Thicko question re bidding

cestlavie

i don't often bid on ebay so excuse dumb question... today was asked by a friend to buy an item... it was priced at 99p. i bid (as a 1st bidder) £1.50 within 5 secs of auction closing..and so won item. i assumed i wld have to pay the bid price of £1.50, but have actually won it at 0.99 ??? does this mean if i had bid £50 to secure the item, but there had been no oher bidders, i wld have still won item at 0.99p??? forgive my stupidity.. x

No_Eye_Deer

Yes, you would still of won it for 99p if you had put a max bid of £50 with no other bidders.

Only if there was another bidder would your Max bid (and theirs) come into play. In your case, if another bidder had bid £1.51 or more in the last few seconds, then they would of won it for £1.51.

You only have to pay 99p (and the postage).

porto_bello

As an occasional bidder (5 or less bids per week), you might find a FREE auction sniper more convenient, such as:

https://www.justsnipe.com/index.asp

Rather than have to hover over the end of an auction or face a white knuckle ride to discover whether you've been outbid in the last second, you can simply programme the auction sniper to make a bid on your behalf, which is automatically launched 8 seconds before the end of the auction.

[Either you win, or you are outbid or if the item's value already exceeds your maximum bid price before you are due to bid, your bid simply doesn't happen - whatever the outcome, the service is free for occasional bidders].

[Deleted User]

Hi,

you had bid the 99p, but your maximum bid was £1.50.

cestlavie

No_Eye_Deer wrote: »

Only if there was another bidder would your Max bid (and theirs) come into play.

.

thanks for your replies

so if the item was going for 99p and i bid £50 to secure the sale, but in the interim someone bid £1.50 would I have to pay £50 ? or would the ebay system round it down to just beat that £1.50 and so leaving me to pay £1.51?

best wishes

starrybee

cestlavie wrote: »

so if the item was going for 99p and i bid £50 to secure the sale, but in the interim someone bid £1.50 would I have to pay £50 ? or would the ebay system round it down to just beat that £1.50 and so leaving me to pay £1.51?

best wishes

Yes, you would only pay £1.51.
Ebay is set up just like a real auction house where people bid up in stages - your maximum bid is just so ebay can keep bidding up for you without you have to check your computer constantly.

No_Eye_Deer

cestlavie wrote: »

would the ebay system round it down to just beat that £1.50 and so leaving me to pay £1.51?

Basically yes, however technically it would round it to £1.70p

There is more info here
http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/buy/bid-increments.html

You are telling eBay the maximum you are prepared to pay for the item (before postage), the other bidders are also entering the most they are prepared to pay.

If you had put in £50 and the other bidder £30, then you would of won (as you were the highest bidder), the amount you would have to pay would be rounded to the next Increment above the other persons Max bid of £30, so £31 pounds.

cestlavie

great to hear, thanks for info and link - much appreciated. best wishes - cestlavie