Thread: Won the auction but curious about the bids

Actuall just the last two. I outsniped somebody but I don't think that had anything to do with it. Item# 150323483878

My snipe of $58.61 beat the other snipe of $57.95 ?? I think the bid increment from $25 to $99 is $1.00? If the bid increment was $0.50 I should have won with $58.45?
If my bid had gone in first then the other one wouldn't have been shown in the bidding right?

Here's the only thing I can think of. My snipe got entered before the other snipe. The current bid was well below both snipes. Ebay's proxy bidder considers both our max bids and compares them as being the same (different by less than a minimum bid increment). So it lists the other max bid in the history and my max bid is used as the winner since it was entered first.

If the other bid had been entered first I would think mine would have been rejected/lost since it wasn't a full increment larger?

Anybody know?

One of the following happened.

01:31:16 n***s puts in max bid of $45.
01:33:35 a***e puts in max bid of $57.95. So "Current" price goes to $46.
01:33:35 7***u puts in max bid of $58.61 which is over $46+1$ and also over $57.95 so is accepted. "Current" price goes to $58.61
7***u wins auction.

Alternatively:

01:31:16 n***s puts in max bid of $45.
01:33:35 7***u puts in max bid of $58.61 So "Current" price goes to $46.
01:33:35 a***e puts in max bid of $57.95. 7***u's max bid is higher. Since it was placed earlier, the $1 difference over $57.95 is not required and max bid is accepted.
7***u wins auction.

Even if you bid last you would have won becuase your bid was more than $1 over the then current price.

Originally Posted by Rajagra

One of the following happened.

01:31:16 n***s puts in max bid of $45.
01:33:35 a***e puts in max bid of $57.95. So "Current" price goes to $46.
01:33:35 7***u puts in max bid of $58.61 which is over $46+1$ and also over $57.95 so is accepted. "Current" price goes to $58.61
7***u wins auction.

I still think there's a bug and I am guessing it's in the bit of code that compares the max bids.

I'm thinking this case would be a bug since the minimum increment is considered for the "initial" bid but not considered for the "final" bid. If you think of the proxy bidder as putting in individual bids of one increment more for each party until the max, then the minimum bid increment restriction should be applied to the final bids also. I would expect max bid amounts to be considered equal if they do not differ by at least the minimum bid increment (and that increment amount should correspond to the bracket the max bids fall in).

Scenario 1 (a***e first in):
n***s puts in max bid of $45
a***e puts in max bid of $57.95 --> current price goes to $46 == a***e's current bid (FIRST in)
7***u puts in max bid of $58.61 --> current price goes to $47 == 7***u's current bid
a***e puts in bid for $48
7***u puts in bid for $49
.
.
.
a***e puts in bid for $56
7***u puts in bid for $57

a***e cannot bid $57.95 because it's less than the minimum increment... If this happend then I would have expected 7***u to win the auction with a bid of $57.00

OR --

Scenario 2 (7***u first in)
7***u puts in max bid of $58.61 --> current price goes to $46 == 7***u's current bid (FIRST in)
a***e puts in max bid of $57.95 --> current price goes to $47 == a***e's current bid
7***u puts in bid for $48
a***e puts in bid for $49
.
.
.
7***u puts in bid for $56
a***e puts in bid for $57
7***u puts in bid for $58 (winner)

but in this case why did 7***u win the item for $58.61 instead of $58.00?

In Scenario 2, 7***u would win according to all the rules but the price should have been $58.00. eBay should not have thrown in the $0.61. Haha, THIS may have been intentional? To inflate the price and eBay's commission. Like siphoning off the fraction cents on bank transactions

It doesn't seem buggy to me. Your bid was high enough to be more than a dollar over the current bid ($46) but not high enough to be a dollar over the highest proxy bid for the sniper ($57.95) so you won with your snipe of $58.61

I don't think proxy bids are restricted by minimum bid increment rules

Check out the following section at http://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/bid-increments.html

Can I be outbid by less than a full increment?

You can be outbid by less than a full increment. A winning bidder's maximum bid needs only to exceed the next highest maximum bid by one cent.
For example:

1. You're the first bidder and you place a maximum bid of $20.00. We’ll automatically bid on your behalf up to $20.00 against other bidders.
2. When a second bidder places a maximum bid of $9.00, your bid is automatically raised to $9.50.
3. When a third bidder bids $20.01, this bidder becomes the high bidder at $20.01. The third bidder needs only to exceed your next automatic bid amount of $10.00 ($9.50 plus $0.50). Since $20.01 is more than $10.00, and is also more than your maximum bid, the third bidder becomes the winning bidder, unless you raise your bid.

Since $58.61 is more than $46, and is also more than the other sniper's max bid of $57.95, you become the winning bidder. Because of that I think the other sniper's bid went in first

Leave it to you to ruin everything by actually reading the policy...

but I still think that's a bug... (or intentional to inflate the sale price by a fractional increment amount). Technically, I think their example violates the policy. The effect is that bidding through the proxy bidder is different than bidding "manually". Take two bidders each entering bids one at a time, manually, for the minimum bid increment up to their max. The outcome would be different.

It's most definitely not a bug, as it implements the policy correctly. Now if the policy was that the only allowed bids must follow the increment structure it would be different. That is how it is on certain auctions, e.g. the ebay's Live auctions. But that's not the case for most auctions on ebay. The firm deadline for placing bids isn't like whatever definition of 'normal' auctions most people have, but that's what the rules are on ebay.
Now this reminds me to call them and find out why I a while ago got bid incremented by 0.60EUR.

Originally Posted by Quick

I still think there's a bug and I am guessing it's in the bit of code that compares the max bids.

No bug that I could see. Rules that get applied, that's all.

Originally Posted by Quick

I'm thinking this case would be a bug since the minimum increment is considered for the "initial" bid but not considered for the "final" bid.

Not "initial", but "current". You're right, that's how it works. But it's not a bug, it's ebay rules.

Originally Posted by Quick

the minimum bid increment restriction should be applied to the final bids also

It is being applied to the final bids. You mean to the maximum bids.

Originally Posted by Quick

eBay should not have thrown in the $0.61. Haha, THIS may have been intentional? To inflate the price and eBay's commission. Like siphoning off the fraction cents on bank transactions

MAY have been intentional?!

I've moved my thinking on this from "bug" to ambivalent... I can see both sides and I guess it's a matter of interpretation or maybe more a matter of implementation.

One interpretation is that the proxy bidder is completely separate from the actual auction. Imagine that you wrote your own proxy bidder to run on your PC at home. You enter a max bid and each time you get outbid your proxy bidder enters a new bid, 1 increment higher than the current bid. That has always been my impression of how it worked (wrong as it may have been).

The difference is that on eBay everybody is using the same instance of the proxy bidder and it does not handle each bid separately. All the bid information is "shared". It makes sense if you look at it that way. Your bid is NOT a series of individual bids (each 1 increment larger) up to your max price.

Now that I think about it I seem to remember that a long time ago the "proxy bidder" was an option on eBay. You could just enter a flat bid for whatever amount over the current price. For example if an item currently had a bid of $10 on it, you could enter a bid for $20 and the current price would immediately go to $20. OR you could optionally "use our handy dandy proxy bidder to automatically bump the price by the minimum increment as necessary up to your max". At the time I remember thinking "why would anyone NOT use the proxy bidder?". I guess that's why it's not an option and all bids are entered that way.