posted on October 20, 2000 09:48:10 AM
...like it?
It is a double-edge sword: It definately can create a "bidding war", since you know how much your opponents want the item....
On the other hand, since you see all the up-dated bids, and their frequency, it makes it easier to "guess" at the maximum entered bid. When only two bidders are involved, one can decide to walk away very early on, possibly killing further interest.
I think it woke up the gambler in me...
posted on October 20, 2000 12:13:30 PM
I haven't made up my mind yet. As a bidder I don't like it but as a seller it may generate more interest.
On another note about the bid history page I have noticed a lot more retracted bids lately. I saw an auction yesterday where a bid met the reserve and was retracted about an hour later. The previous bid was below the reserve, but if you saw the other bid before it was retracted you knew what to bid to meet the reserve. I saw the same thing this morning on a second auction.
Maybe I am getting paranoid but could some people be bidding high to figure out the reserve and then just retract the bid if they think it is too much? Seems unfair somehow that the reserve amount is exposed without the seller disclosing the information.
Jodiblonde: It is the link on each auction page next to the number of bids, (I think thats where it is on the auction page).
That's exactly what I think is happening. I think that bidders have done this for a long time; entering a high bid to find out what the max is or to see how high a proxy bid is, then retracting it if it is too high.
Having the bid retract as part of the history of an ebayer should help this. But how many is too many? I saw a bidder with over 30 retracted bids and they are still able to bid. Another person saw 87 retracted bids on another bidder.
What I don't like, is that once a bid has been retracted, it will no longer be in the history of a bidder. It's next to impossible to track down a retracted bid of a bidder once some time has gone by.
There are some really strange bids on the Disney auctions right now. Bidders retracting bids in the 10's of thousands, only to turn around and bid again on the same object.
