How does a lower bid win an auction?

[manicgeek]

I recently bid £35 on this auction.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/bfl/viewbids/187504635378?item=187504635378&rt=nc&_trksid=p4429486.m145235.l2...

Yet as you can see the winning bid was £34.

How does a lower bid win the auction like that?

[arkwebus]

There is no sign that your bid was registered.  The winning bid was sniped at a few seconds before the end of the auction.  If you have the habit of bidding at the last moment the system may have simply been too slow. 

Ebay's auctions run to the last second

@manicgeek 

[manicgeek]

Nope sorry that doesn't stack up.

I submitted one bid, of £35 and you can see they entered me into the bidding and my last bid was at £33.

So the £35 bid was placed and registered in the bidding system before that £34 bid.

So how was a lower bid able to win against a higher bid.

This isn't the first time this has happened to me recently.

Is the proxy bidding system broken?

[61stephenuk]

When you place a bid it includes the buyer fee,the winning bid was £36.04 (£34+2.04 buyer fee) 

Your bid was less once the buyer fee was deducted

[manicgeek]

Again, that doesn't stack up.

If the buyers fee is subtracted from the bid I submit then the £33 bid isn't possible.

incl. £2.04 for fee

35 - 2.04 = 32.96

That £33 bid couldn't have been anymore than £32.96.

So no that doesn't explain it either.

I'm left to conclude that eBay has broken their proxy bidding system, and that it no longer works correctly.

[61stephenuk]

Thats how it works,your maximum bid was £35 this is made up of £2.00 buyer fee and bid of £33

The winning bid was placed at the last second after yours and was £36.04 made up of buyer fee £2.04 and bid of £34

[manicgeek]

Sorry, but as I've explained the maths show that cannot be the case.

I've lost faith in eBay, it's clearly broken.

I've had several auctions go this way now, where the "winning bid" is lower than I have bid against the Item.

Shame it was a good platform.

[61stephenuk]

The winning bidder placed a bid of £36.04 this beats your bid of £35.00 and the maths is fine.

The reason you 'had several auctions go this way now, where the "winning bid" is lower than I have bid against the Item.' is because you are not allowing for the buyer fee in your bid,the fee works on a varying percentage.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/selling/selling/pricing-items/buyer-protection-information-sellers?id=55...

[manicgeek]

So it's my fault... I knew before I asked it would somehow be turned into my fault.

Which percentage should I be calculating and adding to my bid in an auction that isn't finished yet?

See when I started bidding it would have needed a 7% adjustment to the bid, but by auction end it would have needed a 4% adjustment.

The Buyer Protection fee is calculated as:

• A flat fee of up to £0.10 per item, and
• 7% of the item price up to £20, and
• 4% of any portion of the item price from £20 to £300, and
• 2% of any portion of the item price from £300 to £4,000

I've no idea who thought I'd be taking time to calculate percentages to add into what I was willing to pay, based upon a price that hasn't been determined yet because the auction hasn't finished, but that's not actually possible.

Still it has to be my fault, and I don't care or need ebay enough to be screwed around like that, and then blamed for their system being unworkable and thus broken.

[61stephenuk]

You don't have to work out the percentages,all you need to know is the most you are willing to pay for the item and enter this as your bid.

In this case your maximum was £35.00 someone else was willing to pay more and bid higher and won

[red_magpie]

So it's my fault...

It isn't your "fault" - or eBay's.

If you were outbid by a buyer who was willing to pay more than you, that's how auctions work.

There are situations when a lower bid can win, to do with eBay's minimum bid increments and the timing of bids.  But if someone else bid £36.04, this beats your bid of £35.00 and the bidding system is working correctly. 

[manicgeek]

The entire premise of an auction is to sell the item for the highest price possible for the seller.

That's why auction houses do not include fees in the bidding process but add them on after the auction end.

And as I've pointed out the idea that a bidder can calculate how much 'variable fee' he needs to add in a proxy bidding system before the auction ends is ridiculous.

As I said eBay has broken their proxy bidding system, and has effectively lost a seller money by doing so.

I'm just glad I found out before listing several EOS cameras and several laptops up here and losing money on the sale of each.

[manicgeek]

The seller isn't receiving £36.04 though is he/her.

They're getting £34.

They should be getting £35, but extracting the fees from the 'maximum bid' amount, instead of adding them onto the 'maximum bid' amount has cost them money.

That's why auction houses always add auction fees after the auction ends.

eBay's system breaks the base premise of an auction, of getting the seller the highest price possible for the item.

[61stephenuk]

If the fee was added to your bid you would be paying £37.10 would you be happy to pay that?

The seller would then receive £35.00

[manicgeek]

Yes, because the next cheapest available listing for the same item ws £49. So Yes I would have been happy.

There's just no way around the fact that the seller of that camera should have been getting £35 minimum, but is only going to get £34 because of the changes ebay has made to it's proxy bidding system.

The seller lost out. And that's not how auctions are supposed to be.

[61stephenuk]

As I said in post #10 you should enter your maximum bid,the most you are willing to pay.

Had you entered £37.10 or more you may have won we'll never know as we don't know how high the winners maximum bid was

[manicgeek]

> we'll never know

That's not why we'll never know.

We'll never know because I will no longer be considering eBay an auction site or gambling, by bidding on any auction, on what percentage I'm going to have to calculate over and above the maximum amount I'm willing to pay in order place a bid in the first place.

Like I said, it's a shame it was a good site.