Trade Me bidding?

[jasonu]

appalling.

And ebay would be fine ifwe had first world internet speed

Indeed. If I input my bid and enter it with 10 seconds left I will win as long as someone else doesn't have a higher bid by proxy (auto bid).

[jasonu]

It's not really hidden, when you bid a message comes up if the bid is within 15% of the reserve, so it's possible to go fishing to find approximately what the reserve is without any obligation to complete the sale.

So you could bid $1 at a time then stop just short of the reserve? Makes having a reserve 'hidden' a bit pointless.
If I put an item on ebay I will have a starting bid of the minimum (realistic) amount I will take for the item and not bother with a reserve. Some say that kills bidding 'action'. I say it discourages the tire kickers.

[neels]

So you could bid $1 at a time then stop just short of the reserve? Makes having a reserve 'hidden' a bit pointless.
If I put an item on ebay I will have a starting bid of the minimum (realistic) amount I will take for the item and not bother with a reserve. Some say that kills bidding 'action'. I say it discourages the tire kickers.

Does make it a bit pointless, just means you can keep bidding .85 of your last bid until you're within 15% to get a ballpark idea of reserve, if its not in your price range ignore the auction.

May mean a seller with a stupidly high reserve gets excited because they think someone is actually going to pay it, that's just a bonus.

I agree with you, list the thing for what you'll take for it, if someone is willing to pay more even better.

[Laava]

Where is the,"I bid as the timer gets to 2min mark" option.
As all the auctions I have bid on used auto extend, it makes sense to try to not extend the time by bidding before the last 2 min.
I t also helps if you have good self control to just set up auto bid to your max and don't watch it.

[FROSTY:Me]

If I want something I place a bid at the lower end of what I would be prepared to pay as fast as possible. This pushes the item up into a higher price bracket and avoids all the extra bidders