Unfair Auction Bids?

[lizards2]

I hate it when things aren't fair - it is too much like reality.

[Batty Scrooge]

And therein lies the only way to win an auction and feel as close to 100% happy as you can about it. Bid whatever you're willing to pay whenever you want and ignore the other factors.

 

Couldn't agree more. (thumbs u

 

Decide your max, bid it, walk away, and check in at the end.

 

This idea of sniping is foolish. If somebody is willing to pay more than you , you are going to "lose" , whether it's with four days to go or four seconds. It won't matter.

 

I don't mind losing if the book goes above what I am willing to pay for it, I snipe because every bid increases the perceived value of the item. If a book has 10 bidders, it appears more valuable than the same book with 0 bidders, so it almost always closes at a higher price. If you know I am interested in the book as well, you may pay a bit more than if you didn't know I was looking as well.

[Batty Scrooge]

I applaud my comic shop for changing the auto bid part. IMO, they should avoid time extensions. I hate them and they seem to annoy everyone. Why throw gas on the fire? Set a time limit for the auction.

 

Anyone else have an opinion about extending the end time on an auction when a bid is received near the close? Are they widely disliked, as H&C says? Have you participated in auctions that operate this way, and what did you like or dislike about it?

 

I'd be bent if I saw the auction end time get extended and would just move to another auction house.

 

I can plan to be available at the end time of an auction I am really interested in, but I can't plan to be able to keep extending my time available.

[passion4comics]

I applaud my comic shop for changing the auto bid part. IMO, they should avoid time extensions. I hate them and they seem to annoy everyone. Why throw gas on the fire? Set a time limit for the auction.

 

Anyone else have an opinion about extending the end time on an auction when a bid is received near the close? Are they widely disliked, as H&C says? Have you participated in auctions that operate this way, and what did you like or dislike about it?

 

I would never deal with an auction where the clock resets with each bid. I feel there is a loss of control on the buyers side. Sure you bid what you want, but if an auction is ending on Sunday at 9PM you've already given people 7 days to figure out what they want to do. If it's a 15-min auction with a time reset then fine, that works. If you're going to model auctions off those penny auction sites then you've modeled your business of what is notoriously know as being a rip off.

[passion4comics]

I applaud my comic shop for changing the auto bid part. IMO, they should avoid time extensions. I hate them and they seem to annoy everyone. Why throw gas on the fire? Set a time limit for the auction.

 

Anyone else have an opinion about extending the end time on an auction when a bid is received near the close? Are they widely disliked, as H&C says? Have you participated in auctions that operate this way, and what did you like or dislike about it?

 

I'm going against the crowd on this = I like the extended auction. It totally neutralizes the sniping. It gives you time to make a thoughtful reaction rather than a quick emotional one.

 

And gives a lot more people the time to get emotionally worked up about it.

 

"You outbid me?? FINE. I'll outbid YOU. See how YOU like it."

 

Bidding war ensues...bid goes wayyyyy beyond market value...and neither high bidder nor second bidder pays up, AFTER they have had the time to cool off and realized they bid emotionally.

 

 

For some reason women don't have these issues. It's men that get into these contests where both sides lose. "Look I took the bullet so I won!" Nothing like paying 5x what's something is worth just to show the guy bidding next to you that you beat him.

[hockey&comicsguy]

Of course it's in THEIR interest to auto bump to the next increment. Just because we've all grown accustomed to that doesn't mean it's the "right" way to do it nor does it mean it should end debate about changing things..

 

Let me try one more time....

 

People understand being outbid. They understand someone else's higher bid outbidding their lower, placed at a later time bid.

 

Incremental bidding is used to easily and quickly demonstrate that fact.

 

Steve bids $100. High bid is $1. Dave comes along and bids $20. High bid, in eBay's case, is now $20.50. Dave sees "oh...that's higher than my bid. They must have placed an earlier bid for a greater amount."

 

Dave then bids $56. Steve's high bid is now $57. "Oh. That's still higher than my bid. I guess they've placed a higher bid."

