Sorry I am so confused. So I won a bid at $1071 that I though I was biding for a lower price($970 I think). This bid is not valid since it is above pre-order price?? Can anyone clarify?
Some people are perhaps overenthusiastic. But there is a danger of rapidly overbidding in this way, as the 'winner' is prevented from participating in the next units.
I strongly recommend that everyone considers their clicks VERY carefully, particularly when the counter is still above 30 seconds.
Oh wow, I guess I got the one for $4191, go me!!!!
Now I can't bid at all.
Joel
can you please explain to all of us why you bid at that price?
Was your intention really to place a serious bid and are you prepared to pay that much money?
No, at that point I was just seeing if the bid actually worked, because I hadn't seen a bid be stable enough to count yet. Since I'd been following the auctions closely I knew that bids over $1000 were going to be discounted as invalid so I thought I'd test the system to see if I could actually have a winning bid if only for an instant.
well, It worked too well for me because I ended up winning *two dd1's at over $1k each. I've sent a message to Fanatec asking the one of these dd1's be refunded. I'm hoping this is fixed very quickly and with little hassle.
As I understood the rules I would'nt be able to pay more than the pre-order price of *$970. that should be fixed too.
*" We will stop the auction sessions after 30 units (for US) and 45 units (for Europe) reach an end price below $970 (970€).*
*- You will be able to see the previous winning bid values.*
*- Any bids above the regular pre-order price are automatically invalid.*
*- If you win an auction, it is not possible to bid for another unit.*
well, It worked too well for me because I ended up winning *two dd1's at over $1k each. I've sent a message to Fanatec asking the one of these dd1's be refunded. I'm hoping this is fixed very quickly and with little hassle.
As I understood the rules I would'nt be able to pay more than the pre-order price of *$970. that should be fixed too.
*" We will stop the auction sessions after 30 units (for US) and 45 units (for Europe) reach an end price below $970 (970€).*
*- You will be able to see the previous winning bid values.*
*- Any bids above the regular pre-order price are automatically invalid.*
*- If you win an auction, it is not possible to bid for another unit.*
I somehow won #32 at 951. Email said 1071, but logging in the store shows 951. At least that's some discount. Anyone know how long we have to pay for these? Was hoping for a black Friday deal on pedals or wheel and hoping I can pay at that time to save on shipping.
I am watching your current US auctions, it cannot work the way you are trying to do that (well at least not without a lot of frustration for the initial bidders getting disqualified from the game due to how your current algorithm is made and the high number of potential bidders, but also for valid bids but for which winner couldn't really decide the amount he wanted to bid).
Please let me suggest an algorithm:
Step 1:
- clients can choose a bid from a drop down list ranging from $1 to $970 - clients see a 20sec timer (time to place the bid) - clients can check/uncheck a checkbox for confirming they want to place a bid (of the value set with the drop down list) - when checkbox is checked, drop down list becomes locked (to currently selected bid) - checkbox can be unchecked at anytime of course (that would cancel any bidding, regardless if you have selected a bid amount or not in the drop down list) - when timer ends, clients bids are sent to server
Step 2:
- server wait for 10s (or whatever relevant time) to receive/process all bids sent from clients - clients see a waiting message (like "server processing bids") - when processing timer ends, display highest current bid on clients browsers - if one or more bids have reached maximum allowed bid -> all max bids win this auction, then go back to step 1 for next bid. - if highest bid is lower than max allowed bid, go to step 3
Step 3:
- similar to step 1 but drop-down bid list should now range from current bid + 10 to max possible bid.
Step 4:
- similar to step 2 except that if no new bid was placed then the highest current bidder(s) are the winner(s) for this auction -> then go back to step 1 for next bid - if new bids were placed, repeat step 3&4 until either max possible bid is reached or until no new bid is placed -> then go back to step 1 for next bid
Notes:
- you can still have the system preventing winners to participate on next auctions. - when an auction is won, you can display to clients browsers the number of bidders who won this auction - at all time you can display the number of remaining bids below the lowest bid you have set as auction rule (like if 25 auctions are allowed below a given price, you remove 1 to that displayed number each time this happens so people know how many chances they have left to participate in an aunction). - for step 3, you could decide to whether let everyone place a new bid OR just people who placed an initial bid at step 1 OR just bidders who placed a bid at previous step (for exemple: 10 inital bids -> 10 bidders can participate into a 1st bid increasement -> if another increasement is needed then only 6 (for example) bidders who participated in previous increasement can increase their bid again, and so on until current auction ends) - it should take less characters to write this code than it took to explain the algorithm in plain english
This would get rid of the many issues with your current system with bidders not even being able to bid the amount they decide (because bid is increasing too fast and because of latency). Also bids over max allowed bid wouldn't happen as clients would use the drop-down list to select their bid. And above all: bidders would be able to place the exact bid they want to place, and have 20sec to do that (while still not dramatically increasing the duration of the auction, if increasing it at all. I'm sure it would even be faster than current algorithm more of the time, because with current algorithm when auction reach stable amount the timer can be reset to 60s by every new bid placed when the timer was like 1s left).
