Bidding On Auctions

In the previous lesson, I had found an item that we liked and am watching it. Now it is time to bid on the item.

1. I sign in and and go to My eBay to see my watched item. This item does not have a Buy It Now button. So the only way that I can get it is to bid. I click the Bid Now button.

2. This takes me to the details page which shows the current bid and how many bidders have bid on this item. I see that the current bid price is $5.94 and there had been only one other bidder. I'm ready to bid, so I clicked the Place Bid button there.

3. This takes me to the Place a Bid page. I enter the maximum amount that I am willing to pay. I enter $6.50 at this time.

eBay automatically incrementally raises your current bid to this maximum value (known as proxy bidding). If my maximum bid is higher than all the other bidders at the close of auction, then I win the bid. That does not necessarily mean that I will be paying the maximum bid that I had entered. I may be paying less. I pay whatever current bid makes me outbid all the others. eBay may not have had to raise the bid to the max bid that I had entered.

4. On the next page, I confirm the bid by clicking the Confirm Bid button. Now I am obligated to buy the item if I win.

5. Right away, after clicking the Confirm Bid button, I got a Bid Confirmation page saying that "You have been outbid by another bidder." You might be wondering, "Wow someone was online and had just outbid me." But the truth is that no one has to be online at the time. eBay automatically raises the bids on bidders behalf (up to the bidder's max bid).

The current bid was $5.94 before I had bid. But when I entered my $6.50, eBay automatically raised the other bidder's bid to $7.00. This is because the other bidder had a higher max bid than my $6.50.

6. I am given the opportunity to bid again. And I can do so now. Or come back later closer to when the auction ends. I'll come back later. Now, I want to show you how you can watch the bidding action. I click on the My eBay tab and click on the Bidding link.

I see the items that I am bidding on with the current price next to it. If the price is red, that means that you are loosing the bid. If the price is green, it means that you are currently the highest bidder for that item. Currently, I am not the high bidder as I see that the current price is $7.00 in red and my max bid that is showing is $6.50.

As it currently stands, if I do nothing then I will not get the item.

Next

In the next lesson, I will tell you about sniping.