 

Dave then bids $100. Steve's high bid is now $100. "Why is my bid the same as the high bid? Am I the high bidder? Oh...I have hit Steve's max bid, and all I have to do is bid onre more time, and I'll be the high bidder. Nah, It's too expensive. I'll find it somewhere else."

 

All easily understandable.

 

"The other" scenario:

 

Steve bids $100. High bid is $1. Dave comes along and bids $20. High bid is $20. "Sweet, I'm the high bidder" Dave might think, without bothering to check.

 

"Wait!" says the system. "You're not the high bidder!" If Dave even pays attention to that info...and lots of study has shown that lots of people DON'T....it will still likely confuse him, because, after all, his bid is the same as the high bid.

 

"But that happens when you hit the high bid on eBay" you respond. Yes, that's true, but it's rare, and eBay does have a mechanism in place to explain what happened.

 

"Well, why won't that work for every situation, normally?" and the answer to that is it confuses people when it happens on eBay...can you imagine if it happened every single time, on every single bid?

 

See, the higher number is what tells *most* people that their bid has been outbid. They understand "higher number = I'm not high bidder" much, much easier than some automated message system, which they'd probably ignore until they realized they hadn't won, by which time, it's too late.

 

And THAT, not "to make more money", is why eBay has the incremental bidding system.

 

Make sense? . Not really. But understanding and taking advantage of human psychology, even if it doesn't make sense...especially if it doesn't make sense...is what has made eBay lots and lots of money.

 

 

 

So is the crux of your position that even though incremental bumps are unfair (I believe they are) that they are a necessity because the public, as a whole, are too ing stupid to understand what they're doing?

 

I'm not knocking your position. That's just what I'm getting from it. That people are essentially too retarded or lazy to take the time to comprehend their bidding situation.

 

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

 

So is the crux of your position that even though incremental bumps are unfair (I believe they are) that they are a necessity because the public, as a whole, are too ing stupid to understand what they're doing?

 

I don't think there's anything fundamentally unfair about the increment system. I think certain increments are proportionately unfair, but they had to draw the line somewhere, and that's neither here nor there.

 

I'm not knocking your position. That's just what I'm getting from it. That people are essentially too retarded or lazy to take the time to comprehend their bidding situation.

 

 

There's a reason they call it "the lowest common denominator."

 

You hope for the best, but in business, anticipate the worst, and you'll do fine.

 

Working in customer service in any industry is the quickest way to learn that no matter how foolproof you make a system, there will always be someone who just can't figure it out.

[lizards2]

 

So is the crux of your position that even though incremental bumps are unfair (I believe they are) that they are a necessity because the public, as a whole, are too ing stupid to understand what they're doing?

 

I don't think there's anything fundamentally unfair about the increment system. I think certain increments are proportionately unfair, but they had to draw the line somewhere, and that's neither here nor there.

 

I'm not knocking your position. That's just what I'm getting from it. That people are essentially too retarded or lazy to take the time to comprehend their bidding situation.

 

 

There's a reason they call it "the lowest common denominator."

 

You hope for the best, but in business, anticipate the worst, and you'll do fine.

 

Working in customer service in any industry is the quickest way to learn that no matter how foolproof you make a system, there will always be someone who just can't figure it out.

Or weasels who will figure out ways to circumvent it.

[RockMyAmadeus]

 

So is the crux of your position that even though incremental bumps are unfair (I believe they are) that they are a necessity because the public, as a whole, are too ing stupid to understand what they're doing?

 

I don't think there's anything fundamentally unfair about the increment system. I think certain increments are proportionately unfair, but they had to draw the line somewhere, and that's neither here nor there.

 

I'm not knocking your position. That's just what I'm getting from it. That people are essentially too retarded or lazy to take the time to comprehend their bidding situation.

 

 

There's a reason they call it "the lowest common denominator."

 

You hope for the best, but in business, anticipate the worst, and you'll do fine.

 

Working in customer service in any industry is the quickest way to learn that no matter how foolproof you make a system, there will always be someone who just can't figure it out.

