I think you are whistling. Most bids will occur in the last few seconds. Highest bid wins, whether it is placed then or earlier. Why are you complaining about an unrealistic high bid winning? That is what you want, surely. If it's because the item doesn't sell for that it is because it was way higher than the next best bid.

Bidders can bid whenever they like. While you seem to prefer nibble bidders, sensible bidders don't play that game, as it will likely lead to them paying more than necessary.

"What do other Ebayers think?"

Jmo...I think that on a 7 day auction 167 hours,59 minutes & 59 seconds is more than enough time to place a bid for the absolute not one penny more maximum amount that you are prepared to pay.

I place only one bid 2 seconds from the end of an auction.

These bids are only successful if they are the highest bid...which is not always the case.

If the last-second bidder puts in an unrealistically high bid, no one else will win regardless of how much time there is.

If an auction runs for 7 days, every interested bidder has 7 days to put in their highest bid.

The trick here is to not bid according to what everyone else looks like they're bidding, but to determine during the auction the absolute maximum you are prepared to pay, and bid that amount as close to the end as possible. If you are still outbid, it doesn't matter because you never would have bid more than that, anyway.

Just realised this from the seller's persective - most of my post is irrelevant 

Anyone putting in an unrealistic high bid is taking a big chance, as they may end up paying their maximum bid.  I have found that when an item is up for auction at a low starting price, that bidders tend to nibble, when the actual value of the item is not what they are looking at, they just want a bargain. If you are serious about wanting to win an auction, you need to consider the value of the object, and that others may be willing to pay that amount or even more.  Bidding is a game of strategy, may the best person win!

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@salonika-b wrote:

I am so annoyed with the bidding,  buyers wait till the last seconds and  the one putting in an unrealitic high bid   always wins the auction.   There is not enough time for other buyers to get to their highest bid.

 

It would be better  that all automatic bids put in will run to the amount buyers are willing to pay.  So the seller gets the real value of the item.

 

What do other Ebayers think?

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what I think is that any buyer who thinks “I got outbid with seconds to go . . . . I would have bid higher if I had the time to do so” is not bidding the highest amount they are prepared to bid within the allotted and known bidding time.

As for the final price achieved, it has always been one bid increment higher than the second highest bidder’s bid.  eBay has never been like a live auction where the amount bid is the amount bid.  On eBay, it has always allowed for eBay automatic bidding up to the actual bid amount.

As for sellers getting “the real real value of the item” . . . . . the real value on an eBay auction is one increment above the underbidders high bid amount.

**edit** your last seconds bidder on a recent item did reveal the high bid amount of the person who was the high bidder with seconds to go.  You item jumped from around $55 to $103.  As a seller I would welcome that last second bidder any day!

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@salonika-b wrote:

I am so annoyed with the bidding,  buyers wait till the last seconds and  the one putting in an unrealitic high bid   always wins the auction.   There is not enough time for other buyers to get to their highest bid.

 

It would be better  that all automatic bids put in will run to the amount buyers are willing to pay.  So the seller gets the real value of the item.

 

What do other Ebayers think?

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I was massively confused by this post, on every front.

It's on the selling board but I am not sure if you are writing from the perspective of buyer or seller or both?

You say 'unrealistic high bid'. Do you mean that as a seller, you are finding that these last minute bidders bow out, don't end up paying?

If not, then you can make a second chance offer to your second highest bidder. Or sellers used to be able to do that, I'm presuming they still can?

If that second bid is nowhere as high as the first bid, it just means that buyer was not bidding 'unrealistically high'. I am not sure why you think extra time for the auction would change that.An 'unrealistically high' bid will reveal the highest bid of all the underbidders. I don't think though that it reveals the exact top price the winner was willing to go, only what they won it for.

If you think the price achieved was unrealistically high though & the buyer does pay, that's a good result for a seller. There is no guarantee that other bidders, even given more time, would have bettered such a bid.

