@ebooksdiva wrote:
Agreed, a shill would have retracted by now.
Speaking of which, that bidder has zero retractions on his 30-day record, what's visible if we click on his disguised ID on the Bid History page for that auction. If the OP goes to that bidder's feedback page (desktop view) and goes to his Feedback as a Buyer tab, his 12-month total of bid retractions, if any, can be seen on the right side of the page about halfway down.
Another possible reason for his nibble bidding (as opposed to just making one big bid of his own) is that he doesn't understand the bid interface, and may believe that his only bid options are the three small-increment buttons that he sees when he goes to place a bid. (For example, if the current price showing is $25, eBay might offer bid increments of $28, $31 or $34.)
I have long wondered whether newbie bidders don't realize that they can type in their own higher bid directly, and not dither around with only banging on the preset buttons to go up a little bit at a time. They may not understand that the actual price they would pay for winning would be the second-place bidder's highest offer plus a maximum of one bid increment beyond that.
The timing bid pattern here, with multiple bids going up a bit at a time and three seconds apart, conforms with someone clicking a bid increment and waiting to see the result, then repeating as needed. They could instead have just slammed in one bid of their choosing and, if it was high enough to exceed the current leader's hidden maximum, taken the lead in one swell foop.
As a seller, I really wish that they would clean up the bidding interface and make it easier to understand. Specifically, at least make one or two of the bid increments significantly higher, to encourage more aggressive bidding, and also make it clearer that the bidder can plug in his own dollar amount instead, especially for sniping an auction in the final seconds. It's futile for him to just sit there with 8 seconds left, banging repeatedly on a $3 increment that's not going to help him win it in time.
