At 13:33 4/1/99 -0800, Alvin Johnson wrote:
>Has anyone actually bought Microsoft Office at the extremely low
>prices advertised. $1, and up. I entered the bidding for Microsoft
>Office Professional with Bookshelf and is advertised showing the
>package with all of the Microsoft original packing, and stated
>that it can be registered. The bidding was at 35.00 and I bid $36.
>It came back that I was outbid by $1. I bidded $38 and it said I
>was outbid by $1. I continued to increase by $1. up to forty and
>then I increased my bid by $5. and then by $10. I was always
>outbid by $1. It makes me think that the seller has a price he
>will sell at and a way to always increase the bid by $1.00 until
>that amount is reached. Any comments?


Hi Alvin

When you try to bid $36 for a $35 item, maybe many people are trying
to log on and bid just $1 more. (Probably $1 is the minimum increment
for bidding on this item.) By the time your bid of $36 gets through,
the price may already be $36 because someone else got through before
you. Your $36 bid is now not high enough.

By the way, when an auction site says something is available for
"$1 and up", this means that the bidding starts at $1. Nobody expects
a desirable item to go for $1. The final price (depending on the item)
may end up being hundreds of dollars.

Let me give you another example of how it might seem that you are
always getting outbid by $1. Take for example an auction at Onsale.com.
This is just an example, but maybe her auction sites work similarly.

On sale.come has a special service called Bid maker that anyone can use.
When you bid on an item using Bid maker, you tell On sale the highest
price that you would be willing to pay for the item. On sale stores
this figure away somewhere and enters a bid for you at the current
lowest winning bid possible. Whenever someone else outbids you,
Bid maker will instantly update your bid on this item. This happens
over and over until the bidding price goes past your limit.

For example, suppose something is going for $10 right now and the
bid increment is $1. You enter a bid using Bid maker for $40. Nobody
but you (and On sale's computer) knows that your limit will be $40.

What happens is that Bid maker immediately enters a bid for you at
$11. If someone bids $15, Bid maker will immediately enter a new bid
for you of $16...just like you had done it manually. If someone bids
$25, Bid maker will automatically enter a public bid for you of $26.
And so on. If someone bids $41, Bid maker will send you an em ail
telling you that the bidding has passed your limit. You must start
ever again...or not.

This is an easy way to bid on an item and then let things take their
course...no further action on your part is required.

If you're using a different auction site that doesn't offer a
service like Bid maker, maybe people just keep outbidding you. There
might be lots of people who want that item. Everybody keeps bidding,
often raising the price by the $1 minimum. You can spend a lot of
time updating your bids until people start dropping out. That's why
Bid maker is so useful. You enter a bid and forget about the auction.
You may very well end up paying far less than your "highest bid",
or you will lose the auction...but presumably you told Bid maker the
maximum you would be willing to spend for the item, so it shouldn't
bother you...the price just got too much.

Regards,
Bill

                         PCSOFT's List Owner's:
                      Bob Wright<[log in to unmask]>
                        Drew Dunn<[log in to unmask]>