Proxy bid

[traff_69]

Proxy Biddinghttps://traffikenya.wordpress.com/2019/04/20/ebay-bidding-strategies-how-to-win-a-bargain/

Proxy bidding is upfront bidding of the highest bid. While eBay automatically bids on your behalf with the highest amount incrementally, it can still place the lowest bid and make sure you win. Therefore, this makes the art of proxy bidding extremely easy on eBay. Keep in mind that only eBay has a record of your highest bid. Therefore while proxy bidding; you should never be afraid that someone will place successive lower bids just below your highest bid. In case someone else outbids you, it is easy to place another higher bid through proxy bidding. A perfect strategy for proxy bidding is to have your maximum bid figured out early and placed on the auction. With time, the eBay bidding system will place your bid after the highest bid that is successively below yours

[pburn]

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@traff_69 wrote:

" . . . while proxy bidding; you should never be afraid that someone will place successive lower bids just below your highest bid."

I'm not sure I understand this statement, but if you place your bid early in the auction, as you suggest, other bidders can and will place successive lower bids below your highest bid.

"In case someone else outbids you, it is easy to place another higher bid through proxy bidding."

The point of a  proxy bid is to bid the maximum you are willing to pay for any given item. If you are outbid, so be it. It's never a good idea to bid higher in response to your (maximum) proxy being outbid. That's how people get caught up in paying way too much for an item. Bid your highest, bid it once, and place your bid as late as possible.

"A perfect strategy for proxy bidding is to have your maximum bid figured out early and placed on the auction."

I wholeheartedly disagree. I think a perfect strategy for proxy bidding is to have your maximum bid figured out early, but placed as late in the auction as possible. If a proxy bid is placed too early in the auction, nibble bidders could possibly raise the price much higher than otherwise necessary. 

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[7606dennis]

Technically, I believe that "proxy bidding" is a misnomer.  In eBay's system, you place a single bid and eBay's system uses the amount of it, released in increments, to keep you in the lead until the entire amount of the bid is gone or the auction ends with you as the winner.  In reality, eBay is not placing individual proxy bids on your behalf.

[pburn]

Everyone refers to it as proxy bidding. Do an internet search for "eBay proxy bidding" and, rightly or wrongly, see how many search results you get. Let's not muddy the waters.

As far as eBay not placing bids on one's behalf, even eBay's help page says, "We'll then bid on your behalf – enough to keep you in the lead, but only up to that limit." And, "if you get outbid we'll automatically bid again for you."

Let's not let a distraction of semantics get in the way of a discussion surrounding the merits of the OP's post.

[7606dennis]

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@pburn wrote:

Everyone refers to it as proxy bidding. Do an internet search for "eBay proxy bidding" and, rightly or wrongly, see how many search results you get. Let's not muddy the waters.

As far as eBay not placing bids on one's behalf, even eBay's help page says, "We'll then bid on your behalf – enough to keep you in the lead, but only up to that limit." And, "if you get outbid we'll automatically bid again for you."

Let's not let a distraction of semantics get in the way of a discussion surrounding the merits of the OP's post.

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Whether or not eBay or google or anyone else calls it something it is not doesn't really matter.  Believe it or not, semantics are important. 

The fact that eBay incorrectly describes the process they use doesn't surprise me much either.

[mudshark61369]

@traff_69,

I do not know why you posted the one portion of the article, but there are mistakes all the way through the whole article starting with misspelling "Sniping" as Snipping.  If this is how you intend to learn to use ebay, you will be sorry.

  "Keep in mind that only eBay has a record of your highest bid. Therefore while proxy bidding; you should never be afraid that someone will place successive lower bids just below your highest bid...  A perfect strategy for proxy bidding is to have your maximum bid figured out early and placed on the auction".

Actually in practice there are some who do bid against early Automatic or Proxy bids until they uncover how high the price is.  Then select an invalid reason to retract their winning bid if it is more than they are willing to pay.   That leads to many inexperienced members thinking there shill bidding going on.  Having your maximum bid figured out early is fine, but placing it early can cause the automatic bidder to pay more if what I wrote above happens.

The person who wrote the article is obviously not an experienced ebayer, besides being a poor speller.

  "Snipping  Sniping

 Snipping is an automatic way of placing bids without necessarily being at the computer physically. The third part services that help automatic bidding are called snipers". 

While there are services that can be used to snipe at the last second, many people manually snipe in the last seconds themselves. Some of the services have been left out in the cold if ebay's bots decide to verify the bidder, by having them login again.  Then their bid never gets placed. The term "sniper" was being used on the site before any of those services were available.

  "Sniping leaves no last minute reaction from other last minute bidders. An effective snapper sniper will place a bid during the last 20 seconds of the auction.

An effective sniper will bid much later than that since they know there are services and individual snipers that can literally bid in the last second.  However, placing a last second bid is no guarantee it will be the winning bid, if someone places a higher Automatic bid earlier.

"Since the seller’s goal is to have buyers purchase a product at the highest price, they find snipping very unethical".