I somehow won #32 at 951. Email said 1071, but logging in the store shows 951. At least that's some discount. Anyone know how long we have to pay for these? Was hoping for a black Friday deal on pedals or wheel and hoping I can pay at that time to save on shipping.
We will ensure that the winning values are corrected when the session is complete. You can certainly wait until Black Friday. I recommend that you pay for the unit before the pre-order period is over. Please note that products that we already have in stock are generally shipped immediately, so if you would like items to be sent together with your Podium wheel base please contact the sales team via the email webshop (at) fanatec (dot) com.
I think the way the auction is going right now is what Thomas envisioned it would go, and IMO basically validates the way they set this auction up. The problems at the beginning looked to be mostly to be spam clickers and people who didn't read the auction rules. A few got caught up in thinking "this is borked, but I am going to click anyways"....but you have to be careful because you just may end up winning an invalid auction .
After those people got cleared out things have settled down...
...but not settled down enough because it doesn't look like I will be able to get a DD1 for $200
Yes the current system starts to work now, but only after a lot of people have initially been disqualified from continuing bidding because at the very beginning of the auctions, when there are still a lot of bidders, the system go crazy and people are just not able to bid the amount they really would like to bid. I'd guess people could place a bid at 300 but end bidding for 700 due to latency and how crazy fast current bid amount is changing.
Of course things would go smoothly if everyone was stricly following the good sense rules you are giving in your post, but I don't think you can reasonably expect this to happen when the auctions begins with certainly hundreds of bidders.
That's sad because many people who were disqualified will certainly be angry as most of them certainly were just trying their best to place a single bid at reasonable a price. But they just couldn't do it.
That's sad because many people who were disqualified will certainly be angry as most of them certainly were just trying their best to place a single bid at reasonable a price. But they just couldn't do it.
Meh, looks like when it's working people settle into a $50-60 off window of what they are willing to pay. No real deals to be had, nobody who wanted to bid $300 was ever going to win anything.
I believe the system must have something wrong. I just won the 41th DD1, my bid was $941. Then I received an email saying that "Your winning bid was: $ 981.00". The email also says "2. Go to My account 3. Click “Not Paid Won Bids” at the bottom of the page". However, nothing is there.
I can confirm that there is an issue related with this which is under investigation
but we can assure you that you only have to pay the actual auction result.
Comments
Step 1:
- clients see a 20sec timer (time to place the bid)
- clients can check/uncheck a checkbox for confirming they want to place a bid (of the value set with the drop down list)
- when checkbox is checked, drop down list becomes locked (to currently selected bid)
- checkbox can be unchecked at anytime of course (that would cancel any bidding, regardless if you have selected a bid amount or not in the drop down list)
- when timer ends, clients bids are sent to server
Step 2:
- clients see a waiting message (like "server processing bids")
- when processing timer ends, display highest current bid on clients browsers
- if one or more bids have reached maximum allowed bid -> all max bids win this auction, then go back to step 1 for next bid.
- if highest bid is lower than max allowed bid, go to step 3
Step 3:
- if new bids were placed, repeat step 3&4 until either max possible bid is reached or until no new bid is placed -> then go back to step 1 for next bid
Notes:
- when an auction is won, you can display to clients browsers the number of bidders who won this auction
- at all time you can display the number of remaining bids below the lowest bid you have set as auction rule (like if 25 auctions are allowed below a given price, you remove 1 to that displayed number each time this happens so people know how many chances they have left to participate in an aunction).
- for step 3, you could decide to whether let everyone place a new bid OR just people who placed an initial bid at step 1 OR just bidders who placed a bid at previous step (for exemple: 10 inital bids -> 10 bidders can participate into a 1st bid increasement -> if another increasement is needed then only 6 (for example) bidders who participated in previous increasement can increase their bid again, and so on until current auction ends)
- it should take less characters to write this code than it took to explain the algorithm in plain english
This would get rid of the many issues with your current system with bidders not even being able to bid the amount they decide (because bid is increasing too fast and because of latency). Also bids over max allowed bid wouldn't happen as clients would use the drop-down list to select their bid. And above all: bidders would be able to place the exact bid they want to place, and have 20sec to do that (while still not dramatically increasing the duration of the auction, if increasing it at all. I'm sure it would even be faster than current algorithm more of the time, because with current algorithm when auction reach stable amount the timer can be reset to 60s by every new bid placed when the timer was like 1s left).