OT E-BAY QUESTION

Scenario 2
Like scenario 1, but the current highest bidder set his maximum to $500. You bid, it jumps to $505, with you as the highest bidder. You"ve out bid him.

Scenario 3
Like scenario 1, but the current highest bidder set his maximum to $1,000. You bid, it jumps to $605, with him as the highest bidder. He"s out bid you.

Scenario 4
Item has a reserve.
Item has a reserve of $400. There are no bids. You bid up to $600. Your bid will automatically jump to $400, meeting the reserve, and listing you as current highest bidder. Reserve is met the moment it"s met, not at the end of the auction.

Scenario 5
Item has a reserve of $400. There are no bids. You bid up to $200. Your bid will be entered at the opening price, probably $1. It will not be bumped to the maximum you were willing to bid because your maximum is below the reserve.

Scenario 6
Item has a reserve of $400. Current highest bid is $200. Highest bidder has entered maximum of $300. You bid a maximum of $350. Bidding will be bumped to $305, just exceeding the highest bidders limit, listing you as highest bidder, but with reserve not met.

Scenario 7
Item has a reserve of $400. Current highest bid is $200. Highest bidder has entered maximum of $300. You bid a maximum of $500. Bidding will be bumped to $400, listing you as highest bidder, meeting reserve.

"If your maximum bid is the first to meet or exceed the reserve price, the effective bid displayed will automatically be raised to the reserve price."

The above sentence was copied and pasted directly from the eBay help page (I added the quotation marks.) I was mistaken. That doesn't explain how onefarmer has had it fail to work that way many times, as he puts it.

All the best, Stan

Best advice I can give to newbes to keep it simple is to wait until a minute or so and bid what it is worth to you. That way if you are out bid you can walk away happy. Don't try to steal it. I myself do a lot more complicated. Just don't loose some thing you wanted and would have bid like 100 dollars for but bid 60 and got snipped out of it.

If your bid meets or exceeds the reserve, the bid amount will jump to the reserve amount, and the "disclaimer" in the auction will switch from "reserve NOT met" to "reserve MET".

If the reserve price is $100 and you bid $500, Starting bid is $5 and no one else bids you will be stuck at $5 and lose the item due to not meeting the reserve. Done it many times.

How is it you even know what the reserve is if you or someone else doesn`t cover it?

In that case, you don't know what the reserve was. The seller didn't want to show his hand; otherwise someone might try to slip in a bid right at the reserve price when the auction closes. Instead he's hoping several people will guess and drive the price up a little higher.

If the seller doesn't care if bidders know the minimum price he will set a minimum opening bid (which everybody can see) rather than a reserve (which is hidden).

I'm not 100% sure on this (maybe 95% sure) but I don't think a seller's reserve affects the bidding at all. In other words, the bidding proceeds exactly as though there were no reserve and at the end of the auction, the item sells only if the reserve price has been met.

Interesting question, actually. I keep trying to think of some evidence from my experience to support my answer, and realize I don't have any.

All the best, Stan

As I understand it, if at the end of the auction the reserve has not been met AND the high bidders maximum bid is above the reserve, ebay will up the bid to the reserve.

It makes sense if you think about it. The bidder was willing to pay the reserve and the seller will take no less.

Cliff (VA)

Best thing you can do is go to the Ebay homepage, and in the upper RH corner is a menu bar, buy, sell, my ebay, etc. put the cursor on BUY and a drop down box appears and the second item is HELP WITH BIDDING & BUYING, if you select this you get a online course from Ebay university you can go thru, it explains the whole process and gives you screens to show you what is happening in their example.

Indeed, find out about sniping, its a necessary evil to keep from getting taken by sellers with second and third accounts that bid up their own items. I think the term is "sheels".

Charles