ebay bidding question .... ????

[roscoe]

What am I missing?<br /><br />ebay motors item, starting bid, $.99<br />Buy it now $55.00<br />Item has one bid, so the current bid shows $.99.<br /><br />I bid $20.<br /><br />Auction ends and I won, bid amount is $20.<br />I go check the "bids" history.<br />It shows only 2 bids, the first bidder who bid $15.00, and my bid of $20.<br /><br />Here is my question. If the first bidder only bid $15, shouldn't my bid have only jumped to $15.50?<br />Why did it jump to $20?<br /><br />Is this a case of "my bid was sufficient to hit the reserve price", so it jumped past the reserve?<br /><br />I don't get it. Never seen it happen this way before.

 

[neumanns]

Re: ebay bidding question .... ????

I think it jumped to the reserve price.

 

[sangerwaker]

Re: ebay bidding question .... ????

That is weird. I've never sold anything on ebay, so I may be wrong here. Can you, as a seller, set the increments an item bids at? I know on some items, once a seller's set price is met, the item will then only accept bids in 5.00 increments, instead of 1.00, for example. Could the seller have set the item to go to 5.00 increments after 15.00?

 

[roscoe]

Re: ebay bidding question .... ????

I don't think so sangerwaker.<br />The bid increments increase as the bidding hets higher.<br /><br /><br />Bid Increments<br />current bid ----- bid increment<br />$ 0.01 - $ 0.99 ------$ 0.05<br />$ 1.00 - $ 4.99----- $ 0.25<br />$ 5.00 - $ 24.99 --$ 0.50<br />$ 25.00 - $ 99.99 --$ 1.00<br />$ 100.00 - $ 249.99 $ 2.50<br />$ 250.00 - $ 499.99 $ 5.00<br />$ 500.00 - $ 999.99 $ 10.00<br />$ 1000.00 - $ 2499.99 $ 25.00<br />$ 2500.00 - $ 4999.99 $ 50.00<br />$ 5000.00 and up---- $ 100.00<br /><br /><br />Oh wait, I found it.<br />"A bid increment will go higher than the standard increment in two situations:<br />To meet the reserve amount<br />To beat a competing bidder's high bid"<br /><br />Strange that I had never seen this happen before. I wonder if it is something new?<br /><br />I know a couple years ago, even if you bid above the reserve price, you would only make the minimun bid unless someone else actually bid against you.<br /><br />OK, bye now.

 

[BoatBuoy]

Re: ebay bidding question .... ????

In another place eBay says <br /><br />"In Reserve Price Auctions, if your maximum bid is the first to be greater than the seller's reserve price, the eBay system will automatically jump the price up to meet the reserve, and bidding will continue from there."<br /><br />May have always been that way but I didn't know it.

 

[Tinkerer]

Re: ebay bidding question .... ????

Do you still have reserves in the US? eBay AU ditched them last year. If you still have them it was probably a reserve.<br /><br />Or maybe eBay is getting even more adventurous with its own shill bidding against users:<br /><br /> http://www.google.com.au/search?sou...GLD:2004-28,GGLD:en&q=ebay+sued+shill+bidding

 

[roscoe]

Re: ebay bidding question .... ????

I figure ebay will eventually get rid of the reserve price here too, its a money thing.<br /><br />BoatBuoy, no, it wasn't always that way.<br />I remember being the only bidder on an item, and had bid well over the reserve price (as stated by the seller). But no one else bid on the item so my bid only registered as the opening bid amount. Auction ended without having met the reserve.<br /> <br />I eventually contacted the seller, and he relisted it as a "buy it now", and I bought it 2 minutes later.

 

[Nos4r2]

Re: ebay bidding question .... ????

I doubt it, they charge the seller to put a reserve price on-and then charge to relist until it's sold over here<br /><br />Ebay's attitude to their users STINKS. (see my previous thread)

 

[roscoe]

Re: ebay bidding question .... ????

But if the reserve is eliminated, sellers would be forced to have a higher starting bid, which ebay charges more for.<br /><br /> Not only are the fees getting bad, but all the new rules are in favor of the buyers, and sellers are more vulnerable now.

 

[KaGee]

Re: ebay bidding question .... ????

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Ebay charges extra when you have a reserve price. A reserve tends to slow down auctions.<br /><br />As for the fees, it costs me 4 or 5 times the cost to advertise in the local newspaper want- ads with an exposure max of 130,000 readers. I can't complain.

 

[roscoe]

Re: ebay bidding question .... ????

Yes KaGee, you are correct.<br />Another thing that slows down the bidding even more is a high opening bid. And that costs more too.<br /><br />For the occasional seller that sells things out of the garage, or unwanted items from the house, it doesn't much matter.<br /><br />But for the person that is buying the items to sell, and paying all the listing fees, and final sales fee, and PayPal fee, and taking all the risk, it is nice to have an auction tool to guarranty a minimum selling price to cover the costs. I want to run true auctions, not buy it now sales.<br /><br />So now we are back to the options of a reserve price or a higher starting bid. Or open an ebay store and put in a bunch of buy it now items. But you need volume to cover all the fees there.

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: ebay bidding question .... ????

Ebay has just gotten too big. Customer service is not there at all anymore and they move at the top speed of S L O W.<br /><br />I have a listing on ebay that got messed up. I paid for a reserve price and the buy it now and neither have showed up. I have the proof in the confirmation e-mail but now ebay is not responding.<br /><br />My boss was furious that I listed the item w/o reserve and buy it now and I showed him the e-mail. We are going to let the auction take it's course due to a time issue and see what happens.<br /><br />Bob

 

[Tinkerer]

Re: ebay bidding question .... ????

Originally posted by roscoe:<br /> So now we are back to the options of a reserve price or a higher starting bid. Or open an ebay store and put in a bunch of buy it now items. But you need volume to cover all the fees there.

I list about 40 - 50 items a week on eBay AU.<br /><br />I'm also on or lurk on various non-eBay boards that cover various aspects of eBay.<br /><br />I've got 810+ FB at 100% (or about 1,000 FB lodged as some are from repeat buyers).<br /><br />I must have listed about 6,000 items on eBay over the past few years.<br /><br />I've had a couple of eBay stores at different times, holding up to 300 items.<br /><br />I can say with absolute confidence that:<br /><br />1. eBay prices and sell through rates have been dropping steadily over the three years I've been on it, and for the past five years according to people who've been on it since the early days in the late '90's.<br /><br />2. Every time you think you've got it nailed eBay will stuff it up by interfering with categories, browsing, fees, and changes like item specifics.<br /><br />3. eBay is a casino. Every listing is a gamble. You can only win if you play the percentages with lots of listings to lay off possible losses.<br /><br />4. Look into the corporate aspects of eBay. It's run to massage the stock price for the benefit of the senior management who offload their stock options every chance they get. That ain't the action of people with confidence in the long term capital value of the stock of the company they're running.