Lets say I am a interested party on an ebay auction item, I also may find myself trying to understand the behavior of certain types of competitive bidders during the course of the auction, and what constitutes a fair auction to all interested parties. So most people know that if you are serious and want an item, you will be there at the close or make use of Sniping software. You could just put in your max bid before the close , but if you are a Buyer why draw attention to it beforehand?

So I understand ebay newbie behavior where they will just put up a bid early for whatever reason. I also know that sometimes other Sellers will bump up another Sellers listing by throwing in a supportive bid here and there if you will. It has even happened to me as a Seller Example-- I was selling some cookware on a few no/low reserve auctions and a couple established Sellers without my influence whatsoever, threw a couple bids into the mix. I didn't mind it, and I think they may have just bid bumped me a little, to be supportive of another Seller in their respective niche.

So the main type of bidding behavior I don't understand and even question a little bit, is the incremental bidder. You all know the one bidder I am talking about (It happens all the time on ebay) the one that will put in like 8+ lookie loo bids for some reason on an item. I understand that ebay newbies get a pass here, but I am not always thinking a rookie is behind this incremental bidding behavior. eBAY is a vast SEA and Sellers want exposure and number of bids attract attention to searching potential Buyers. This type of behavior to me, if it is not coming from a genuine interested party, is stretching the limits of what constitutes a fair auction IMO. What does everyone else think?

use a sniping program, enter your honest maximum bid, go away and forget about it

what you're describing is like caring about trolls on a bicycle forum

you can only control you, but if you use a sniping program, and enter your honest maximum bid, you will get the best possible price on the item and will never be in a bidding war.
If you don't win, you didn't want to pay that much for it, anyway, and there will always be another.

The incremental folks are either hopeful, new and have limited funds, or they just aren't the brightest.

This. Your three paragraphs amounted to giving a damn what other bidders are doing. I read it three times and I'm still not sure what you're really trying to get at.

I don't enter bids, ever. I use Bidnapper (even pay for the service). Enter the item number, enter my max bid, walk away.

Since I've been using it, I've won every single auction I've used it for.

I think that i too dont understand the approach to bidding you describe.
Since i dont understand the motivation to bid that way, i just bid my way and move on.

Fine ok I agree for the most part and thanks for the Snipe software tip. Still even with the software people are spending a lot of time searching and watching auctions. Do multiple bids draw your attention? and how many auctions are you watching right now?

I don't think I am the only ebayer to say to themselves, in an auction that I am interested in, Ok what kind of dumbass just jacked up all the bids in multiple small increments? Or actually if you think about it, is it someone that knows exactly what they are doing? and if so is that a fair thing to do to rest of interested potential bidders.

I've bid more than once when I'm not real knowlegeable about an item and I've bid early just to kind of bookmark it and then later decide I'd pay more than I thought after researching it.

I think it's also human nature to get competitive and want to win. Also sometimes as the auction nears close, I've fantasized so much about owning the item I bid higher than I should to make sure I get it.

I know I should decide on a max and then bid exactly that in the last seconds and not look back, but I'm not always so disciplined.

But more than 2-3 bids sounds like someone not clear on how how the auctions work.

I'll often put in a bid in for the starting amount when I see an item soon after the auction has started and then I'll go back and raise my max bid. That show that 2 bids have been made, I think that will discourage some of the bargain hunters from watching the auction.

There was recently a 5700 GS RD I wanted and I did this on. Maybe a day or 2 later I got the notice on my phone that I had been outbid. A small bidding war preceded for the next few hours until my real max was outbid and I was totally out of the running. The next day I checked my watch list and found that the guy who had been bidding against me canceled his bids once I didn't fire back. I didn't like the way that one felt and I also canceled my bids, price when from $48.xx back down to $6.50.

Oh geez, man, you're thinking too hard about this! No, multiple bids don't draw my attention, items that I want draw my attention. I don't care what other bidders are doing. I have a good idea what I want, and what I'm willing to pay for it. I put items on my ebay "Watch List" if I'm interested or considering an item. If I'm serious about it, I head over to Bidnapper and commit. Bada bing, bada boom, move on to other things. I don't care about dumbasses jacking up bids, all I care about is what I'm willing to pay.

I also use a tool called SearchDome to create searches for stuff I'm looking for. I set up these searches, it checks for these items once every hour, and when they pop up on ebay, it shoots me an email alerting me of the auction.

I buy/sell a lot of stuff on Ebay. I used to use sniping programs but I no longer trust anyone with my Ebay credentials, period. My Ebay account is linked to my Paypal account is linked to my credit card/bank accounts. No way I trust some sniping service with those credentials.

I am currently watching about 50 items. There are some I really want. If they have no reserve price I put in my max bid and more or less sit back and watch. The Ebay proxy bid mechanism is more or less equivalent to sniping and is guaranteed to win if it has the high bid - the proxy service always gets the last bid no matter how close to the close your snipe comes in. The number of bids on an item has absolutely no impact on my decisions. I don't care who else is bidding or how many are bidding. If I want it I want it and I decide how much it is worth. Sometimes my desire increases or my research changes my opinion of the value of an item and I increase my max bid. I usually don't do this in response to being outbid but merely to make sure I won't be outbid below my estimated value by a last minute snipe. But yes sometimes I will be outbid early in the game and by the end of the auction decide I want it more (because I have lost other auctions at what I thought was a fair price or because I really want to finish a project or whatever) and will increase my bid, creating the behavior you describe. I'm far from a newbie but I don't approach every purchase as an emotionless automaton even though in some abstract sense that would be the best thing to do.

