ebay found a new way to screw with buyers

ferrus said:

Wow, that's buggered it all up then. Seems ridiculous.
...Will you be able to just add on an extra 2 mins before getting your late bid in, as before?

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You mean like the Japanse auctions where the last bid extends bidding time another 5 Mins? I´d find that quite boring to be honest. I really like the poker-esque aspect. Get your bid in in the last seconds and see if it sticks.

ferrus said:

Well I do that, but lots of folk don't and if they've time to see they're not winning they can keep increasing their bids

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Doesn’t that mean that they are willing to pay more than you?

If it’s something I actually want. I stick the max I’m willing to pay and just wait.

Last one I actually bought via auction was a Kona Hot frame. I bid £800 as max bid. Won it for £495. Easy.

d8mok said:

Doesn’t that mean that they are willing to pay more than you?

If it’s something I actually want. I stick the max I’m willing to pay and just wait.

Last one I actually bought via auction was a Kona Hot frame. I bid £800 as max bid. Won it for £495. Easy.

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Yeah but lots of people don't seem to know what they want to pay and fanny about inching up their bids rather than hitting a max amount. I like to determine what the most is I'd want to pay, (add a bit more if I'd be gutted to loose it for that!) - then hopefully blow everyone out the water with a very late high bid, when they've no time left to react

ferrus said:

Yeah but lots of people don't seem to know what they want to pay and fanny about inching up their bids rather than hitting a max amount. I like to determine what the most is I'd want to pay, (add a bit more if I'd be gutted to loose it for that!) - then hopefully blow everyone out the water with a very late high bid.

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But surely all irrelevant as the highest bid wins regardless of when it was placed. All this sniping stuff will at least stop possibly with the newer system.

Imagine you were at a real auction in person and there was a timer running for bids to come in by. Everyone would stand up shouting numbers out at the last 10 seconds and whoever shouts last wins. That bid likely wasn’t going to be the highest bid but the timer has ended.

So instead the bidding continues until someone is out. If you put your true highest bid , and someone wins it for £5 more then they were willing to pay more. If you say “I’d of paid £5 or £10 more “ then you should enter that amount …….

My method seems to be the opposite to most. I stick my bid in early and then when folk come along and place a bid , they immediately are outbid , realise someone wants it and they lose interest.

But they often don't loose interest, that's the point. They've got time to reflect/get further seduced/be irresponsible/whatever, and keep creeping up the bidding to compete.
Often it seems people don't place a max bid for some reason, but go low, hoping to win it for that. It seems irrational for the reasons you imply but bidding history shows many folk keep increasing by gradations

ferrus said:

Yeah but lots of people don't seem to know what they want to pay and fanny about inching up their bids rather than hitting a max amount. I like to determine what the most is I'd want to pay, (add a bit more if I'd be gutted to loose it for that!) - then hopefully blow everyone out the water with a very late high bid, when they've no time left to react

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Exactly what happened to me last Sunday. The bidder I was against at had the chance to get 3 bids in until he finally had the highest bid, with me just watching on the sideline not being able to do anything. Quite frustrating to say the least. Should this be the norm going forward it makes ebay as a platform more attractive to sellers (had the auction last Sunday ended regularly the frame would have been 200 £ cheaper), but much less attractive to buyers like me.

This is still a lot of speculation on my part, besides the link posted by @bobby-gg above I did not find anything about a change of the rules.

I always enter the highest amount I'm willing to pay in the last 5 seconds of the stated auction end time.
There's no disappiontment then if I don't win it and no time left to change my mind!

3wheeler7 said:

I always enter the highest amount I'm willing to pay in the last 5 seconds of the stated auction end time.
There's no disappiontment then if I don't win it and no time left to change my mind!

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Yeah that was my plan also. See above ...

Still no answer from ebay BTW (I filed a complaint)

Unpopular as it seems I have often used sniping systems. This isn't to cheat anyone or to game anything (they're free and readily available), it allows me in good time to set my own value on an item, commit to this and most importantly not to have to be hovering (or forgetting to hover over a keyboard ) at a time not of my choosing without driving up the bidding days before.

I've very often lost auctions hours or days before it ends but I can live with that - I made my decision (likely an overly 'careful' one apparently).

It might be that the days of sniping are coming to an end, c'est la vie, I'll just spend even less money! The platform is becoming less attractive in many ways.

I do think placing an early maximum bid can be a winning strategy if you've got the deepest pockets but I don't believe it will consistently deliver best value for a buyer.

Dr Dremel said:

That´s what it seems like. Auction ended, highest bid for me. Then the new to me pop up message „We're determining the winner. Please refresh the page“ with the (not so) winning bid beneath instead of the "congrats you win blabla". In the next minute I watch the "winning bid" in the pop up window climb until it´s just over my highest bid. One person submitted 3 additional bids after the auction ended for me.

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Always put in what your willing to pay for it and you'll always pay the price its worth. And if someone thinks its worth more you can't complain