My bid has gone up without anyone else bidding - how!!!

[CarGirl]

I placed a bid for an item locally at £1 over the reserve price. No one else has bid but instead of my bid being at the opening price it has gone straight to the reserve and I didn't click on a button on ebay saying increase my bid to meet the reserve or anything like that????

How has this happened?

[cluckyagain]

Had you put a maximum on there?

[CarGirl]

yes

[Flllight]

Cargirl, Hi
Once the reserve is met, your bid will stand at reserve until someone outbids you.

If you had bid below reserve it would stay there is the usual way, but if anyone meets reserve with a stab in the dark or if the seller mentions what it is, your bid will be the reserve price.

Does that make sense?

So if you were guessing at a reserve and trying to meet it, you might try 50, then 100 and if the res was 100 it would accept your bid at that mark.

Bids below the reserve only outbid each other, in the normal way.

[PortAndLemon]

That's what the reserve price is for. It won't sell at less than the reserve price.

So say opening price is £1. Reserve is £10. You bid £11.

If it doesn't put your bid in at £10, then you bid £1, no one else bids, the auction ends, and they don't sell you the item because you've only bid £1, which is below the reserve price, even though you had entered £11 which was over the reserve price. You would probably be unhappy with that.

If it does what it's done and puts your bid in at the reserve price then you can actually win the item.

[Flllight]

You can always retract your bid if you want to, I can link to the form if you like?

[CarGirl]

I see - so cross, as it is a collection only and it's a relist anyway so perhaps no-one else would have bid and we could have negotiated on price. I only remembered about it this morning and it's about to end - never mind!

[Flllight]

Btw there is a min reserve of £50 on ebay, I didn't know this for ages till I started selling with a reserve.
So not much point bidding below that if there is a reserve and you want it!
Unless you are merely bidding to keep it in your list of things you're bidding on, and want to up your bid at the last minute. Many people do that.

[Flllight]

You can still retract if you want if your bid was placed within the last hour?

Hope it is a nice thing

[CarGirl]

It's a large wardrobe to go in our open plan downstairs and it does like nice - not too bedroom like IYSWIM. Well I won it, no-one else bid (didn't think they would). Of course it could have not sold and I could have gone around and paid nearish her reserve and she would have saved on fees etc - but never mind it's done now. They're new to ebay so at least I can give them good feedback!