I appreciate your strategy Jim. Your bikes are also so nice that I am jealous lol. If I get in bidding war with you I think I am out.

Have you ever watched the show, "Storage Wars?" Dave Hester would often increase bids either to take some potential buyers out of future bidding on other storage lockers or just to have a little bit of fun. I'm sure that there are a few bidders who enjoy increasing bids just for their own jollies.

Dennis

I'm sure I leave money on the table but my time has value and I am not always willing to wait forever to get the perfectly lowest price. I recently was shopping for a set of Campy Record brake levers. I wanted them to be correct for 1972. I found 3 or 4 examples on Ebay, one perfect, the others with various pros and cons. I looked at sold listings but as usual there aren't that many examples for exactly what I am looking for. So I start watching the auctions. On the first set up (not the perfect set) I put in what I think is a reasonable bid. I lose but the end price adds a data point. The second set is the perfect set and I have a pretty good idea what I am willing to pay (which is actually well above what I think the real market price is because they are perfect for my project). So I bid and sit back and wait and I win.

The point is that as I am going through auctions with various pluses and minuses against what I would consider perfect my view of the price I am going to have to pay to get what I want within a reasonable amount of time (I am usually willing to wait weeks, not months for a project part) changes. If I've lost three auctions by bidding what I thought was reasonable then my idea of reasonable is not really reasonable for the time frame in which I want the part. My view of reasonable has to go up or I have to wait longer which is no guarantee that prices will go down or that the perfect part will come along in any reasonable time.

Actually in the end I usually end up buying a lot of stuff from buy it now or make offer listings. I follow buy it nows and by the 3rd or 4th listing they might get down to a reasonable price. I will often then make an offer (even if it isn't a make offer). What can I lose? If it is a make offer listing I always make a pretty low offer and see where it goes. Sometimes I get lucky and sometimes I end up paying close to the buy it now. If a seller gets offended by a low offer then forget them.

If you bid on something in advance, another bidder can reveal your high bid by nibbling away in increments. That is they can run up the price, and finally reveal your proxy bid without actually winning the auction.

So suppose there was a seller auctioning a big-ticket item, with a cousin Cletus .....

This is the main reason never to bid with more than a few seconds before the auction close.

Yeah I do the same, this Sellers Italvega frameset finally came down some and he had a best offer option, so we ended up doing a deal. It is a larger size so even though it fits me, (I am 6'3'.) I expect to pay less for frames/bikes 59cm and above. I paid $300 + $25 shipping. Haven't received it yet but looks very clean and should be good build base.

Exactly what I was getting at, but maybe laboring the point a little. I don't like those "nibbler bidders" somehow it doesn't seem quite on the up and up to me.

The more bids there are on an item, the more visibility eBay gives it in buyer searches. The incremental bids run up the number of bids in a hurry and may have no reflection on the final price.

I think the sellers do this on their own items and know eBay's game.

That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

Storage Wars is exactly what the first post made me think of. That show illustrates a lot of bidding psychology. In addition to the Dave Hester thing you have Jarrod, especially in the early seasons, deciding what his max bid is going to be but then actually bidding a lot more than that because his desire to win the auction overrides the price limit he had set for himself. The best way to win an auction against someone like that is to let him think he's going to win the auction at a low price until the last minute and then snipe him. If two Jarrods are in the auction early, sometimes all you can do is sigh and wait for the next one.

what you didn't see is the guy you're talking about placed a bid.
X-number of people also placed their bids, but since his was higher you only see that his bid was already higher - he didn't incrementally bid over himself, others were trying to bid against him.

Now if you want to buy something, see rule 1 again: use a sniping program, enter your honest maximum bid, go away and forget about it

I guess I should have added that in addition to using Bidnapper, I also do this sort of thing right here. I've been waiting for this LeJeune to come out of the stratosphere into FMV for a while; the guy just relisted at $650, after having listed this bike at $700 several times in a row, although now it is a regular auction, rather than BIN. He had rejected my offer of $425. Patience, patience...

Weird Al Yankovics ebay song will answer all your questions about the psychology of ebay. Highly recommend.

I'm still too slow to follow this. Isn't my max bid "revealed" only when someone submits a higher bid and stays the highest bidder? Not seeing how someone can methodically run it up to my max amount without surpassing it.

You appear to be trying to apply some sort of morality to eBay bidding.

Fergetaboutit.

If I am looking for an item I almost never bid on the first one I see. I will often watch it to see how much it will sell for and then wait for another one to come up. That way I will know what the going price is. Sometimes I will see an item that I was watching and then was sold come up again as a relisting. I think that often there is some bidding shenanigans going on. It is good to know what the price should be!

Maybe I am underthinking this, but I just bid what I'm willing to pay and come back and check when it's ended. Or if I'm outbid, I don't even have to do that, because eBay tells me so. They send me a buttload of emails.

Seems to work pretty well. Magic of the marketplace, invisible hand or whatever. I don't go after really special stuff on eBay; it's all way overpriced.