eBay testing extended bidding for auctions

[Brad]

https://www.ecommercebytes.com/C/blo...751910893.html

[glen87]

"The recently added message on eBay indicates the bid-extension feature it's testing is currently only available in a single category and only through the eBay mobile app:"

so....i bid in the final 2 minutes on a computer, i will not have the option to bid again, but someone using the app could???

[byronscott4ever]

‪Trouble is you could bid enough to win and not win …bid $20 but high bid is $2…$3 bid comes in late then 2 minutes gets added? I know eBay said this would be for “select” cards so I think it’s for ones with a certain number of bids and over a certain dollar amount ‬

[premium1981]

Originally Posted by byronscott4ever

‪Trouble is you could bid enough to win and not win ‬

I don't think its possible to lose an auction if you bid enough to win. Thats a bit of an oxymoron.

[byronscott4ever]

Originally Posted by premium1981

I don't think its possible to lose an auction if you bid enough to win. Thats a bit of an oxymoron.

Sorry, didn’t play it out all the way. You bid $20 and have the lead at $2. Someone snipes at $3 which isn’t enough…but hypothetically the auction extends two minutes? That gives someone two minutes to bid higher and beat your bid that should have won. I still think this will be on limited auctions based on bid counts and $.

[Bosoxfan5990]

Originally Posted by byronscott4ever

Sorry, didn’t play it out all the way. You bid $20 and have the lead at $2. Someone snipes at $3 which isn’t enough…but hypothetically the auction extends two minutes? That gives someone two minutes to bid higher and beat your bid that should have won. I still think this will be on limited auctions based on bid counts and $.

How does it work with auction houses?

[hammerva]

I guess my opinion on this is whether how many of these snipers are actually putting a max bid and they could still lose and how many are just these "I will take the final price and automatically take at $1 or $2 more" . Just feels like the people who are complaining about this are more mad they now have to do what everyone else does.

[auctionjmm]

I like it in principal, but I don't have any evidence that it will work better.

I always get suspicious when I list a higher-profile item and it has 52 watchers, only to see one small bid at the end for the win. I don't know if people are just forgetting that they are watching it or if they are truly running of time. I think it also depends on notifications. I'd love if watchers got a "2-minute warning" notification from eBay in these situations. That could be a game changer but not sure if eBay ever intends to incorporate that too.

[JAM061200]

Originally Posted by auctionjmm

I like it in principal, but I don't have any evidence that it will work better.

I always get suspicious when I list a higher-profile item and it has 52 watchers, only to see one small bid at the end for the win. I don't know if people are just forgetting that they are watching it or if they are truly running of time. I think it also depends on notifications. I'd love if watchers got a "2-minute warning" notification from eBay in these situations. That could be a game changer but not sure if eBay ever intends to incorporate that too.

They send a 15 minute warning on items you're watching. That should be plenty of time to determine if you want to bid on the item.

[glen87]

Originally Posted by auctionjmm

I like it in principal, but I don't have any evidence that it will work better.

I always get suspicious when I list a higher-profile item and it has 52 watchers, only to see one small bid at the end for the win. I don't know if people are just forgetting that they are watching it or if they are truly running of time. I think it also depends on notifications. I'd love if watchers got a "2-minute warning" notification from eBay in these situations. That could be a game changer but not sure if eBay ever intends to incorporate that too.

sometimes a lot of watchers can mean they think the price is too high, but want to see if if does sell

[Cactuspies]

it has to be something that's getting rolled into Ebay Live. that sh*t is wild. sometimes I do see live auctions getting extended while others just end with their 10 second bidding action. that's their new pet puppy. I'm one of those who forgets I'm watching things, I turn off all notifications because there are too many sent. I make plenty of bids with only a couple of seconds left. if you bid your max, then that is your max, it's like all the shilling complaints, this will just extend that and make the shillers win and it will get relisted. bid your max and none of this should be a problem.

[rwperu34]

Originally Posted by auctionjmm

I like it in principal, but I don't have any evidence that it will work better.

I always get suspicious when I list a higher-profile item and it has 52 watchers, only to see one small bid at the end for the win. I don't know if people are just forgetting that they are watching it or if they are truly running of time. I think it also depends on notifications. I'd love if watchers got a "2-minute warning" notification from eBay in these situations. That could be a game changer but not sure if eBay ever intends to incorporate that too.

I would lose my freakin' mind if this happens. I already get way too many notifications from ebay. To the point that one of my accounts and one of my email accounts is completely useless for messages.

