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Friday, May 21, 2010

Auction Day! Update 4

4 hours to go...
Highest accepted bid $4000
17 Bids (0 Pending)

User Bid Amount Date
Bidder 11 $4,000 Today
Bidder 10 $3,900 Today
Bidder 9 $3,800 Today
Bidder 8 $3,650 Yesterday
Bidder 11 $3,500 Today
Bidder 9 $2,600 Yesterday
Bidder 9 $2,400 Yesterday
Bidder 11 $2,100 Yesterday
Bidder 12 $2,000 May 18
Bidder 7 $1,600 May 17
Bidder 10 $1,600 May 18
Bidder 12 $1,500 May 17
Bidder 5 $1,020 May 17
Bidder 4 $1,010 May 16
Bidder 3 $1,000 May 16
Bidder 2 $10 May 16
Bidder 1 $1 May 16

IMPORTANT NOTE
You'll notice that in the last four hours of an auction, text appears on the listing which says:

Ending soon! Bids will extend the auction.

What does this mean?

On Flippa we try to avoid "sniping", which is bidders putting in bids right at the end of the auction listing time. Sniping leads to sellers getting lower prices, and buyers missing out on items they want. We don't like it.

To avoid this, in the last four hours of a listing, any bids which are made will extend the end time of the listing so that there's still four hours left from the time of the bid. This gives other bidders a chance to reply to that bid, if they choose.

This extension continues as long as there are bids, so the downside of this is that popular auctions can go a long way past their originally scheduled end time. However, it gets a better result for all concerned.