2 major thumbs down

[DJMIKESEA]

total rubish this program, i had one auction loaded in and it didnt even bid. and i had the highest offer, but lost the auction. due to this program never placing bid, even though it said it was "scheduled" deleting this trash program right now.

[mario]

I found your account and your bid. Your maximum bid was 41.99, and auction was won for 41.00. You lost because of eBay's bid increments.

This is normal - it's not enough that your bid is higher than the current high bid at the auction end time, it has to be higher for a certain increment, or eBay will not accept it.

[Blagbox]

I pity you Mario with having to deal (graciously) with such idiots!

[mario]

[Gixen]

[ALWAYS SNIPING]

I agree learning sniping isn’t intuitive and for some not easy. But surely when the errors of one’s rant and unwarranted outburst is politely and patiently explained maybe at least an acknowledgement, or better still, an apology is in order. As my mother used to say - manners maketh man. On another note thanks again Mario for all your hard work and what for me has always been, and remains an excellent sniping service- the best

[911snipe]

This thread is interesting and might definitely help me understand the increment rule, last detail I need to get clear before taking a subscription.
It's not intuitive, really ...

ITEM 274445100810
what does the increment apply to ? According to the rule, it should be 0.5 € over the last winning amount, which is 35.10, so 35.60 ...

By the way, thank you, I won

[Cupid]

The short explanation to summarise what follows is that the bid increment rule does not dictate that you can't win an Ebay auction by less than one bid increment, many buyers do that quite regularly. The bid increment rule dictates that Ebay will reject any bid that is less than one bid increment more than the current auction price.

Actually that auction is in GBP so the bid increments are as listed here. So it's GBP 1 in that range.

However, the common misunderstanding is that the bid increment rule relates to the highest proxy bid (which is generally not shown by Ebay until another bid is placed that exceeds it, though not when that bid is less than one bid increment more than it, as yours was, the detail of which I'll come to in a later, more detailed, paragraph), when in fact it relates to the auction price displayed by Ebay at the time the bid is placed.

You need to look at the timings of the bids, as well as their amounts, in order to fully understand the sequence of how Ebay auction prices progress and what Ebay displays at each stage, after each subsequent bid is accepted.

So, in this case, when your bid of GBP 35.52 was placed the auction price displayed by Ebay was GBP 31 (GBP 30 from the next highest bid plus one bid increment of GBP 1 from the bid of GBP 32 placed nearly half an hour before the auction ended) so Ebay was accepting any bid of GBP 32 (the current auction price of GBP 31 plus one bid increment of GBP 1) or above which your bid was, and as a result of it being accepted the price rose to GBP 33 (again, that lower bid plus one bid increment of GBP 1) which then becomes the current auction price and as far as anyone looking at the auction, your current high bid.

Ebay would therefore then accept any bid of GBP 34 (your current high bid plus one bid increment of GBP 1) or above and a second after your bid the last bid of GBP 35.10 was placed and accepted because it again met the bid increment rule by being over GBP 34. However your bid was still higher than that and so it still won, and Ebay can't make you pay more than you actually bid so you only have to pay the GBP 35.52 that you actually bid.

Had you bid more Ebay would have made you pay up to GBP 36.10 (the second highest bid of GBP 35.10 plus one bid increment of GBP 1).

As I often say, it's the highest accepted bid that always wins on Ebay, the complexities as to what is accepted at what time can be seemingly quite complex, but the underlying rules are relatively simple in themselves and I've never seen Ebay software not stick rigidly to those rules for bids that they have had from when they originally went live all those years ago.
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Mark

[911snipe]

Cupid (nice username !),

thank you very much for taking the time to explain the ebay mechanism in detail !

If I understand you right, the main point here is :
auction price displayed by Ebay at the time the bid is placed
which of course you cannot always guess, as everything happens very quickly in the final seconds.

Hence, if you really want an item, stretch as far as you can (i.e. as you are ready to pay) because you only have one shot and you don't know how far the other bidder is willing to go/has gone.

This is going to be my rule of thumb, but then, I am not a professional nor do I intend to be.

Also, thanks for correcting the currency increment : it's precisely because of that mistake that I won the bid !
After extensive reading on the Forum, I came up with that weird amount on the hypothesis that the .52 were going to beat any .50 increment +0.1, as people often do.
Lucky mistake !

Thanks again, from a happy new customer !

[Cupid]

Short answer this time... Yes.
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Mark