eMoviePoster.com

People who have bid in our over 1.4 MILLION eMoviePoster.com auctions over the past thirteen years likely know full well how the "proxy bid" system works (and it is very similar to, but not exactly the same as eBay's "proxy bid" system). But if you are relatively new to our auctions (or online auctions), please read the below for a "refresher course" in how our "proxy bid" system works:

A proxy bid is a bid that works almost exactly the same way as bidding on eBay. You bid your maximum, and the auction software will bid on your behalf. So, if another bidder is currently bidding $25 and you place a maximum bid of $100, you will have the high bid at $27. If another bidder comes in at $60, you will then have the high bid at $63. So as you can see, it works just like eBay does.

The HUGE difference between our site and eBay is that our auctions have time-extended bidding, which means you can never get "shut out" by "snipe bids", and the HUGE difference between our site and other private auctions is that we went to considerable expense to ensure that even WE can't see you proxy bids, so in OUR auctions you don't have to worry that your limit bids won't be kept 100% confidential!

By the way, you can always see what your maximum bids are, even though your current high bid may be far lower than your secret maximum. When you're logged in to the auction site, on the menu below our logo, click on "My Account". On that page (just below the menu) is a link that reads "Bids". Click on that and it will show you all the bids that you have placed as well as what your maximum bid is.

There is one unusual situation that comes up every so often by sheer luck, and when it does, and the bidder is a new bidder, they invariably e-mail us about it. We received the below e-mail from a customer about a specific item he bid on that went straight to his maximum bid as follows:

"I placed a limit bid of $80 on an item when it was displaying a bid of $62. There was a high bid of $62 so I would expect my bid to show up as $65 (one bid over the current bid). Instead it went straight to $80. I'm new to this, but can't find an explanation for why my bid didn't just raise the current high bid by the minimum increment (in this case $3) - which is what happened in the case of the other items I bid on."

We replied with this detailed explanation (there is no short way to explain what occurred!):

"This is Bruce, the owner. What happened is easy to understand once you know how the system works.

First, go to that item's auction page and click on the "Bid History" link at upper right. That will take you to a page that shows you every single bid that was entered (there is NO other auction that shows you every bid including the bidders' IDs).

Now look by at this bid history. When you look at the place on the bid history where you first placed the $80 bid, you can see that bidder #1 had previously entered a bid of $77 (in the same way that you entered a bid of $80 later). At the time he entered the $77 bid, the current high bid was $30, so it became his bid at $32, with his secret maximum of $77. After that, bidder #2 bid $35 and $40, which made it bidder #1's bid at $42. Then bidder #3 bid $52 and $62, which made it bidder #1's bid at $65.

It was at this point that you placed your $80 bid, and since bidder #1's secret maximum bid was $77, you were immediately raised to your limit of $80 (had his secret maximum bid been $76, it would have been your bid at $79, because of the $3 increment).

Again referring to the page, since that time bidder #1 came back and bid $113, which made it his bid at $83 (since your maximum was $80), and since that time, you have bid three more times and it is now your bid at $118.

HERE IS WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT FOR YOU TO KNOW! I can see from that page (as everyone else can) that you are the high bidder at $118, because that is one bid increment ($5) over bidder #1's $113 bid, but no one (even including me!) can tell if you have a secret high bid over $118. That will only be discovered if someone places a higher bid, and if $113 is your highest bid, then they will outbid you, but if you have a higher bid than $118, then you will outbid them.

Hopefully all of the above is clear and understandable to you, but if not, please reply with any questions.

Thanks and best of luck to you
Bruce"

We also get emails from people who expect our auctions to be like eBay, and say "I waited for the end time and bid, and suddenly there was 5 more minutes on the auction". This is caused by "time extended bidding". Here is what it is and how it works:
     The bidding in our auctions is similar to how it is on eBay (it includes proxy bidding where you can bid the most you are willing to pay and the software will bid on your behalf until you have been outbid).

There is one major difference. These auctions use time extended bidding. Here is an explanation of how that works. Let's say that an item you want to bid on ends at 7:00 PM. If you bid at 6:56 PM, the auction will now end 5 minutes later, at 7:01 PM. If another bidder bids at 7:00 PM, the auction will now end at 7:05 PM. So as you can see, the auction will always end when 5 minutes have passed after the last bid was placed.

Some buyers have voiced a concern that the auctions could last "forever" with time extended bidding, but this does not happen. We know this because we have held well over 1.4 MILLION auctions on our own site, and it is very rare for an item to be extended more than 10 or 20 minutes (and even this happens rarely, with the majority of the items closing at the original end time). This is because buyers quickly realize there is no benefit to waiting until the very end to bid (because they can never "bid at the last second" as they do on eBay), so most buyers bid on whatever they are interested in well before the end of the auction, but at the latest, in the final few minutes.

In a way, this is the exact reverse of eBay "sniping"! There is no advantage whatsoever to bid in the final seconds, because the auction will be extended for 5 minutes after you bid, whenever you place the bid. And you have a lot to lose if you try to bid in the final seconds, and your bid is not accepted (either due to a problem with your computer, or with the auction software), because if you try to bid with seconds to go and fail, then the auction ends, but if you tried to bid with minutes to go and fail, then you can try again until your bid is accepted.

Or to put it another way, a time extended auction is very much like a live auction. The auctioneer takes bids, and when no one bids for a short period of time (in this case, the "time extension"), the auctioneer says "going once, going twice, sold!", and the auction is over.

So, there really is no purpose in having snipe (last second) bidding in an auction that is time extended because the auction would be lengthened when the snipe bid was placed, eliminating any benefit to last-second bidding. Therefore, all bidders should understand that our auctions are more like a live auction and should either bid in advance or within the last 5 minutes of the auction (the ideal time to bid is with exactly 5 minutes to go, because that way, you don't extend the auction, and if those last 5 minutes go by without another bid being placed, then you surely win the item).

To any of you who think "without sniping, I will never get anything (or I will have to pay way more)", we ask you to wait and see these auctions in action! There WILL some auctions where you will lose the item (or pay more) and that will seem attributable to the "time extended bidding", but we guarantee you that there will be many other auctions where it seems that you get the item for less than you would have, had you placed a high snipe bid. And you can NEVER have even one item snatched away from you in the final seconds by a "sniper"!

If you are fairly new to our auctions, this time extended bidding will take some getting used to, but over time you will see just how much better it is (and how much more fair it is) than eBay style "fixed time" ending auctions! Here is a comic strip we commissioned by the super talented cartoonist Erik Andresen, which beautifully illustrates the advantages of time extended bidding!

And here is a wonderful comic strip we commissioned (from the master cartoonist, Erik Andressen) that illustrates just how helpful "time-extended" bidding is in getting posters you want!