Biding system (steps in increasing amount) confusing

[snoopy5]

calssified 2.4 latest version

I find the bidding process unlogical.

Example:

starting price 100

current price: 110

Bidder A has a maximum bid of 150 and is leading with 110

Bidder B starts now bidding:

1st try: 110,50 -> gets not accepted. Bid must be higher (this is higher!)
2nd try: 115 -> Bid jumps immediately to 125(!) instead of 115. Bidder A still leading, but with to high price.

3rd try of Bidder B: 120 -> messages comes: bid too low (correct), you must bid at least 125 (incorrect, since price is already at 125!)

4th try: so Bidder B bids because of this 125 -> bid too low (surprise)
5th try: Bid to 126 -> price jumps now to 136 (!)

...

Finally Bidder B bids 150, Bidder A is with 150 still leading. If Bidder B wants to increase, he will be asked to bid at least 160(!), so he will be forced to bid 10 USD more again.

what if the item is not worth more than 5 USD? Do the steps then also increase by 10?

I do think that is the wrong approach. Sometimes the logic is missing, sometimes it is just that users expect to use it differently.

If I offer an auction style to my users, they will compare it with ebay. and at ebay you can bid in smaller steps and the current leading bid should never be higher than what the last bidder offered (which is a bug IMO).

Is there a way to change this in the code?

a) for increasing the amount in smaller steps
b) for the bug mentioned (bid increases more than the last bidder offered)
c) that also .50 steps are possible...

thanks in advance

[TcmDeb]

Same problem here with latest build. Bidder A enters a bid, all is fine. Bidder B tries a higher bid and gets message "you've been outbid". Go back to ad and Bidder A's bid has jumped up without Bidder A doing anything.

[Chuck S]

Hello

The steps or bid amounts vary on the price range of the product. I cant really call this a bug as this is the way the developer has coded it to work. Now things always change and I suggest you place a suggestion in the suggestion forum for such a thing.

TCMDEB this is how it is suppose to work and how ebay does work as well. Thats why you place a maxbid. When someone bids and your bid is increased to automatically outbid the person and remain on top of the bid until such a time your maxbid has been surpassed.

[snoopy5]

Hi

I do think TcmDeb means a differnt thing tha I dith my point b) above.

If A has a maximum bid, it is fine that the system goes along with his maximum (A not used yet to its full extent) as soon as someone else is starting to bid within that range of A.

But the system has to give the correct proposal for the next need step in amount to be able to overbid A. This is currently not the case

Regarding the other issues I mentioned (bid steps too big and bid steps in .5 not possible), this should IMO made as an option in the admin menu, so every administrator can use for his own need the right setting.

IMO the most usable setting is to alow any kind of higher bids, even if it is only in cents of .01. Only with small steps like this, you do ensure that bidders are not afraid to be forced to pay more tha they actually wanted to. and this is mandatory to attract as mans users as possible for an auction

I will post this last part of bidding steps also in the suggestion area...

[Chuck S]

Well I dont know of any system including ebay that tells you what someone's max bid is if I follow you post above. Just my 2 cents.

I think in a future classifieds we could specify admin configurable bid increase ranges instead of the hard coded one's so I am with ya on this one

You can use cents in prices I think the holdback here is more needed flexibility on the bid ratio pricing thats all.