New Way of Recording Bids?

[crosbystills]

I recently won an item on eBay UK, as the sole bidder. Four minutes before auction's end I filled in the amount and clicked on "Place Bid". As usual, the bid amount and time remaining appeared in a box. This is the normal, in-between step before a bid is actually registered.

Suddenly, on the listing (open in a second window), the number of bids went from 0 to 1. Realizing I had some competition, I upped my bid amount, placing the bid in the final seconds of the auction.

The bid history shows one bidder, two bids, with the first placed about four minutes prior to the second. There was no other bidder. In a sense I was bidding against myself. Previously, the history would have shown one bidder, one bid.

Has anyone noticed this change on the eBay.au site? Apart from being confusing, it also has implications for sniping. As a bidder, our presence is revealed to others viewing the listing at the moment we "set up" the bid, rather than at the time we actually bid. And what about change of mind - does the appearance of that "in-between" box now count as actually placing a bid even if we never follow through?

[crosbystills]

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@collect247 wrote:

You started the process of making a bid 43 sec before you confirmed so as it shows beside the timing in digi's 1st screen shot even though the bid wasn't made yet ....

The same must go for the timing then 43 sec before you confirmed making it 5:04

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That's not time of bid in the screenshot, that's the countdown.

My issue is with the incorrect time shown in the bid history and the appearance that a bid has been counted before it was confirmed.

[digital*ghost]

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@crosbystills wrote:

Oh, and D.G., well done for taking the scientific approach and conducting an experiment. 

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I'm always prepared to spend any amount $1.01 to satisfy my own curiosity. 

It's been a while since I placed a bid on an auction, but when I used to bid regularly, I noticed that the pop up window would run behind the real time auction more often than not. Sometimes I had a pop-up window on one page, and the auction open in another page so I could get the timing right, but a couple of times the auction actually ended before I placed a bid. 

[collect247]

Don't worry digi that always happens to me lol,I place a bid go and confirm it within the last 10 secs and darn it it takes more than 10 secs for the bid to process and I end up not even registering the bid and miss out lol.

But mind you my heart's pumping from the thrill of thinking that I won just to have sorry you didn't win shoved in my face haha.

[tazzieterror]

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@crosbystills

My issue is with the incorrect time shown in the bid history and the appearance that a bid has been counted before it was confirmed.

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My guess is that after you confirmed your second bid (the "Try raising your high bid amount"), eBay has for some reason (intentionally or otherwise) time-stamped it with the time you typed the higher value into the text box, rather than the time you actually clicked "Bid" to confirm that second, higher amount.  If you had hadn't clicked on "Bid" to confirm that second bid, then the auction would have finished with just your single being placed, despite you having entered a value into the text box.

Assuming that's a reasonable theory, we can ponder why eBay might have a time stamp recorded for when you enter a value into the "Try raising your high bid amount" text box.  I wonder if during the final minutes of an auction eBay considers it advantageous to know in advance of you clicking on "Bid", what that amount is you have typed in there that is waiting to be confirmed.  If so, they might have the page script sending updates through to eBay's system when a bid amount is added or changed in the text box, even before the user is clicking on "Bid" to confirm it.  I assume this is technically possible, though checking this is beyond my abilities.

This might be useful to them from a technical point of view, allowing them to somehow more effectively allocate system or network resources, particularly in auctions which have many bids in the dying seconds.  Or perhaps it could give them useful feedback and data with regards to understanding buyer behaviour, or marketing responses, e.g. do users make adjustments to their intended bid amount in response to advertising shown elsewhere on the page?  I could think of a few scenarios where this might provide handy feedback that lets eBay tweak the auction process to help push prices just a little higher and boost the fee they receive.

So if eBay is able to see your "pre-confirmation" raise-your-high-bid amounts, and does so, these browser-to-eBay-server messages would also be time-stamped in their system.  Why that time value (rather than the click-on-bid-to-confirm time value) would be displayed in the bid history still isn't obvsious to me.  Could be as simple as a coding error that only shows up under certain conditions, such as a sole bidder making multiple bids.

I wonder if digital*ghost will be able to shed any further light on the matter once their test-auction had finished.  Digi, did you by chance leave a known delay between typing in your second bid, and conifrming it, so you can check which time is recorded?

Anyway, those are my thoughts...

[brerrabbit585]

From all the screenshots and comments in this thread, I'd say that sometimes they show the confirm button and other times they just show "bid" or "place bid". 

The screenshots clearly show that when you click on the Bid button you have to buy it if you win.  If I want to bid at the last second I put the amount in the box but don't click on Place Bid until the last moment.  I don't recall ever expecting to confirm my bid.  Place Bid means exactly that - you 'place' your bid, therefore there's no need to confirm.

[collect247]

From digi's screen shot I see that timing says 2d 12h 9m when about to confirm and then 2d 12h 5m when bid completed so to me that suggests digi clicked confirm 4 mins after contemplating to do it.

But I could be wrong in that Annalise's?

[collect247]

I've always had to confirm my bid once I place it though.It's a 2 step process.

[digital*ghost]

I probably should mention that I tested the first step twice. On the normal screen I entered the amount, clicked to bid and the little window in the first screenshot popped up. I took the screenshot then clicked the x button to close the window without confirming the bid, so the bid wasn't placed.

I then did it again, this time clicking to confirm, and only then was the bid placed and I became the current winning bidder.

I may get an opportunity to test the timing when in the last stages and the clock starts counting down in seconds.

[*tippy*toes*]

Only thing I can think of is, the countdown time on a computer is different to the time on the app. It can vary by a fair bit (I have seen it be 10 seconds or more difference). Sometimes the app is faster sometimes the computer is faster. I have placed a last second bid on the app only to discover the auction finished 15 seconds ago. Same with the computer. 

These days if I am home, I will have both the computer and app open and place my last second bid on which ever one is finishing first.