Questions on Bidding History

Question

The bid history on a car I was interested in shows about 80 bids. 69 of these show "2***3" spread out over four days. Many of the bids are within seconds of each other with no other bids in between. Why? What would be the point in raising a bid when no one had raised your prior bid?

woodland_gnome · Answer

As for other reasons, here is my copy and paste from a couple of decades ago (before the days of Macros being available in these forums) of how to analyze the situation to narrow down the possible reasons:

UNDERSTANDING NIBBLER HISTORY
A. If the showing bid amount of the nibbler (multiple bidder) on the bid history page is increasing:

--1. Someone else has placed a higher bid (it will show up above the increasing bids), check the date and time of the higher bid (bids are sorted by amount from high to low, not by time from later to earlier as tends to be assumed):
-----a. If the higher bid was placed before the nibbler's bids, nibbler was trying to catch the higher bidder's bid (we call that "chasing a proxy"; to see the "current bids" that the nibbler saw as s/he placed his/her bids and got immediate outbid notices, click on the "Show automatic bids" link on the bid history page);
-----b. If it was placed later, the reason will be one of those that follows, but it is not always possible to tell which after other bids have been placed.

--if not 1:
--2. Nibbler bid up to and met the seller's reserve (indication of which fact is unfortunately is no longer displayed on the Bid History Page or the Listing Page or anywhere accessible to an ordinary user--the only way to know for sure that there is a Reserve which has been met is if there has been no new bid after the bid that met the Reserve and the amount displayed for that bid--the "current bid"--is more than a bid increment over the next highest bidder's maximum bid).

B. If the showing bid amount of the nibbler is NOT increasing (note that this does NOT mean the bids are for the same amount; eBay hides the full amount of any bid by the highest bidder that exceeds the calculated price by substituting that calculated price for the bid amount in the display; any new bid by a prior bidder must be at least 1 cent higher than his prior maximum bid as well as being at least 1 increment higher than the calculated price at the time it is received):

--1. Nibbler bid up and up but did not meet the reserve (look for "Reserve not met" back on the Listing Page as it's no longer on the Bid History Page; and/or

--2. There was an earlier higher bid that was retracted or cancelled that nibbler was trying to beat (look at bottom of bid history page for retracted/cancelled bids, but be aware that multiple bids by a bidder that are cancelled or retracted before the last 12 hours will only show as 1 bid, so the actual bid that nibbler was chasing might not show up, e.g. if the bid being nibbled at was earlier but the other bidder then placed a new bid but then retracted it, the retraction display will reference only the later bid); and/or

--3. Nibbler is trying to intimidate future bidders by saying, look how much I've bid above the current bid, don't bother bidding you can't beat me; or doesn't realize you can just place one bid and thinks you have to go up by increments to it, or that you have to place a "minimum" or "regular" bid before you can place a "maximum" bid; or is just very indecisive about his/her maximum; or can't understand why the current bid isn't going up to his/her maximum so keeps trying and trying and trying thinking this time it will go up; or is bidding up by a penny or other small amount at a time to take advantage of the "can't raise your own bid" loophole to win by less than a full eBay bid increment; or his/her circumstances have changed and s/he has more money and/or more need for the item; or is trying to reassure the seller that his/her bid is more than the showing amount so the seller is less inclined to pull the listing because s/he is dissatisfied with the "current bid"; or made a lowball bid early to kill a BIN or restrict the seller's options and placed his/her true maximum bid later before anyone else bid more than the lowball bid; is trying to kill a BIN in a "sticky BIN" category and doesn't realize it can't be done without another bidder; or is a cat pawing at the keyboard; or has multiple personality disorder and really is bidding against him/herself; or has some other unique reason.

woodland_gnome · Answer

Look ABOVE the sequence of consecutive bids by the bidder and you will probably find an OLDER bid that the bidder was "nibbling" against, getting immediately outbid and then trying again. (Another possibility is that there is a Reserve Price that the bidder was trying to meet and nibbled against that instead, immediately getting a "Reserve not met" message; unfortunately eBay removed the "Reserve met" indication on the listing and bid history pages years ago--the only way you can tell there was one that is met is if the "current bid" is more than a full bid increment over the second highest bidder's highest bid in which case the current leader was the first to meet the Reserve).

A few things to know in order to read a Bid History:

Never go by a bid history on a mobile app or the mobile web. They are deliberately incomplete and worse than useless.

Any bid of the high bidder that is higher than the "current bid" (what the price would be if there is no further activity before the auction ends, calculated primarily by the "underbid"--the highest bid of the 2nd highest bidder--generally the underbid plus 1 bid increment) is displayed with the current bid amount instead of the actual bid amount. All other bids show at the actual amount of that bid. Thus there can be multiple bids of the highest bidder at the top showing the same amount.

Bids are sorted by AMOUNT of the bid (the hidden maximum for each bid of the highest bidder showing at the "current bid" amount at the top), not by time received. For some reason people tend to expect them to be from latest to earliest bids, and if they notice the timestamps some take that to mean something is wrong rather than adjusting their expectations of how it works.

If there have been any cancellations or retractions those are shown in their own section below the main bid history table. Be aware that when a bid is retracted prior to the last 12 hours or cancelled at any time ALL prior bids by that bidder are removed from the main history but information on only the last (which will be the highest) will be given in that section.

The "Show automatic bids" function is a tool that attempts to recreate the "current bid" that may have shown at various times during the auction but it is only that: a tool to recreate (it is not a record of what actually showed at various times); a tool that attempts (it is often wrong, displaying "automatic bids" that never were the displayed "current bid" and not showing what actually showed as the "current bid" at various times such as what showed before a cancellation or retraction--a good thing as showing that could reveal more of the leader's bid than should be shown--or when a Reserve Price is first met--showing what that reserve was, not so good an omission); the timestamp on the "automatic bid" is not the time that that "current bid" was started to be displayed but rather is the time of a bid by the bidder it is attributed to; in any event the notion of "automatic bids" is misleading as it is based on an imperfect analogy used to oversimplify the eBay bidding process (in reality, eBay doesn't "bid on your behalf" but rather calculates what the price would be if there is no further activity before the auction ends, displays that as the "current bid" and hides the full amount of any bid by the highest bidder that exceeds that calculated price by substituting that "current bid" for the full amount of that bid).