Basic steps in the bidding process

Ready to Bid?

Ok, so you've found what you want, agree with the terms and would like to bid on the item? Let's go over how that works and explain what the different choices and terms are.

Bidding on an Item

• On the description page, scroll down to the bottom where you will find a spot to enter your bid. You will see the description/title, the amount the current bid is at (if 0, it means no one has bid yet).

• The maximum bid is where you will enter the maximum amount in dollars that you are willing to pay. This will not be the first bid placed for you. For example, in this situation the current bid is .99¢. If you decide that for this camera, the most you are willing to pay is $40, you will enter $40 in the maximum bid box. Remember, this amount is something you will be held to if you win the bid so don't enter more than you are willing to pay. Let's look at what happens when you click place bid (your bid will not be set in stone until you click on "Confirm Bid".

• Here is where you review the terms of the auction and your bid amount. So here it shows the current bid is .99¢ and that your maximum bid is $40 and the sales tax is 7.750%, shipping is $11 (US) and the payment methods are paypal or Visa/Master Card. If these are agreeable to you, when you click on "Confirm Bid", a bid in the amount of $1.04 (the next available bid amount) will be entered. Your bid amount will not go up until someone else bids higher than $1.04. eBay will automatically re-bid for you when you are outbid, up until the $40 limit you have set is reached. So if someone puts in a bid of $1.50, with $10 being their maximum bid, it will put their bid in at $10 and then automatically let them know they have been outbid by another bidder (you). The current bid will now show as $10.05 and that you are the current winning bidder. So if others bid on this item, your amount may or may not go up to $40. So if someone else bids and puts that their maximum bid is $30, you will still be the winning bidder because your maximum is $40. However if someone enters their maximum bid as $50, you will now be outbid and eBay will not bid on your behalf anymore as it is over your maximum bid amount. eBay will then send you a notice stating that you have been outbid and give you an option to adjust your maximum bid amount to higher if you wish.
• In the next example I set a maximum bid of $1.50 for this camera, and you will see that it tells me I was immediately outbid. This is the screen I received when I clicked on "Confirm Bid":

• This shows that I have been outbid by another bidder and then informs me of the lowest bid I have to place in order to win this auction. So in the next screen, you will see that I entered a bid of $2 (which it shows is the minimum bid I can set).

• I then clicked on bid again, it took me to the "Confirm Bid" screen again and I clicked on "Confirm Bid". This has now set my new maximum bid at $2.

• Once I clicked "Confirm Bid", I received the screen below, which shows I was once outbid again. This means that someone has a higher "Maximum Bid" than I do. As you can see, doing it this way can be a time consuming effort, which is why it is suggested you put in your maximum bid in the first place. This way eBay will automatically bid up to either the other person's maximum bid (if it's lower than your maximum bid) or up to your maximum bid (and let you know you have lost bidding). Unfortunately there is no way to tell what the other bidder's maximum bid is, so again, only input the maximum of what you are willing to pay.

• If you are successful in your bidding, you will receive a screen that informs you that you are the current winning bidder, similar to the screenshot below:

• eBay has a bidding system that works as follows. You will see that bids are not placed at 1¢ intervals, but rather are placed with an increment based on bid price. Here is a bidding chart taken directly from eBay's site:

• If you want to place a practice bid to see how it works, go to Practice bidding on eBay