[Blazed]

I like this idea for collectors

I can't stand people who use sniping services (yes I know some collectors do it too)

Knocking them out of the game is a win win for sellers and for bidders since we don't have to compete with a "bot"

Downside, extra 2 mins gives people time to drive the price up, win for sellers not so much for flippers/snipers. But price driving up a little bit is better than a flipper getting it and relisting it 10X sale price

[DynaEtch]

Not a fan of this at all. Good for sellers…will not be good for buyers. Hard ending time auctions are buyer friendly and one of the perks to buying on auctions on ebay. I’m familiar with extending bidding with online auction houses….some are ridiculous like Heritage where it’s a full 30 min extension after every bid in some categories.

It is not gonna be fun as a buyer to play that game with ebay auctions, even if it's only 2 min. And if they mean an extra 2 min after every bid..an auction ending could take up the better part of an evening, and imagine if you had bids with several auctions going on at once.

That article talks about bid sniping as being controversial…it's really not. As a buyer whether that exists or not doesnt really matter. You just expect everyone to put their max bid in at the last moment and you can too, and whichever has the highest wins…there is no controversy. All extending bidding will do is likely increase selling prices and make auction endings more convoluted. Ebay gets fee money bases on selling prices so it makes sense they want it I guess. As a seller im fine with it. As a collector/buyer, not a fan if ebay goes this route.

[paparoke]

I think this is a horrible idea. They forget they have buyers out there that spend thousands of dollars weekly across 100s to 1000s of auctions. Mind you, that many of these "good" auctions end at around the same 2-3 hour prime spot every day. If you force buyers to stay focused in real time on less auctions, then Ebay will soon find they are reducing the number of sales to these whale buyers. I believe these buyers account for a very substantial part of these auction sales.

[byronscott4ever]

How long until eBay makes this an option you can purchase?

[rwperu34]

Originally Posted by paparoke

I think this is a horrible idea. They forget they have buyers out there that spend thousands of dollars weekly across 100s to 1000s of auctions. Mind you, that many of these "good" auctions end at around the same 2-3 hour prime spot every day. If you force buyers to stay focused in real time on less auctions, then Ebay will soon find they are reducing the number of sales to these whale buyers. I believe these buyers account for a very substantial part of these auction sales.

I'd add to this. If I that auction that I would normally win for $100 ends up going for $150, that is not a win for eBay fees wise. Reason being if I win I sell that item for $200, so they get the fees twice instead of once.

The flip side of that is if the auctions start ending at $150, the BIN might just go for $250. Then it's a win for everyone except the buyer.

[rwperu34]

One more thing to add to the "con" side of the ledger here. One of the tradeoffs here will be less sniping, but more shilling. That is a bad tradeoff, IMO. A snipe is an honest bid with intent to pay. A shill is a dishonest bid with no intent to pay.

I'd also expect more buyers remorse from this system, as the reason for adding the two minutes is so people will bid with emotion and go over the max they are comfortable with.

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by rwperu34

One more thing to add to the "con" side of the ledger here. One of the tradeoffs here will be less sniping, but more shilling. That is a bad tradeoff, IMO. A snipe is an honest bid with intent to pay. A shill is a dishonest bid with no intent to pay.

I'd also expect more buyers remorse from this system, as the reason for adding the two minutes is so people will bid with emotion and go over the max they are comfortable with.

Exactly. That article mentions sniping and shilling in the same sentence as if they’re equally controversial. They’re absolutely not. Shilling is fraudulent, actually outlawed in many places, and is against eBay policy.

Sniping is just normal bid strategy and an expected facet of auctions and no one should have a problem with it. I don’t even use any snipe programs or anything, I just enter my bid at the last second manually, as pretty much a lot of people do, and if I win, I win. If another bid was higher in that second then I didn’t…who cares when it was placed.

If someone “sniped” me at the last second (whatever that even means, as all the bids kinda just go in at the same time during that last second), and I was outbid by that, I shouldn’t be mad at that…I have no one to blame but myself because my bid wasn’t high enough.

If some buyers think sniping is bad…actually hard ending time auctions with the associated sniping is overall beneficial for the buyer, and discourages prolonged bidding wars. Also if an auction takes an hour to end, or most of a night to end, the result is simply more eyes on it, whereas with hard ending times people often just miss it in that narrow ending window, even with it on their watch list (I’ve let quite a few slip by that way as a buyer, oh well). So I guess we’ll just see higher prices on a lot of auctions if they do this.

