I tried to find an answer to this in the auction guide but can’t figure out what kind of auctions y’all do exactly.
Can you please include a simple step by step example of how the biding works in the guide?
I really want to bid on a snake (wish it had been a regular buy it now & I would have just purchased it) but have no idea what will happen when I put not enough or too much. Sniper fighting at the end. And it has an unlisted reserve so I have no idea if all my attention & hopes will be in vain.
I guess it is supposed to drive “engagement” but personally racing to contact the seller before anyone else does is more than enough to keep me crawling the listings. I guess if the critter is exceptionally rare or unique so that the market price needs to be sussed out, fine. But personally I dislike classic English Auction style bidding if that what it is. I was even looking through the settings to see if I could exclude auctions so I could just not be tempted to even deal with it. And if I am at work when the bidding is ending I will be unable to continue to bid. Another critter sale site is really leaning into these types of auctions + live events & it was actually the last straw for me to finally unsubscribe from all their email/texting pesters. I’m here for critters not games.
My (& probably many peoples) only experience with online auctions is eBay (I have been using it to buy all the things since the late 1990s). They are great for placing a “maximum” bid that will take place by proxy even while I am at work or asleep.
Here is a simple example of how it works there:
EBay uses an ascending auction with proxy bidding. “Ascending” just means that bids happen in sequence with each bid being higher than the last. “Proxy bidding” means you give the site instructions (a maximum bid) and it does the ascending bidding for you and other participants behind the scenes.
So, for example, if an item’s highest bid is currently $10 and I want to buy the thing as long as it’s at most $20, I input $20 as my maximum eBay automatically keeps proxy outbidding the current highest bid by a small amount until doing so would cause me to bid above $20. If someone else gives the same instructions with a cap of $15, then the system will automatically handle these incremental bids until the other person stops bidding, and I’ll end up as the high bidder with a bid of slightly over $15. If the auction closes without any further bidding, I’ll pay that last amount bid on my behalf (i.e. slightly over $15). It the bidding exceeds my original $20 I can let it go or enter a new maximum till the time runs out.
Something like that sample would be a good example to reinforce what the rules are so people are assured of what to expect & do. Sorry for the nit picking. I saw a couple other people’s questions along the same lines so thought I would pile on.
The auctions here don’t work that way. No bid sniping. The bid you place is the bid the is shown to everyone else. The bid you see, is the current highest bid.
Edit to add: I mentioned no bid sniping because if a bid is placed at the last second, 5 minutes are added to the clock. This will go on until no more bids are placed.
I had asked the same question previously and @eaglereptiles explained it to me.
“Bid sniping” is just waiting until the last few seconds of an auction to make a winning bid. This tactic is used to try to prevent other bidders from having a chance to place a higher bid before the auction ends. It can be done in all kinds of auctions that have an end time. It is not how eBay auctions work by design it is just a “weakness” of the system.
Just saw your edit & reread the “Bid Sniping Prevention” section. I glazed over that section as I was skimming through for other details/an example. I have done my share of lazy sniping on eBay (manual with knowledge of my internet connection speed vs distance to eBay server, not using bots or ai) and I suspect a motivated person could also mess with or leverage this 5 minute delay “protection”.
I guess my request was just to put a narrative example in the Auction instructions for those who are confused to assure them that they understand the instructions & don’t have to come to the message boards for clarification.
I don’t see why the reserve price not being shown is an issue. Sure, it’s handy to know the price the seller may consider selling at… But you can probably look at the market to get a better idea.
Alternatively, someone may not be quite sure on selling the animal and a low starting price is a better way to drum up interest instead of just starting at the ‘reserve’. Personally I find the reserve auctions more interesting to follow as well because of the bidding
As far as a buy it now…
That would be a nice idea. Especially when there’s animals that are already listed for a sale price and then being put on auction. They just revert back to the sale price anyway… Why not just make the option to leave it there available? Maybe a coding issue?
A hidden reserve means I waste a lot of time on something I had no chance of ever affording. I am not into or aware of the current fads so don’t know what is currently overpriced. And having “lost” bidding/winning on eBay many times over the years because the reserve was not met as the seller thought too highly of their item &/or repeatedly listed it with a ridiculously high reserve to get “interest” before the “real” auction is very annoying.
I do look at sold listings to see how often certain flavors crop up or find breeders to request to be added to their wait list for rarer specimens.
A reasonable balance: Show the reserve and sellers have a low start price combined with a longer auction time to allow more people to run across the auction. Allow the seller to have the option to lower or remove the reserve if there is clearly not enough interest but healthy enough bidding that everyone is content with the sale price & send a notification to bidders/interested parties that the reserve is gone to encourage bidding.
Personally I have no interest in “following” auctions or weird people games/drama. I have no social media accounts. I am here to find critters not mess around. I don’t pester sellers unless I am ready to buy (barring unexpected problems/red flag from them), I pay promptly, and I leave a feedback so sellers get appropriate reputation. Only had one incident so far (I suspect seller was kicked off for multiple issues with others right as I was going to report the condition of the snake I received… poor little rat snake pulled through after 4-5 months of ill health) & some no responses & just an “OK” to a couple simple questions to apparently count toward a “quick response from seller” quota.
I will probably not get up way too early to attempt to bid on the snake I really want as these auctions are a real deterrent for me.
I agree here. As someone who has acquired many animals on MM before the auctions were introduced, the undisclosed reserve prices are are deterrents for me as well. There was one black head BP I was really interested in a good while ago but the reserve price was not met and it is still listed to my knowledge. Now there may be other issues at play here but I am using this as my example. I don’t bother with the auctions period.