What is the smallest bid increment you've ever won with?

[yok-dfa]

Hi,

Last weekend i was putting in some bids for an item i was after on ebay and after the dust had settled (lots of sniping activity going on in the last minutes) i noticed that i had won the auction with a higher bid of 11 cents. I had set the proxy-bid up to 75,86 and the second highest bid was 75,75. It must be really annoying to loose an auction by such a small amount, but that's the disadvantage of sniping :D

This wasn't the smallest bid-increment i ever won with. In my 4 year career on eBay i have managed to win an auction twice by bidding 1 cent (!) higher then the second highest bid. The first was a Colecovision Atari expansion module for which i had bid 10,01. (second highest bid was 10,00) and once i bid on an Atari cart (can't remember the exact amounts anymore) but the difference was also 1 cent. Needless to say it made winning the item much more fun...

So let me hear your stories, did you ever win an auction by a really small margin? (or did you get beat by a very small margin). Do you study your 'oppenents' bid behaviour by looking what he bid for comparable items in the past and do you adjust your bid using that info?

Cheers,
Raymond

[anagrama]

How about £0.00? (ie. when someone places a bid for the exact same amount, but places it after you?) I've won on those a couple of times.

[Griking]

Well, just because the winning bidder only wins by a few cents doesn't mean that his maximum bid was only a few cents more. He may have bid much more then the second place bidder but the bidding never reached that amount.

[anagrama]

Well, just because the winning bidder only wins by a few cents doesn't mean that his maximum bid was only a few cents more.

Except that it does if the winning bid is less than the next bid increment. It's impossible to place, for example, a bid that is £0.01 higher than the current bid - it has to be at least £0.05 more if it's under £1, or £0.20 more between £5-£10, or £0.50 more if it's over £10.

[video_game_addict]

I've won by .02 cents before. I've lost where both me & the high bidder hit the same mark.

@Raymond, in your example above, I'm misunderstanding you though. You placed a bid of 75.75 & beat out some one else's bid of 75.86? That does not sound right.


@Griking, They are correct in that you can tell, if winning bid is less than the next bid increment.

Say for example, two bidders were placing $50 bids on the same auction, only one chose $50.05 as a proxy, & the other had a $50 snipe set for the auction, then the end price would be exactly $50.05 & the sniper would know the exact price he had lost by. Had he of bid $50.06 he would have won by one cent.

If the first bidder threw up a $75 proxy bid, and then the sniper came along & bid $50 on the nose, the end result would have been $51. Ebay always goes up to the next full increment.

If the sniper bid $50.05 against a $50 proxy, then the sniper would have won by a margin of .05 cents. Same snipe against a $75 proxy, he would have still lost out, but the end price would have been $51.05

If the end price is a full increment above the snipe, then you have no way of telling just how much the winner was willing to pay. But in all cases where the difference is less than the next increment at that level, it is known.

[yok-dfa]

@Raymond, in your example above, I'm misunderstanding you though. You placed a bid of 75.75 & beat out some one else's bid of 75.86? That does not sound right.

You are right, i made a mistake, it should be the other way around. I already edited my post :)

Cheers,
Raymond

[MercenaryFoxMcCloud]

I've won by 3 cents. Then I've also won by having the same amount as another bidder that bid after me.

[Nesmaster]

I've won by 1 or 2 cents many times. Gives me a great feeling and probably pisses the other bidder off big time! LOL