Stupid REA Question

[Jim VB]

Originally Posted by T206Collector

Why does Honest Auto Bid skip every other bidding increment?

It allows for you to bid, someone else to bid, and you to bid again (and repeat.) If it didn't skip bids, you could have two bids in a row, effectively setting it up so that the second bid could never happen.

[glchen]

Originally Posted by Jim VB

It allows for you to bid, someone else to bid, and you to bid again (and repeat.) If it didn't skip bids, you could have two bids in a row, effectively setting it up so that the second bid could never happen.

Yea, I don't like this, but it probably favors consignors receiving higher bids. In other auctions, you wouldn't have these skip bids, so the auction would favor aggressive bidders who put a high max autobid. All ties would go to these bidders, because they put in the high bid first. Therefore, a good strategy would be to put in a high max bid, so that you lead in the auction, and would win all ties going to your max bid.

[T206Collector]

Originally Posted by Jim VB

It allows for you to bid, someone else to bid, and you to bid again (and repeat.) If it didn't skip bids, you could have two bids in a row, effectively setting it up so that the second bid could never happen.

Not trying to obtuse, but I still don't get it.

Example:
Bidder A: $1,000 bid + $1,100 ceiling bid
Current bid $1,000

Bidder B: Now bids $1,100 and isn't high bidder, but Bidder A is at $1,100.

What's the problem?

[Abravefan11]

It makes sense to me, but I can understand why some people don't like it.

If I'm high bid at $1000 and someone wants to bid on the lot $1100 has to be open for the next bid. So if I want to auto bid my next increment needs to be $1200 to leave room for the other bidder. We can't both bid $1100.

Think of it more from a live auction standpoint than Ebay.

[T206Collector]

Originally Posted by Abravefan11

If I'm high bid at $1000 and someone wants to bid on the lot $1100 has to be open for the next bid. So if I want to auto bid my next increment needs to be $1200 to leave room for the other bidder. We can't both bid $1100.

But as far as the other bidder is aware, $1,100 is open. And when he places that bid, he's outbid again, right?

[Abravefan11]

Originally Posted by T206Collector

But as far as the other bidder is aware, $1,100 is open. And when he places that bid, he's outbid again, right?

Think of it this way:

Bidder A is high bid.

Bidder B places a bid.

In order for Bidder A to outbid Bidder B he would have to place another bid above Bidder B's.

The two can't share a bid amount.

As I said before think about from a live auction format. If I had a stand in bidding for me and they knew my ceiling was $1300 and I currently held the high bid at $1100. When the next person bid $1200 my stand in couldn't say "Sorry we're already at $1200." We weren't, we were at $1100. So my stand in would have to bid $1300 to counter the other bidder.

[M's_Fan]

Originally Posted by Abravefan11

Think of it this way:

Bidder A is high bid.

Bidder B places a bid.

In order for Bidder A to outbid Bidder B he would have to place another bid above Bidder B's.

The two can't share a bid amount.

As I said before think about from a live auction format. If I had a stand in bidding for me and they knew my ceiling was $1300 and I currently held the high bid at $1100. When the next person bid $1200 my stand in couldn't say "Sorry we're already at $1200." We weren't, we were at $1100. So my stand in would have to bid $1300 to counter the other bidder.

The problem is, it isn't a live auction. Its an online auction, which is why we have the whole concept of auto-bidding. Without any sort of auto-bidding, your system would make sense. But when you introduce auto-bid, you have to make it fair to the bidders to let them auto bid at any slot they want. There is no good reason to tie the hands of the auto bidder in this way.

The first bidder into the slot should win, end of story. The losing bidder doesn't know if he's been just beat to the slot, or outbid by a million dollars. He's just beat, and if he doesn't like it, he can bid more and/or bid earlier.

I have lost REA auctions where I wanted to increase my bid by one level, but was obviously unable to, and I refused the higher permitted slot because that would be overpaying for the item. This problem is amplified when the item is straddling the price point border and the next bid is a big price jump.

I could go on, but I'll stop. The problem would partly be cured if REA didn't have such wide price gaps in between slots. This rule will never make any sense to me. I guess the upside to this dumb rule is that this method has saved me from spending even more ridiculous amount of money on cardboard