Retail,
I'd strongly advise placing your one & only bid about 20 seconds out. Four times in the last three months or so I've placed bids anywhere from 6 second to 18 seconds and the BID WAS NEVER PROCESSED.
I've advised my
ebay concierge of the problem each time. It gets referred to the tech department who doesn't see the problem and calls it an unexpected anomaly. Then it happens again...and again...and again.

And before anyone chimes in to say I was outbid, that is not the case. I bid $100.00 on one item and the price sold was $17.39, just to give an example. In all cases, my bid was multiples of what the item sold for.

Just thought you'd like to know.