Curious eBay bidding strategy
astrorat
Posts: 9,221 ✭✭✭✭✭
I recently came across a curious bidding strategy on eBay (curious to me, that is). I have seen a few auctions where early in the auction (several days remaining), a bidder will place a half-dozen or more consecutive bids (all within a few minutes). From the listing it appears there are many bids, but when the bid history is checked, there may be only one or two bidders.
Here is an example:
https://ebay.com/itm/One-ounce-999-silver-round-COMBINED-SHIPPING-PLAN/114578826630?hash=item1aad6e2586:g:pY0AAOSwwz1f2nI6
I am curious as to the perceived (or real) advantage of multiple intermittent bids as compared with a large bid or a snipe bid. Thoughts?
Edited add ... I have no interest in the listing, it's just an example of the bidding strategy
Numismatist Ordinaire
See http://www.doubledimes.com for a free online reference for US twenty-cent pieces
See http://www.doubledimes.com for a free online reference for US twenty-cent pieces
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That's dumb. Just bid your max amount with 1-2 seconds left.
Maybe artificially increasing the bid count of that bidder? That's the only thing I can think of, but I don't know why it would be advantageous.
Perhaps it's to suggest to snipers there's a lot of interest and they need a moon bid to win?
I have done it where I bid and then bid another 2-3 time over the course of the day to raise my max
11.5$ Southern Dollars, The little “Big Easy” set
Possibly the motivation is trying to "reveal" the current top bid so they know where the line is. Logical? Certainly not, but logical is not a descriptor I see assigned to many eBay bidders here anyway
Nothing is as expensive as free money.
How would repeatedly making the same bid reveal anything?
Is it repeatedly making the same bid? Or is it bidding higher each time, but unless someone else tops the bid, it shows as the same amount?
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
are they trying to get $1 over the reserve?
The subsequent bids are not the same, but at a higher amount. eBay just lists the bid at the current "highest" level.
See http://www.doubledimes.com for a free online reference for US twenty-cent pieces
You're right, he could be. But as long as he's the high bidder, it's not going to tell him anything, is it?
Could be, that they are trying to find where the bid is, to see if they are still interested, if it’s an auction and other similar items, if they feel the current top bidder has bids on a bunch of items, raise the price so competition is extended to max on many items. Could be just entertainment, like looking at the item, may want it...within your discretionary fun budget, and just say, why not one more bid, then, why not one more....
I have probably done at least one of these.
I see this every once in a while. Not sure why it happens, but some bidders just slowly reach a maximum. As long as they don't do it as an underbidder and then retract when they become the high bidder (thus bumping the prior high bidder to their max), I'm fine with it. As soon as someone starts playing games with bidding and retractions, they're gone.
87(953feedback score: 953) $26.00 16 Dec 2020 at 4:45:10PM PST
87(953feedback score: 953) $26.00 16 Dec 2020 at 4:45:03PM PST
87(953feedback score: 953) $26.00 16 Dec 2020 at 4:44:50PM PST
87(953feedback score: 953) $26.00 16 Dec 2020 at 4:44:40PM PST
87(953feedback score: 953) $26.00 16 Dec 2020 at 4:44:34PM PST
87(953feedback score: 953) $26.00 16 Dec 2020 at 4:44:29PM PST
s6(527feedback score: 527) $25.00 18 Dec 2020 at 8:56:03PM PST
s6(527feedback score: 527) $24.00 18 Dec 2020 at 8:56:00PM PST
8***7(953feedback score: 953) $22.00 16 Dec 2020 at 4:44:19PM PST
Starting Price $22.00 16 Dec 2020 at 4:25:04PM PST
You can't bid the same amount more than once. You have to increase the bid to the next increment.
Given the time between bids, it looks to me like he wanted to bid a maximum of $31 but preferred to just hit raise the bid rather than enter $31.
I've never done it that many times. But I've sometimes added an increment or two to my bid as "security"
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, evn when irrefutably accurate.
I think on bidding / auction sites, everyone wants what they want for the lowest amount possible, right? so, from my experience, if a bid is at $100, I'll toss a bid on [next increment up], if it's top bid, great, I let it sit, if it's not, I may keep making incremental bids until I am winning bidder - maybe, in my incremental bids, it gets to $150 and I'm still not winning bidder, I may step away at that point, having now made * several * bids, but not being top bidder --- day or two later, I may come back and make more incremental bids or make a much higher max bid --- to me, this is not strange, different people just bid differently --- right now, for instance, I'm trying to get a coin that's at ~$200 - I expect it to go for anywhere between $250-300, so I won't be going back until the last few seconds to make my max bid
One little related eBay quirk: you become the high bidder if your bid is higher than the exiting high bidder's top bid, even if it's by less than one increment. But bid again, and you'll raise your bid to be a full increment above.
Example: Let's say an item is at $150, and the high bidder's secret max bid is $175. The bid increment at this level is $2.50. If you bid anywhere between $175.01 and $177.49, you'll become the high bidder (bid was more than $175) at less than the $2.50 increment. So if you bid $176, you're winning at $176. But if you then decide to bid $200, eBay will bump your winning bid to $177.50 to make it a full increment above the highest underbidder. It's the only way you can bid against yourself.
Not that I’m aware of.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
Guy in coin club does that to scare them there a lot of bidders.
I have actually been scared off by that strategy.
I have also nuke bid people using that strategy and almost always win.
I'm not quite sure why it would be scary. One click to check on the bids and it's clear it's one person.
See http://www.doubledimes.com for a free online reference for US twenty-cent pieces
If that is true, I guess someone could bid 30.01 to test the theory that it was raised $1 each time without risk.
Will’sProoflikes
The only time i get spooked is if the bidder has a high bid % with that seller and/or low feedback, it's a sign of shill bidding. It's not absolute proof of shill bidding but it's enough of an indication to make me not want to bid anymore.
The mystery bidder (feedback of 953) has placed numerous bids on numerous items from the same seller. I say shill bidder.
No Way Out: Stimulus and Money Printing Are the Only Path Left
I'm confused...is it not just eBays automatic increment thingy? If I bid $150 and it says you're outbid...you need to bid x, I might hit that 3 or 4 times and if I'm not high bid sometimes I enter a non-increment bid and many times I walk away, but it would show 3 or 4 consecutive bids before I quit.
That can happen also, but if you look at the bids, there aren't as many increments as there are bids. It started at $22. The bid increment is $1 and it only ended at $26 after 9 bids.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, evn when irrefutably accurate.
Makes sense regarding shill bidding. How can you determine the percentage of bids a bidder has with a specific seller? [Sorry if that's a real basic question, but I have not been able to figure out how.]
See http://www.doubledimes.com for a free online reference for US twenty-cent pieces
Just click on the name in the bidding history.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, evn when irrefutably accurate.
Cool ... got it! Thanks.
See http://www.doubledimes.com for a free online reference for US twenty-cent pieces
If I think there's a shill bidder, that doesn't completely scare me off from trying to win an item, but I need to understand that bidding early will only encourage the shill and likely cost me money. I will just set a snipe bid at the max I'm willing to pay; if someone else gets shilled beyond fair value, my snipe won't execute, and it's on to the next coin.
If you look at the history and think the guy is bidding a lot more each time you might think you have no hope of winning. If you think he’s bidding the next increment each time so all the bids amount to very little, they’re trivial. So I think the scary factor comes into play when you think about and have to assume what exactly the bidder is doing.