Buyers unable to bid on item

[oldradiostuff]

I had an auction end yesterday afternoon and I had two people message me after it closed that they had tried to bid in the last few seconds and the system wouldn't take their bids.   One said he would enter an amount and it would just blank it out and reset the bid page.   The other said he submitted but the system was so slow in responding that it timed out and didn't take his bid.   These were both buyers who have bought from me before, one actually won two other auctions of mine yesterday, but it seems this one item wouldn't accept bids at the end.   Anyone else heard of this happening?

[eburtonlab]

@oldradiostuff 

One said he would enter an amount and it would just blank it out and reset the bid page.

I have heard of that happening, but only when the bidder was using the bidding entry field located on the "bid history" page. You might suggest your bidder use the entry field located directly on the "item page" itself for future bids.

In general, there are many things that can go wrong at the end of an auction that might prevent a late bid from going through -- network problems, power outages, power-line transients causing a desktop computer to suddenly reboot, as well as all manner of software issues both on eBay's side and the user's side as well.

I can still recall entering a bid as the seconds were counting down, only to be confronted by the dreaded blank sign-in popup. By the time I was able to sign back in to eBay, the auction had ended without my bid. Extremely frustrating. After that happened I developed a habit of refreshing the item page about a minute before I planned to bid.

As a seller there is not much you can do other than offer sympathy and urge your bidders to place their bids a little bit earlier so they will have a chance to try again if there is an unexpected hiccup.