quiet for a while, but rather than opening a new topic, I will add my voice to those calling for information on number of bidders to be shown on Gixen, please. It really is helpful to me when deciding whether to bid or not, as well as how large a bid to place. I can click on the item link in the left hand column and view the current state of play with bidding, but it would be more convenient to have the information on the Gixen page.

It's not going to stop me using this wonderful site/tool, though!

[mario]

Added - I've had this information in the database for a long time, not sure why I haven't added this to the UI before. Now you can see something like "350 USD (5 bids)" where the current price is displayed.

[Rickajho]

Thank you Mario! You da man!

Rick

[Rickajho]

Right now I'm bidding on something that's a perfect example of why this is good.

It's sort of a rare item and the seller set the starting bid at $199.00 seven days out. Without that number of bids info I wouldn't be able to tell from gixen if that $199 represented zero bids or twenty. For days it sat there at those numbers. Now that it's moved to only $204.50 24 hours before the auction close and there have only been 3 bids I have a better idea of what the non sniping public is doing: It's not turning out to be a feverish bidding scenario and that helps me assess what I set my bid at for an item I may not see again for years.

02¢