eBay

glibbleglibble · ‎08-09-2012

How fast does automatic bidding react in the final seconds? Can someone place a bid with 1 second left and win, even if my max bid was much higher than his?

What I mean is, how reliable is automatic bidding? If my max bid is $300, and the current bidding price is $251 (obviously by me), then someone throws in his MAX bid of $252 at the final second, will automatic bidding bump my bid up to $253 in time to win the bid?

(I know this question has been asked, but the answer was iffy)

Thx

dmil8030 · ‎08-09-2012

If you have already entered $300 as a max bid, and someone else had earlier entered $250, at that level the increments go up by $2.50. See this:

http://pages.ebay.ca/help/buy/bid-increments.html

So the earlier bidder must have entered 248.50 for you to be at $251. But okay, there you are. If you actually have $300 on it, the 1-second sniper has to bid more than $300 to nab it from you.

The bid box asks him to bid $253.50 or more. That one always trips up newbie nibblers, because they don't understand about getting outbid. Have you see this:

http://pages.ebay.ca/help/buy/outbid.html

But if the sniper has the same idea as you, that the item is worth $300, she can snipe it out from under you with only $300.01. It's always the highest bid that wins. ... Only fair, when you think about it. The whole automatic bidding process is explained in the following link:

http://pages.ebay.ca/help/buy/automatic-bidding.html

dmil8030 · ‎08-09-2012

Oh, - I forgot to add, ... when you're at the end of an auction, whether you've entered a high bid before going to bed/work, or are counting down for a snipe, the advantage to using odd numbers like $302.47 is that it prevents a tie. Won't make any difference early on, but I've seen auctions where the sniper really won by one second and 1 cent. 🙂