Bidding Sequence Doen't Make Sense

[Owen]

Erm .. that's exactly how it works now ;)

[ircsome]

I don't see a "bid superseded" note in the example that I posted. Maybe you email that message to the bidder ... but the administrator and the public don't see it which could lead to the confusion. Or what am I missing?

PS ... I also think you should provide a general option to bcc: ALL emails to the admin.

[RyFly]

I am currently having the same problem. Had two bidders place $200, and the person who placed the first Max bid is currently winning, but the side panel widget is displaying the wrong winner. Can I get this fixed?

This is the auction page
http://studiohangouts.com/ArtForTimsHeart/?page_id=100#

It is currently happening in two different auctions:
http://studiohangouts.com/ArtForTimsHeart/?p=329
http://studiohangouts.com/ArtForTimsHeart/?p=307

[mensmaximus]

I am currently having the same problem. Had two bidders place $200, and the person who placed the first Max bid is currently winning, but the side panel widget is displaying the wrong winner. Can I get this fixed?

As far as i understand Owen posted this will be fixed in the next release. This happens because Ajax is updating the informations on-the-fly in the modal window but the widget code in the background does not reload this information until the page is loaded again.

[oneandonlybears]

I am having the same results with auction embedded in post, no widgets involved.

Michelle Lamb bid $4,000.00 on 2012-07-15 19:07:56 [auto]
opal bid $4,000.00 on 2012-07-15 19:07:56
Michelle Lamb bid $3,010.00 on 2012-07-15 19:07:54
opal bid $2,060.00 on 2012-07-15 19:06:20
Michelle Lamb bid $2,060.00 on 2012-07-15 19:06:20
Michelle Lamb bid $2,050.00 on 2012-07-15 19:04:47 [auto]
opal bid $2,050.00 on 2012-07-15 19:04:47
Michelle Lamb bid $2,030.00 on 2012-07-15 19:04:47
opal bid $2,020.00 on 2012-07-15 19:04:13
Michelle Lamb bid $2,010.00 on 2012-07-15 19:03:16
opal bid $1,530.00 on 2012-07-15 19:01:45 [auto]
Michelle Lamb bid $1,520.00 on 2012-07-15 19:01:45
opal bid $1,510.00 on 2012-07-15 19:00:50
Michelle Lamb bid $1,460.00 on 2012-07-15 18:48:03
opal bid $1,460.00 on 2012-07-15 18:48:03
opal bid $1,420.00 on 2012-07-15 18:43:29
Michelle Lamb bid $1,420.00 on 2012-07-15 18:43:29
bidder bid $1,410.00 on 2012-07-15 18:38:53
Michelle Lamb bid $1,410.00 on 2012-07-15 18:38:54

In the instances where same amounts/times happened, BOTH bidders received "Congrats you are the winning bidder" messages. I can explain to my customers how one is really the winner by a millisecond, but the bid history is messing with their minds, not to mention the mis-timed messages they are getting. I have to explain that although the wording says "bid" rather than "bid up to" that nobody knows the actual max bid so don't assume the figures you see there. Can we hide the bid history altogether so it doesn't aggravate bidders? Can I hide the "congrats" messages so they can just rely on the "Going For" box to see what the correct status is? If they don't meet reserve, the pop up message says "congrats..." but they have to return to bid here section to see the tiny print that reserve has not been met, rather than a pop up message saying "you are high bidder, but reserve has not been met". I would rather there is no bid history or messages with confusing wording if it's possible. Meanwhile I will just have to start my auction at what I want my reserve to be and not do reserves at all so as to alleviate them thinking they've met reserve based on the "congrats" message. I've brought up the simultaneous "congrats" messages/and bidders thinking they BOTH won back in March but not enough others had issues back then I think to make it worthwhile. Thanks for any advice, M

[Owen]

Hi Michelle,

Every time a bidder BECOMES a winning bidder, they will receive confirmation they are winning the auction. If a second bidder comes along at any time later and places a bid, they will also receive confirmation they are winning the auction. The first user, however, should have been notified by email that they are no longer winning the auction.

This is designed behaviour and any deviation from this would be a bug. However, if you look at the pattern of bids you have pasted, I'm seeing bids superceeding each other except in the final case where Michelle's autobid will match (rather than outbid Opal's bid). We believe this is correct, as this bid was placed first. Happy to discuss this though, if you think Opal should have won that auction.

In each case of automatic outbidding, the user should get confirmation they are winning,followed by an email informing them they have been outbid as the proxy bidding engine outbids them. This is by design.

We have found that proxy bidding has been confusing to some of our users, which is while the auction supports a simpler mode that does not allow proxy bidding. Is it worth considering this?

Regards

Owen

[Owen]

One question .. do you feel it's worthwhile adding a millisecond display next to the bids (not sure if PHP supports that, but I could investigate)

[oneandonlybears]

Hi Owen, I haven't been paying much attention to the emails generated until after the fact. We were doing several simultaneous bids, both of us seeing "congrats" messages despite one being the true winner, but did not go immediately read emails to see what was up there. We did so much bidding and I get BOTH emails as a bidder and as admin so it's confusing. I will test again and right after we both get the popup "congrats" message, one being erroneous, I will have both of us go read our email before bidding again.

I want to do simple bidding but my customers are voting for proxy as they want "strategy" in their corner. Even so, simultaneous amount at same time situation could still happen, both getting the "congrats" which is misleading to the one not truly winning. I am thinking of recommending they do "odd" amounts. You can see my registration/instructions at www.oneandonlybears.com. They are quite long and boring and now I need to add that odd amounts will be optimum and really stress constant refresh to see true status of winning name.

As for adding millisecond times on bid history that is better than them reading that each others bids are at same exact second and wondering why one topped the other. If I can not hide bid history altogether which is what I prefer as the wording is confusing and I get lots of emails from confused bidders, then at least my warning instructions along with them being able to see the two times were actually off by a fraction might help a great deal rather than lengthy technical reason about how servers respond differently etc.

I am seriously considering doing simple bidding until bugs are fixed in future release despite customer preference.

Thank you very much for your time. Michelle