Feeling thick, but do I bid my highest price when I want to buy something?

[Nightynight]

First time on Ebay...

On the UK site, it says that you should put down your highest price, and they will proxy bid a lower price to put you in the lead. Will they make another proxy bid if someone else bids higher than you?

On the German site, people are clearly bidding in higher than minimum increments, eg an item went up from 3 euros to 8 euros something, so how are they doing that?

Apologies for these beginners questions, it is looking a bit complicated at the moment, and ds1 hopes I will bid for him on a Playmobil helicopter this afternoon.

You bid enough to make you the highest bidder then you will be offered a chance to put in your maximum bid, this is the amount you are happy to pay to win your item.
Ebay will then up your bid to your maximum whenever someone else's bid overtakes your original bid.

yes you bid your highest amount and then they will put a bid in that shows up as just over the existing one and then if someone bids higher than that they will bid for you again slightly higher than that one and will keep doing so until your maximum bid is reached.
The best thing to do though is to watch the item in the last few minutes and whack in the highest you are prepared to pay for it in the last 30 to 45 secs. or maybe even the last 20, depending on how confident you are of you connection and that it will do it in that time.

thank you.

But if your maximum is hidden from other people, why the hurry to bid at the last minute?

and how did someone manage to bid 8 euros from a previous bid of 3 euros on German ebay?

The article has just gone up from 11.80 to 18 euros. It seems that you put in your maximum offer, and they bid the whole amount immediately on german ebay.
Am not bidding any more, despite ds's pleas as it has now gone above the price for a new set, in a different part of ebay.

well the bid at the last minute is because then you haven't bumped the price slightly by bidding before. also if you do it like that then anyone sitting watching and bidding every time it changes(like if they have money to burn and will just keep bidding) then you com in right at the end, they dont have a chance to bid over you again.

NightyNight - If you have bidder A who has bid a max of 7.5 euros and the starting price is 3E, then it will show that they have bid 3E. Then bidder B comes along and bids a max of 10E. Ebay jumps it to the lowest winning bid, which is 8E by bidder B.

So it will jump but not necessarily to your max bid.

Does that make any sense at all???

Atleast I think that is how it works

thank you for explanation! not sure I feel up to that right now. brain must be mush indeed.