Don't bother trying to understand e-bay rules

[Otto tune]

I like shopping on e-bay, but it's incredibly frustrating.
I don't think there are any rules.

I have lost to a bidder who bid $0.01 more that I did.
I assumed that since it was in the last 5 seconds, they suspended their rule of having to be a certain increment higher, like $2.50.

Imagine my surprise when last week, I lost another item because my last 5 second bid did not meet the $2.50 increment, and was rejected, even though my bid was higher than the winning bid and posted in time.

Now, I mostly use BIN.

 

[Big Daddy B]

I have never really understood how they determine the increments but it seems to vary from auction to auction. I figured it may have something to do with the starting price (ie. a higher starting price means larger increments) but I am not sure that is the case.

 

[teame1]

it's quite simple.
the lower the item price the lower the increments.
the winning bidder is who bids the most or who bid first if a tie.
the price can change while bidding, thus a required increment can be greater than initially shown. ie it's changed.
a bid only has to beat your max by 1 penny if their bid meets the current increment requirement which is set by current bid price, not the winning bidders max bid.

 

[Otto tune]

I get the increments.
What I don't get is how I can lose one auction to someone who outbids me by $0.01, then lose another auction because my bid was rejected because the increment wasn't enough. Both bids were submitted in the last 5 seconds. The first one I lost (where I was outbid by $0.01, I was shown as the high bidder for about a second, before it was over and I was outbid by a penny. Why wasn't his bid rejected because of the increment?

Any more, I just use BIN. I may pay a bit more, but I won't wait three days to be outbid either.

 

[dsmcl77]

That's because you try to be smart in the last 5 second by outbidding by just the increment.
Be smarter and bid in the last 5 second the maximun you are ready/willing to pay for the object.
Doing that, I never payed the full amount I was ready to pay.

Then the machine will do the rest and YOU might be the one winning by $0.01...

 

[Alden]

Or just use Auction Sniper, set your max price and forget about it until the auction is over. You can even add a couple of extra bid increments over your max price so you don't lose an item over a $1 extra bid.
Alden

 

[horseman]

If the minimum bid is an additional of $5 for example, what I do usually is bidding $5.01 or like another member said, the highest I want to pay, still using broken numbers ($1712.76).