[time-nuts] OT: eBay bidding question

[Robert Atkinson]

Hi Rex,
It's quite simple when you get used to it.
The list is ordered in bid value, highest at the top.
If two bids are for the same amount, the one that was placed first takes
precedence (and wins if they are at the top at auction end).
This is why bidder 6 is at the top, he bid on the 22nd, before bidder 8
on the 25th. Bidder numbers are time sequential.
The other issue is proxy bidding, Bidder 6's bid would only have shown 1
bid increment (about $10 in this case) above the next lowest bidder
until his limit was reached ($4000). If he had bid $4000.01 (or bidder 8
had bid $3999.99) there would have been no confusion. This is why some
bidders put an odd few pence (cents) at the end of their bid.

HTH.
Robert. 

-----Original Message-----
From: time-nuts-bounces at febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces at febo.com] On
Behalf Of Rex
Sent: 26 April 2007 10:11
To: time-nuts at febo.com
Subject: [time-nuts] OT: eBay bidding question

I suspect there are lots of eBay bidders here. I'm looking at something
that I don't understand. 

After some discussion here, I was following an auction for an HP 3458A
meter. It is this one:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250107015204&rd=1&rd=
1

It has gone too high for me, but I was looking at how it got there. If
you click on the bid history, it is (as I look at it now) sitting at
$4000, but there are two bidders listed at $4000.

How did two bidders end up listed for placing the same bid amount
($4000) and Bidder 6 with an earlier date is winning over Bidder 8 with
date 3 days later? (I can see why the earlier one wins, if they both had
the same bid but what kind of sequence could create this list?)

I thought Bidder 7 might have had something to do with it but looking at
the list of bids, Bidder 7 is only down the list before bidder 5. Why
didn't Bidder 6 show up until the end?

As I look at that list of bids -- who, when, how much -- my head hurts
trying to make sense of it. Here's a simple starting question... Why
isn't Bidder 1 the first in the list? If he got bumped from the starting
slot, why? What makes Bidder 1's first bid not worth keeping?

Can any of you Mensa-types explain it? Is the algorithm for these bid
lists explained somewhere in the Ebay maze? I've been puzzled by these
lists before, but this one seems a good example of HUH???

---
The list of bids on this auction could be a moving target, so here's the
bid list I'm looking at (after a lot of work to capture it and make it
look ok)...

	Item title: 		HEWLETT PACKARD HP MULTIMETER 3458A
	Time left: 		1 day, 16 hours 44 minutes 50 seconds

	Only actual bids (not automatic bids generated up to a bidder's
maximum) are shown. Automatic bids may be placed days or hours before a
listing ends. Learn more about bidding
<http://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/bidding-ov.html>. 	

	*Bidder*    Bid Amount    Date of bid 		
	Bidder 6    US $4,000.00  Apr-22-07 05:14:15
	Bidder 8    US $4,000.00  Apr-25-07 00:49:30 
	Bidder 5    US $3,000.00  Apr-23-07 19:31:08
	Bidder 5    US $2,900.00  Apr-23-07 19:31:00
	Bidder 5    US $2,800.00  Apr-23-07 19:30:50
	Bidder 5    US $2,700.00  Apr-23-07 19:30:42
	Bidder 5    US $2,500.00  Apr-23-07 19:30:32
	Bidder 5    US $2,200.00  Apr-23-07 19:30:25
	Bidder 7    US $2,050.00  Apr-23-07 00:33:36 
	Bidder 5    US $2,000.00  Apr-21-07 21:21:05
	Bidder 3    US $1,250.50  Apr-21-07 17:19:52 
	Bidder 4    US $1,111.00  Apr-21-07 17:38:42 
	Bidder 2    US   $559.00  Apr-21-07 16:39:08 
	Bidder 1    US   $365.00  Apr-20-07 21:33:10 
	Bidder 2    US   $250.00  Apr-21-07 16:38:56 
	
---
Sorry, in advance, for taking us on a tangent. Hope this doesn't get too
out of hand as a thread.


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