Or weasels who will figure out ways to circumvent it.

That too.

[joe_collector]

I applaud my comic shop for changing the auto bid part. IMO, they should avoid time extensions. I hate them and they seem to annoy everyone. Why throw gas on the fire? Set a time limit for the auction.

 

Anyone else have an opinion about extending the end time on an auction when a bid is received near the close? Are they widely disliked, as H&C says? Have you participated in auctions that operate this way, and what did you like or dislike about it?

 

Absolutely hate the auto-extend. It's one reason I won't bid on ComicConnect auctions.

 

Yep, auto-extend auctions are a shill-bidder's dream and attracts them like flies.

[mycomicshop]

Thanks to all who have provided feedback about auto-extending an auction's end time when a bid is received in the last 5 minutes.

 

As bomber-bob pointed out, the motivation behind doing this is to dilute the effectiveness of sniping. As I said before, I've got nothing against sniping and think it's a rational technique to win items at the best price. But, when a snipe causes an item to sell for below the price it could have realized because the other bidder(s) didn't have time to respond, that's something that, in our role as the auction house, we'd prefer to avoid. Not just for our own items, but for items owned by other sellers using our platform.

 

It sounds like most of you who don't like auto-extend are speaking from the perspective of buyers; I'd be curious to hear from any sellers who have sold items at auction on places like eBay or ComicLink. Do you feel like you've been burned by a snipe? Do you feel that auto-extend offers you protection against weaker final bids, and would it be a selling point for you in choosing where to sell your comics? Or is it not a significant issue for you?

 

For those of you who said that you don't like auto-extend, I understand that "I like to snipe stuff" isn't the only reason you might not like it. As some of you said, you like the stable expectation of a fixed end time, not having to manage multiple auctions dragging on while others you're interested in are coming up, etc. As we run more auctions, we'll be watching how they play out and may make modifications based on what we observe. It's also possible we could end up dropping the concept, but for now we're going to keep it until we get more experience and feedback from our bidders and sellers.

 

 

On the topic of auto-extend being good for sellers who want to shill, I just want to emphasize that we're taking a hard line against any and all shilling. No employee or representative of ours will ever bid in any of our own auctions--if we want a minimum price for something, we'll either set a higher starting price or set a reserve. Similarly, sellers with items on consignment are prohibited from shilling and will have unsold item returned and will be blocked from our platform if found to be shilling. We can't guarantee that we can prevent any shilling from ever occurring, but we think we can do a better job than eBay does, and we certainly won't be complicit in it in terms of allowing an item to be shilled up and then relisted after the shill wins the item. If anyone ever has any concerns about suspected shilling in our auctions, or ideas about how we can increase bidder confidence, don't hesitate to PM me or email me at webmaster@mycomicshop.com.

 

[Batty Scrooge]

Thanks to all who have provided feedback about auto-extending an auction's end time when a bid is received in the last 5 minutes.

 

As bomber-bob pointed out, the motivation behind doing this is to dilute the effectiveness of sniping. As I said before, I've got nothing against sniping and think it's a rational technique to win items at the best price. But, when a snipe causes an item to sell for below the price it could have realized because the other bidder(s) didn't have time to respond, that's something that, in our role as the auction house, we'd prefer to avoid. Not just for our own items, but for items owned by other sellers using our platform.

 

It sounds like most of you who don't like auto-extend are speaking from the perspective of buyers; I'd be curious to hear from any sellers who have sold items at auction on places like eBay or ComicLink. Do you feel like you've been burned by a snipe? Do you feel that auto-extend offers you protection against weaker final bids, and would it be a selling point for you in choosing where to sell your comics? Or is it not a significant issue for you?

 

I think you misunderstand what sniping does to the final value. It pushes up the final value, not down. If I don't bid with 5-10s left in the auction, the hammer price will be the lower value. If I snipe, the final value jumps just before the hammer. Thats a win for the seller. You are trying to entice bidding wars, not have the hammer fall on a true market value, so don't use "being burned by a snipe" as an excuse. The only person "burned" is the guy who thought he was winning with 10s to go, and he lost because his max was too low, the seller on the other hand wins with the higher hammer price.

