Help - might be about to make my first bid!

[MaggieFS]

I've bought lost of buy it now stuff on eBay, but I've found a pram in an auction which looks good for what I need!

I'm a bit clueless...

• There's one bid already and it says reserve not met. Can I find out what the reserve is?
• it's collection in person, so I'd like to try it out and inspect it on collection. I assume this is reasonable to ask?
• what if it isn't as described and I don't want to take it. Do I have any get out options? I'm not trying to do anything dodgy but as it's second hand, what if it has a stuck wheel or something?

No you can't find out the reserve unless you message the seller and they elect to tell you.

Yes, you can win the auction and let the seller you know you'd like to inspect it when you collect - if they ask for cash you can pay them AFTER inspecting - if paypal then it doesn't matter as you can get a refund if the pram isn't as described.

Basically you're under NO obligation to complete a purchase if the item is not as described.

Thank you, that's very helpful.

I've just placed a bid and it's offering to bid for me up to a limit. Is this a good idea? Or should I just make sure I keep an eye on it close to the end.

I'm sceptical of giving it my limit because I don't know how it works - might it bid early and drive the price higher? Or if it's close to the deadline might I miss out because of a slow connection or slow typing where the eBay system could just load it for me?

I'm also thinking if I let it do it and my limit was e.g. £50, I might as well set it to £50.64 just so I'm slightly higher than anyone else with a £50 limit?

It used to be the case that when you sold something it would let you put a reserve of £50 or more on it.

So I’d suggest the reserve is £50 min or over £50.

Yes bid a weird amount of pence to be more than others bid.

You can let it bid automatically for you. It’s not dodgy at all. I frequently do that and it frequently never gets that high and I get it for cheaper than I thought, so it’s not a scam or anything. Make sure you factor in postage charges if there are any as that will be added on to your winning bid.

If something is not as described you can go through ebays dispute resolution process. But you are supposed to be sure you have all the info you need before you bid. Do your research. So if there is no photo of the back or whatever just ask for one or that the back is in good condition or whatever. If you want to ensure there are no rips in it and it doesn’t say ask by messaging the seller. If you want it from a smoke and pet free home unless it says that assume it doesn’t. There’s no point on going back to say it smells of cigarettes AFTER youve won it, having never asked if the sellers home was smoke free. Don’t presume anything if it’s something you’re fussy about. You can’t reject something you’ve bought because you didn’t ask the right questions. If it says good condition though and it turns out to be scratched or dinged or stinking I’d walk away.

The automatic bid will go to the first lowest bid and then add £1 on to that

So if I set my limit at £35 - you’d win with £36 based on your £50 limit

It just means it’s automatic and helps towards the last seconds of the auction

The only issue with the automatic bids is that if you are looking at an in demand item you effectively give away your highest bid early on. (So if the other bidder also has a high bid it will automatically go as high as one of your highest bids).

However lots of people have some sort of 'bot'/app which puts their bid on at the last second. You can't manually beat that.

If nobody else has bid, the winning bid will be the reserve price (assuming you bid higher than this).

If somebody else starts bidding then the winning bid will be an increment higher than the 2nd placed bidder's highest bid.

So if the reserve is £20 and you bid £50.64 and nobody else bids, you should get it for £20. But then if someone else bids £45, you'll still win, but it will cost you £46. The other person won't know how much you've bid, so they'll keep bidding until they beat you - but if they bid £50 - ebay would prompt them to bid £51 which still beats your 64p so better to go £51.

Bidding early can put other buyers off. Or if someone else wants it, they can see there's another bidder and think about beating you.
Personally I always bid late, but then sometimes I forget to bid and lose the item, or the seller takes the item off ebay because they think no interest...

Sometimes I’ve bid early and the first bidder hasn’t bothered with a second bid - this ha happened to me as well where I’ve placed a bid and someone else bid early but higher and I wasn’t that bothered anyway

Thanks, this is really helpful! One thing I can't understand - and I'll post a screen shot below - is the bidding pattern on the item I'm after. People bid, and then bid again immediately even though they are the highest bid?

Initially I was worried it was the automated system just upping it hence one of my original questions but I've just twigged it might be because the reserve hasn't been met?

I placed a higher bid than in the shot below and it said reserve not met, and I've since been outbid (fine, still loads of time left) so I guess unless you are the highest bid, you don't know if the reserve has been met and if you can see it hadn't you'd gently nudge upwards?

Yes people do nudge it upwards

The first bidders are either standing back or won’t pay a higher price - you won’t know!

Indeed! My gut feel is it will go higher but I've got a little wriggle room. Interestingly the current highest bid is from a serial nudger but is now sitting on a big round number and has been for some time, so I wonder if they've just hit the reserve and that's why they've stopped nudging. It won't make a difference to me, just getting the hang of how this works!!

Hey OP,
Your screenshot is an example of where ebay bids up to a limit for you.
Eg 9 highest bidder at £85.
Someone else has then come in with a max bid of £90.
9 has a higher max bid.
So ebay bids them against each other in £1 increments, then the other bidder maxes out at £90, and *9 remains the highest bidder with now a bid of £91.
I'm not sure what the £80.01 is about tho.

Oh, so there are more bids i between what it shows? That would explain why I couldn't work out why someone would up their own bid! Thank you!

Yes but they are automatic bids because people are using the bid limit and ebay bids automatically for them, if that makes sense.
Eg
Sue sets max bid £20
Existing bid is £10

Ebay for Sue bids £11

Dave enters max bid £14

What happens (roughly):
Ebay for Dave £12
Ebay for Sue £13
Ebay for Dave £14
Ebay for Sue £15

Dave is outbid.

You see:
Sue bid £11
Sue bid £15

Hope that makes sense!

Yes, that makes complete sense, thank you for taking the time to explain it.

@Cavagirl

Hey OP, Your screenshot is an example of where ebay bids up to a limit for you. Eg *9 highest bidder at £85. Someone else has then come in with a max bid of £90. **9 has a higher max bid. So ebay bids them against each other in £1 increments, then the other bidder maxes out at £90, and **9 remains the highest bidder with now a bid of £91. I'm not sure what the £80.01 is about tho.

I'm not sure what the £80.01 is about tho.

If you set a highest bid of £80.01
And someone bids after you with a high bid of £80

Doesn't work the other way around i.e. someone bids high bid of £80 and you bid £80.01 as to BEAT the £80 bid you'd need to bid £81- in this case you'd get a message telling you to bid £81 or higher and the new current high bid would be £80.

@notrub ahhhh of course!
Thanks!

Hello, just coming back to say thanks so much for all your help. I got the item!

It was quite nerve wracking because after no bids for 24 hours, it went up with 15 mins left. But I held out until 45 seconds to go and set the auto bid.

Phew, don't think my heart could take that again, but I'm so glad I knew what was going on. Thank you all.