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Why does it seem like bidder are bidding against them selves
Why does it seem like bidder are bidding against them selves
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Discussions in this board are limited to the original poster and Community Mentors
Why does it seem like bidder are bidding against them selves
woodland_gnome
·1 year agoMost likely because you don't understand how to read a Bid History. Bids are sorted by AMOUNT, not by time. A string of bids showing as slightly higher amounts is most likely the bidder being outbid immediately by a higher, earlier bid by someone else (look at the timestamps on the bids above the string of bids by the same bidder for an earlier bid, which, again is physically higher because the amount is higher). Other possibilities are that the auction was "Reserve not met" and the bidder kept trying to meet the Reserve and either finally bid high enough (causing the price to "jump up" to the Reserve without need of another bidder and all bids below that to show their full amount; unfortunately eBay got rid of the Reserve Met display years ago) or gave up and someone else bid higher, or that the higher earlier bid was cancelled or retracted.
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.
The endtime displayed at the top of a bid history of a completed listing is truncated (rounded down) to the lower minute. HH:MM does not mean HH:MM.00.000. To calculate the endtime to the second add the "Duration" of x days to the starting time which is displayed at the bottom of the main bid list on the Starting Price line.
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).
eburtonlab
Mentor1 year ago@north99
Bidders cannot bid against themselves, but they can bid against each other.
If you have a question about a particular auction, please post the item number so that others can see the bid history and possibly explain what is going on.
north99
OP1 year agoThere was no reserve on this item. I just wanted to understand the pattern of bidding,so I want waste my time bidding on something when other bidder are not on the up. Although the item has ended. The item that I was interested in is #196839513150
woodland_gnome
·1 year agos***3 bid $8500.00 on 11/23 (before s/he placed that bid the showing "current bid" was $1186.00, after s/he placed it it was $1525.00--1 bid increment of $25 over the formerly hidden maximum of the prior leader).
When 1***s came in the next day, the "current bid" was up to $5700.00 (1 increment of $100 over the $5600 bid half cut off at the bottom of the screenshot below) due to additional bids in the meantime.
1***s placed a bid 24 Nov 2024 at 6:18:15pm PST of $5800.00 (the minimum for a new bid at that time: 1 increment of $100 over the "current bid" of $5700.00) and was immediately outbid at 1 increment over that bid ($5900.00). The new minimum was 1 increment of $100 over that of $6000.00 and that's what s/he bid, again getting outbid at $100 over his/her new bid, and continued bidding the minimum until s/he gave up at $7600.00 being again outbid by 1 increment for a current bid of $7700.00 showing for s***3's $8500.00 (hidden maximum) bid.
o***0 came in on the 26th and did a couple of minimum bids but then finally outbid s***3 by bidding his/her apparently true maximum (having had several days to come back and rebid after being outbid by other bidders but not doing so) of $8600.00 (which coincidentally was exactly 1 bid increment over s***3's $8500.00 bid but it could have been more or less than that--as low as $8500.01 to beat s***3 and if it was higher than $8600.00 it would still have showed as that "current bid" amount with a hidden maximum until 9***r's bid outbid it later that day). Then there were 3 other bidders in the last couple of days bringing the final price to $9600.00.