posted on July 26, 2005 05:05:16 AM new
I've been wondering more and more about one of my auctions that ended recently...I had a starting bid of $9.99, a reserve of $65, and a "Buy It Now" of $100 for this item...Had lots of watchers, but only one guy bid one it...His bid? $65!...10 seconds before it ended...Now what are the chances that this guy was lucky enough to guess my exact reserve?...It's had me wondering ever since...Wondering if there is some program out there that someone can somehow find out...I know there are sniping programs out there...Did this guy get lucky or does he know something I don't know???
posted on July 26, 2005 05:15:13 AM new
He knows something you don't know -- that most of us also know.
If you have a reserve of $65 and he puts in a bid of $70, ebay will automatically ratchet up the bid to your reserve, but not higher. That's how it appeared he guessed correctly. Actually, he just put in his highest bid in a snipe and ebay too care of it.
If you had had no reserve and he entered $70, ebay would have only triggered it up to the $9.99 starting price, leaving the rest of his bid to compete with subsequent bidders.
------ "Bend over backward for the customer. Don't bend forward."
posted on July 26, 2005 05:22:54 AM new
Peiklk beat me to the answer. As a long time sniper I know that I can put in a bid as high as I want and eBay's proxy system will only bid one increment above the highest bidder or at the exact reserve. I am embarrassed to say that I have put in outrageous bids on things I really "had to have" and the proxy system has saved me from the madness. The danger there is that there are other "crazies" who do the same thing in the areas I collect so I have to hope that one of them is crazier than I am and saves me.
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“The illiterate of the future will be the person ignorant of the use of the camera as well as of the pen.”
Maholy-Nagy, Vision in Motion, 1947
