There may be a lot of sites advertising (although I doubt it) but there is only so high you can bid for a product that costs very little money. I'm shocked that anyone would bid as much as 26 cents for something that only sells for $12-13 (prices are all over the board for that phrase). I bet you can get in the #1 spot for 17 or 18 cents.

If you haven't learned it yet, you will soon enough. Google lies!

It's very simple.

Lots of people want the available ad slots, but at very low prices. It's not worth it to them to bid high enough to "win".

I'd guess that the people bidding are setting pretty low budgets, and counting on the churn in ads as other bidders exhaust their budgets.

If the bidder's CPC exceeds their EPC, they lose even if they win.