Locked
Discussions in this board are limited to the original poster and Community Mentors
Biding on items
I’m pretty sure that other people can find a way to see your max bid . Cause I loose every time with 3 seconds left . And it’s always $2 more than my max. Is this possible??
4 comments
house*of*paws
Mentor2 years agoHi @ri-547878
Winners always win by one-bid increment … regardless of the amount of the bid they placed. In other words, the winner’s actual max bid was hidden … just like yours (and everyone else’s) is hidden until someone uncovers it by bidding over it.
eburtonlab
Mentor2 years agoThe reason you are losing by one bid increment is because when someone outbids another bidder, eBay only uses enough of the maximum bid amount to take the lead by up to one bid increment.
You do not know how much that person actually bid in that situation unless someone else bids within an increment of that amount or outbids that amount to become the new high bidder.
If you are losing by $2.50, it is because that is the bid increment for bids between $100 and $249.99.
https://www.ebay.com/help/buying/bidding/automatic-bidding?id=4014
woodland_gnome
·2 years agoJust to add in, if the other bidder could actually see your hidden maximum, why would s/he bid $2 (or $2.50) above it? If s/he was trying to get the lowest possible price why wouldn't s/he bid merely 1 cent above it?
When eBay says it will hide the full amount of your bid if you are high bidder they don't mean ONLY YOU. The winner didn't know how high your bid was and you don't know how high his/her bid was. Just like your showed as $2.50 more than the next highest bidder's highest bid (or $1.00 more if that "underbid" was in the $25.00 to $99.99 range), you don't know how much the winner's bid was over your hidden maximum unless the display shows it as less than a full increment over.
The actual answer for you is that bidders who know what they are doing the hidden amount of your bid is irrelevant and even if they knew it it would not influence how much s/he would bid. It is not enough to beat the current leader to win the auction, you also have to outbid any bids that come in later (and 3 seconds is PLENTY of time for new bids to come in). What you need to learn is the same things THEY know about how to bid, the biggest one is to NOT let your bid amount be influenced by what others appear to have bid or not bid or even might bid*:
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)
lady_madonna
Mentor2 years ago@ri-547878
No one can see your maximum bid.