The author has obviously never sold anything on this site using the auction format, and the above statement is a bunch of hogwash. Sellers count on there being last second bidding. Snipers often raise the price much higher in the last seconds of an auction, and snipers usually Pay.  

    It is the Nibble bidders who hate snipers, and call sniping unethical, because in their quest to pay the lowest price possible they never place an automatic bid for the most they are willing to pay. Besides it is not the winning sniper who raises the price it is the second highest bidder who determines the highest winning bid. 

There is nothing unethical about sniping. Each person knows what time the bidding will end, and has the same chance as any other member to place their highest bid before the auction ends, using a service or bidding manually, bidding earlier or late in an auction.

Even the suggestion To "always be logged in to ebay" after the Sniping article can cause problems for bidders/snipers especially newer ones and those who log in from different places.  Staying logged in for long periods of time does help ebay to recognize users. However, new users who login well before an auction ends and try to bid very late, often get a "Log in again" message if they do that and they miss out on being able to place their bid.

There is more that is wrong with the article, but I haven't the time to pick it completely apart.  If you really want to know about bidding on ebay, read what they have to say about it in the link below.  Not all of the third party information given online about ebay is accurate.  If you really want an education on how to use ebay safely, read the various topics on these boards.

https://www.ebay.com/help/buying/bidding/bidding?id=4003

[mudshark61369]

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@7606dennis wrote:

Technically, I believe that "proxy bidding" is a misnomer.  In eBay's system, you place a single bid and eBay's system uses the amount of it, released in increments, to keep you in the lead until the entire amount of the bid is gone or the auction ends with you as the winner.  In reality, eBay is not placing individual proxy bids on your behalf.

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@7606dennis,

I rarely disagree with you but in this case I think you are not completely right.  the definition of "Proxy" is: "The authority to represent someone else". Other synonyms for Proxy are;  Representative, Agent, Stand in, and Substitute... 

By placing a high Automatic bid, one gives ebay the authority and makes ebay their Agent or Representative, to use as much of that bid as is necessary to keep them in the lead. Therefore authorizing ebay to act as their Proxy automatically.  Several of the older ebay policies and suggestions referred to automatic bidding or "proxy bidding".  As an auctioneer you must have had Proxy "stand in" bidders participate in live auctions for a buyer who could not physically attend.  

Back in the day, I was known at some regular live auctions, and to lull some other bidders into a false sense of security, I used friends as a proxy, so they wouldn't think I was the one interested in an item. 

[woodland_gnome]

The problem with the "eBay bids on your behalf" analogy is that people try to work out how that works in particular situations and get it very wrong, from the simple (you have to do something special to invoke it or else your whole bid gets bid immediately regardless of what others have bid) to the bizarre (one OP argued for hours that he should have won the tie since he put in his bid last so the earlier bid wasn't "bid" until after his since it was in response to his and so his later bid was earlier) and lots of things in between (they should be able to reduce their hidden maximum since it hasn't been "bid" yet; an "automatic" bid shouldn't have been allowed since it was for less than an increment over the underbid; that the Bid History must be in chronological order with all "automatic" bids listed with the timestamp of when they were "automatically" placed).

[7606dennis]

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@mudshark61369 wrote:

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@7606dennis wrote:

Technically, I believe that "proxy bidding" is a misnomer.  In eBay's system, you place a single bid and eBay's system uses the amount of it, released in increments, to keep you in the lead until the entire amount of the bid is gone or the auction ends with you as the winner.  In reality, eBay is not placing individual proxy bids on your behalf.

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@7606dennis,

I rarely disagree with you but in this case I think you are not completely right.  the definition of "Proxy" is: "The authority to represent someone else". Other synonyms for Proxy are;  Representative, Agent, Stand in, and Substitute... 

By placing a high Automatic bid, one gives ebay the authority and makes ebay their Agent or Representative, to use as much of that bid as is necessary to keep them in the lead. Therefore authorizing ebay to act as their Proxy automatically.  Several of the older ebay policies and suggestions referred to automatic bidding or "proxy bidding".  As an auctioneer you must have had Proxy "stand in" bidders participate in live auctions for a buyer who could not physically attend.  

Back in the day, I was known at some regular live auctions, and to lull some other bidders into a false sense of security, I used friends as a proxy, so they wouldn't think I was the one interested in an item. 

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While you definitely have a valid point, the way eBay's system is designed they are not actively placing bids on behalf of a bidder but merely comparing new bids received to the bid already placed.  If they, indeed, were placing bids on behalf of a bidder, each bid made by eBay on that bidder's behalf should be treated as new bid and thus that bidder could be outbid and lose the bidding if eBay didn't get the bid placed before the time ran out.

At a live auction if you had hired someone to act as your proxy and given them the authority to bid up to a certain amount on your behalf, if that person for some reason failed to advance the bidding and the hammer fell before they had bid the maximum that you had authorized, you wouldn't be able to claim that you should have won.  It would be the same thing as eBay not placing the bid before the auction timed out.

Of course, there is quite a bit of difference between an outcry auction and timed one such as those run on eBay, but the principle would be the same.  Basically, I believe that eBay's "Proxy Bidding" system was wrongly named.  As you mentioned previously, it is a matter of semantics.