[M's_Fan]

Thanks for your responses everyone, some good points were made. Here is what I think:

In the example you use: The Ruth is at $10,000. You bid $11,000. And you select $12,000 as a block. If someone else bids, he can't top you without going to $13,000. If no one bids, are you willing to pay the $12,000?

Jim, I would do it this way: if the auction is at $10,000, and if I were allowed to "autobid" to $12,000, the auction should then show the high bid is currently at $11,000. If nobody else bids $12,000, then I should take it home for $11,000. If someone else comes along and bids $12,000, that should raise the price to $12,000, but I would be shown as the current high bidder since I bid first.

Bruce, you didn't likely lose umpteen eBay auctions by a dollar, you were likely just outbid, and the final price was a dollar higher than yours. You don't know what the high bidder actually bid as his high price, it could have been a dollar or thousands of dollars higher than your bid, but it would still show that the closing price was just $1 or so higher than your highest bid. Likewise, when you lose an auction on REA, you can't say that you were outbid by only $1,000 (or whatever the amount was until the next slot), because you don't know what the bidder's autobid limit was set to.

However, you make a really good point about the auction lasting too long if bid increments were tiny. I just think the current gaps are too wide, and should be cut in half. I don't think this would lengthen the auction.

I would also cut down the time added on from 15 minutes to 5 minutes. After a month to figure out what you need to bid, I don't think you need all that much more to decide if you want to up your bid if you have been outbid.