[Blazed]

So far most of the people crying about this update are flippers

Sounds about right

No more sniping the super rare stuff then relisting it for 5+ times the sale price sucks doesn't it

You can't snipe on any other major auction house: golden/fanatics/REA and they're doing fine

Looks like eBay adopted "gotta pay to play"

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by Blazed

So far most of the people crying about this update are flippers

Sounds about right

No more sniping the super rare stuff then relisting it for 5+ times the sale price sucks doesn't it

You can't snipe on any other major auction house: golden/fanatics/REA and they're doing fine

Looks like eBay adopted "gotta pay to play"

Or…..maybe they’re just collectors who don’t enjoy paying more higher prices, resulting from emotional bidding wars? Weird assumption tho that they have to be flippers.

eBay auction system is fine as it is. No need to make auction endings literally evening-long events. Imagine if you had multiple auctions going on at once.

You act like people are “sniping” super rare stuff…these are 5, 7 days auctions we’re talking about- people have their fair chance, and sniping doesn’t change any of that- see post above. It’s the BINs that are snagged up in 1 min after listing that are the actual mega steals for super rare items- not 5 or 7 day auctions….

[rwperu34]

Originally Posted by Blazed

So far most of the people crying about this update are flippers

Sounds about right

No more sniping the super rare stuff then relisting it for 5+ times the sale price sucks doesn't it

You can't snipe on any other major auction house: golden/fanatics/REA and they're doing fine

Looks like eBay adopted "gotta pay to play"

You still don't seem to understand your own problem. It doesn't matter if the bid came in with two seconds left, two minutes left, or two days left. If you don't bid high enough, you don't get the item.

[premium1981]

Originally Posted by Blazed

So far most of the people crying about this update are flippers
Sounds about right

No more sniping the super rare stuff then relisting it for 5+ times the sale price sucks doesn't it

You can't snipe on any other major auction house: golden/fanatics/REA and they're doing fine

Looks like eBay adopted "gotta pay to play"

I have never understood the hatred towards snipes. Your high bid versus their high bid. You lose if you don't bid more. Do you purposely bid lower than what you are willing to pay just to hope to bid more if your bid gets beaten? That is the only way anyone could or should have this bitterness towards someone bidding at the end. I bid 1 time and 1 time only. And that bid is my max. Doesn't matter if its when the listing starts or ends. Doesn't matter if its for a PC item or a flip item. This is literally one of those complaints that make zero sense.

[prospectorgems]

I still think sniping will work but it's more so going to work out on the max bid side of things. I don't think we ever got any feedback if the auction is going to continue to extend to 2 minutes each time a bid is placed. In theory it should because just extending it once doesn't make much sense. As long as the auction is live, if you are using a snipe service it should fire off each time the auction is nearing its end and will continue to fire off until you are the high bidder and auction ends.

As a buyer, this could potentially suck, but as a seller I am all for it if it means that auction prices will end higher. I am however skeptical if the auction prices will in fact end in a higher sale as you still need people's eyes on it.

I know as a buyer myself and when I am researching I see super low sales and I kick myself for not seeing that auction at that time but with so many cards listed and at various times it's nearly impossible to find everything especially if your range is very wide.

There are a few ways I think the auction prices will end higher.

1. You have a couple of snipers battling it out and if it does extend the auction two minutes at a time, those snipes should keep firing until one of the snipers highest price maxes out and the other one wins.

2. As several else had mentioned; shillers. The seller may see their auctions are being extended and keep bidding on their own item to keep driving up the price. With how bad ebay's AI system is, it has become nearly impossible to report the shillers anymore.

3. Some rando pops on or comes home from work to see a card is ending and places a bid and keeps driving up the price. A lot of the bad sellers end auctions during the "9-5" work day or ending late at night when most people are in bed since they need to work the next day. These are typically the times when the auctions get the lowest sales.

As a seller, I hope it does in fact drive prices up and then when potential buyers refer to "comps" (which drives me nuts) maybe the sale prices will be more accurate, but this could also result in a lot more non-pays too as if the prices are higher than someone really wanted, they may just decide not to pay because extending the bidding may have been more of a game to them.

[Blazed]

Originally Posted by premium1981

I have never understood the hatred towards snipes. Your high bid versus their high bid. You lose if you don't bid more. Do you purposely bid lower than what you are willing to pay just to hope to bid more if your bid gets beaten? That is the only way anyone could or should have this bitterness towards someone bidding at the end. I bid 1 time and 1 time only. And that bid is my max. Doesn't matter if its when the listing starts or ends. Doesn't matter if its for a PC item or a flip item. This is literally one of those complaints that make zero sense.

No, I don't bid low nor do I nickel and dime it. I don't care how high the auction goes, I'll win it if I really want it

The extended bidding is a plus, some times I'm out eating/doing other stuff and don't see the notification right away

No hatred towards snipes, I do it all the time, sniping software however, sucks. I agree with the article eBay put out on bot sniping/shilling