Locked
Discussions in this board are limited to the original poster and Community Mentors
bidding question
Why did I lose a bid if I was the highest bidder? The auction also had a buy it now option set at $75.00. The bid was at $49.50 (my bid). Someone bid higher at about 1 minute left. I then bid $95.11 hoping to get it right above what the bid was at, and wanted to bid high enough to make sure no one else would bid higher than me. I was willing to pay $95.11, if it came to that. I got a message saying my bid was at or above the buy it now price. I then lost to a bid of $50. Why did my bid not win at whatever the existing bid was at?
1 comment
woodland_gnome
·2 years agoSounds like your $95.11 bid was not actually submitted, you getting the error message about your bid being higher than the BIN price instead (I would think there was a button on it to place the bid anyway but you apparently didn't click that, or you were too late and the bid was not received at eBay's servers in time before that auction ended), so the bidder who outbid you won.
Don't bid like that. Reacting to other bidders is a losing strategy. Bid your TRUE maximum that you are willing and able to pay for that particular item as listed (don't forget to back out shipping etc.) WITHOUT REGARD to what others appear or don't appear to have bid. There is absolutely no need to figure out what others have or haven't bid or might bid* in determining your bid amount, since it ALREADY will have been figured into the price if you win. While some claim tactical reasons to place a lower bid early in the auction and then wait until near the end to bid your full TRUE maximum, I advise bidding only 1 time (can't repeat it enough: at your TRUE maximum) because you are never guaranteed a rebid (and there are circumstances where the prior bid prevents a rebid on that same auction). For several reasons later bidding is better than early bidding (doesn't use up your Limits, keeps your options open, doesn't leave your hidden maximum available for others, including dishonest sellers, to probe by "nibbling" at it) and I recommend using a third party "snipe service" (do a websearch, there are reliable and secure ones that are free for limited use or there are different fee schedules that best suit your bidding quantity and ratio of wins) to place your bid during the last few seconds using eBay's API rather than the not especially reliable web interface or, worse, mobile app.
*(other than to assume someone else will value the item about the same as you, so bid a bit ABOVE any round or roundish number you come up with to increase your chances of being on the winning side of what might have been a tie or a loss to someone else who knows this tip)