When you say-all auto bids should run to the amount the bidder is willing to pay, I am assuming you mean right from the get go. So if you had an item at eg $5 and they thought it was worth $50, their auto bid would show $50.

That, though, would not be an auto bid. It would just be an ordinary bid. As a buyer, if I were in that position, I would not bid $50 straight off, days before the end of an auction. I would probably hold off a bit.

The advantage of an auto bid, from the point of view of a buyer, is that they don't have to be there at the very end of the auction. Often there could be reasons why they can't be online right then. So it enables them to bid when otherwise they may not.

You asked what other ebayers think. I'm an ebayer. I think leave auto bids as they are. It's true that some people may not put in their top bid then kick themselves if outbid at the last second, but that's a learning experience, they probably won't make the same mistake next time. And in any case, auction formats are few & far between with most of the usual run of ebay items anyway.

I treat an auction like it was a BIN I place one bid at what I am willing to pay if I win and I do this when I actually scroll through the listings and if I like what I see then I make that one bid and then move on to the next.

And depending on the time frame on any listing I will come back to it maybe towards the end of the auction and sit and watch if I win.

I'm too old to have my heart racing in a bidding war lol.

And yes there are snipers out there that will outbid you in the last 1 second of the auction ending if you don't make your highest bid before hand lol.

salonika-b,

You've been selling on eBay for at least more than a year (registered on eBay since 2005), hence I'm a little surprised by your post. You must know how bidding on eBay auctions works - online-auction style, which means that an item is listed with a starting price and a listing duration. The auction ends when the listing time is up; the highest bid at the time of the listing end is the winner.

Your first feedback given to a seller states

great buyer and this is what the auction system is all about.

And indeed... this is what the auction system is all about. Highest bid at the end of the auction's end time is the winning bid.

You may want to read through eBay's All about bidding page. Of especial help also is Tips for winning auctions, where eBay advise "Think about how much you're willing to pay, and decide on your maximum bid. You'll be better prepared to make decisions in the crucial last seconds of the auction." The page also adds, "Bide your time. By placing your highest bid in the closing seconds, you stand a greater chance of getting the item."

Buyers have all the information that they need for placing the "amount buyers are willing to pay". That's how automatic bidding actually works... Interested bidders can either use eBay's Automatic Bidding, or - if they're savvier than that - a sniping program. Experienced bidders generally put their absolute maximum, and either ebay's Automatic Bidding program or the sniping program will place the highest bid necessary (within that limit) to top the current bid by the required increment. It's the system that eBay has had in place for many years. I can't see that changing. Other online auction formats on other sites have come and go, and have shown what NOT to do. (For instance, the system whereby a new winning bid would extend the time... awful! No wonder it failed.)

Experienced sellers who know how auctions work know that currently it's best to list an item at the lowest price that they are happy to accept. Gone are the days where a 99-cent auction will result in a furious bidding war resembling Russia, the US and China all scrambling to win that nice shiny missile...

Hoiw it works from my point of view:

Yes, a bidding war certainly helps the seller - two buyers coming the "It's MINE", "No, it's MIIIIINE!!" bit and bidding the price through the roof. Doesn't work that way in practice - check the bidding history on most items, and you'll find a flurry of bids coming in around the last 20 or so seconds of the auction. 

As a buyer, you'd have to be an idiot to put in a monster bid at the start of an auction. Here's what'll happen: Item gets listed at a starting price of, say, $10.00. Bidder A HAS to have the item - just has to. So he puts in a gi-normous, humungo bid to ensure he gets it. Bidder B wants the item too, so he bids. Gets an out-bid notice, and tries again. And again. And again. And keeps nibbling away until he decides it's not worth the amount he'll have to shell out, and moves on.

Auction ends, and yes, Bidder A gets his item - for maybe four or five times what he'd have paid if he'd simply waited and put his huge bid in just before the end of the auction.

As to the "unrealistic high bid" - all it takes is a second buyer to put in a similarly unrealistic high bid, and you have your windfall...