 

I will avoid your auctions if they are auto-extended, therefore the seller loses by not having my bid push the final value up.

 

 

On the topic of auto-extend being good for sellers who want to shill, I just want to emphasize that we're taking a hard line against any and all shilling. No employee or representative of ours will ever bid in any of our own auctions--if we want a minimum price for something, we'll either set a higher starting price or set a reserve. Similarly, sellers with items on consignment are prohibited from shilling and will have unsold item returned and will be blocked from our platform if found to be shilling. We can't guarantee that we can prevent any shilling from ever occurring, but we think we can do a better job than eBay does, and we certainly won't be complicit in it in terms of allowing an item to be shilled up and then relisted after the shill wins the item. If anyone ever has any concerns about suspected shilling in our auctions, or ideas about how we can increase bidder confidence, don't hesitate to PM me or email me at webmaster@mycomicshop.com.

 

You have no way of knowing if the consignor is having his friend shill bid for him, and not relisting the book isn't enough of a check against this friend using the auto-extend to the sellers benefit.

[mycomicshop]

I think you misunderstand what sniping does to the final value. It pushes up the final value, not down. If I don't bid with 5-10s left in the auction, the hammer price will be the lower value. If I snipe, the final value jumps just before the hammer. Thats a win for the seller. You are trying to entice bidding wars, not have the hammer fall on a true market value, so don't use "being burned by a snipe" as an excuse.

 

That's correct only in the limited sense that ANY bid pushes up the final value. You're comparing "final price of item if I submit a snipe bid" vs "final price of item if I submit no bid at all," which wasn't the comparison I was making. If sniping really pushed up the final value, why would anyone snipe? They'd avoid the sniping strategy and place a bid earlier in the auction if sniping was likely to result in a higher final price. You're right though that if auto-extend drives away the sniper from the bidding pool entirely, that lowers the final price.

 

To me, in the context of an auction, the best definition of "true market value" is when the price rises to a level at which only one person is willing to pay that price, and nobody else is willing to go over the top with a higher bid. If that's what you call "enticing a bidding war", then yes, that's a good and appropriate outcome for an auction--the person wins the auction who was willing to pay the most. If sniping causes an auction to end at a price level where other bidders would have been willing to go higher, to me that's a less than ideal outcome.

 

It's just a trade-off between practices that produce the highest legitimate final bids (by ensuring that all bidders have a chance to respond to all other bids) and practices that some bidders find annoying (no fixed end time). If enough people feel like you do and are turned off by the possibility that an auction might not end at a fixed time, that will factor into our decision. This would all be a non-issue if all bidders entered max proxy bids, but we have to design against the fact that many bidders enter incremental bids and don't put in a true max.

 

You have no way of knowing if the consignor is having his friend shill bid for him, and not relisting the book isn't enough of a check against this friend using the auto-extend to the sellers benefit.

 

That's a valid point. We can't 100% eliminate shilling. All we can do is try to create a strong financial disincentive against shilling, and do a good job of policing against it. At minimum, I think we can do better than eBay, for two reasons:

1) We can guarantee that any item won at auction is physically shipped out. In this case, the seller is out the commission on the sale, the cost of shipping, and the delay while the item is in transit. With eBay, a seller whose shill wins an item can immediately relist the item and is out only the FVF, and even that may be circumvented.

2) Without going into specifics, I think we can do a better job than eBay of looking for shills, and we can certainly be more responsive than eBay if someone in the community brings something of concern to our attention.

[michaellee]

Well now, it looks like the votes are in and the overwhelming majority is solidly against my opinion. With very few exceptions it seems everyone is OK with the standard operating proceedures of most of the auction houses (mycomicshop.com auctions excepted). So be it. I'm done.

p.s. I apologize for the A hole comment.

[VintageComics]

p.s. I apologize

 

That's a nice touch.

 

(thumbs u

[michaellee]

p.s. I apologize

 

That's a nice touch.

 

(thumbs u

Thank you.