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Original poster

Can someone explain this to me please

8 replies

rainbowinthesky · 26/02/2011 19:45

We are selling an item which costs a lot of money and has reserve price on it. Someone placed a bid (already several bids from other people) which took it over the reserved price. They then retracted their bid a few minutes later saying they put in the wrong amount (only £50 more than the last bid). I always thought a bid was binding?!

OP posts:
Original poster
rainbowinthesky · 26/02/2011 20:06

bump

OP posts:
sixlostmonkeys · 26/02/2011 21:39

no, they can do that. they will have done it to see what the reserve was probably

FabbyChic · 26/02/2011 22:29

They should have asked the reserve! YOu can report them for an invalid bid retraction if you wish, they should have contacted you and asked you to remove their bid.

privategodfrey · 28/02/2011 00:06

I'm not sure that's correct Fabby - if someone accidentally bids the wrong amount then they can retract their bid as long as the auction has longer than 12 hours to run.

They do not have to contact the seller for their agreement.

The bid retraction will show in their bidding history. It's worth checking to see if the regularly retract their bids as, if they do, then they are probably dodgy.

OhCobblers · 28/02/2011 12:11

a little hijack but could someone explain the point of putting a reserve on an item?
why would you do that rather than a BIN or Make an Offer ?

TIA

sixlostmonkeys · 28/02/2011 12:40

example - if you have an item that a lot of people will be interested in it is good to try and get as many people as possible caught up in a bidding war. By starting with a low start bid you may achieve this. If you want at least £100 and set it as a BIn then you will get just £100. If however, you have started at 99p and 15 bidders are caught up they may well continue bidding (something happens to people when bidding... they sometimes lose control Grin )and you could end up with £150 - £200. By setting a reserve you are simply ensuring that should things not go to plan you don't have to sell for less than you would wish.

A BIN is good for something that is worth £x but probably won't attract too many bidders.

hope this makes sense

OhCobblers · 28/02/2011 13:07

thanks Six
so basically a reserve is the starting price that YOU dictate. However, by not making the price visible you're creating interest?

sixlostmonkeys · 28/02/2011 13:12

yup

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