Ebay bidding question?

Question

Why is it that everytime I bid, im outbid by the guy before me right the next second. I dont UNDERSTAND!!

Answer 1

PROXY bidding.

If you place a maximum bid, say $10 and the bidding is set to start at $0.99 , if you are the first bidder, it will show a current bid amount of $0.99.  If someone else comes along they see a $0.99 bid. Now say they bid $2, within a few seconds, they will receive an outbid notice. If they bid any amount less than $10.01, they will be automatically outbid by you.

Once they place their bid over $10, they will become the highest bidder.  If for example, they place a bid of $20, they will outbid you but the highest bid will show $10.99 (or whatever the bid increment is above $10).  When you've been outbid and the current bid shows $10.99  and you bid any amount under $20, like $12.00, in a few seconds you will be outbid...all the way till $20.01.

Answer 2

the other guy is using automatic bidding, you can use it too, put your maximum bid in and the site will hike it up for you until they get to your maximum.

Answer 3

If it says you were outbid right after you placed the bid, more than likely the other person's maximum bid was much higher. See, when you bid you can put how high you want the bid to go, but EBay won't go any higher unless someone else is bidding against you. So.. If I was the first to bid on an item and I bid a max. of $10 but the starting price was $5, Ebay will only make my bid for $5 at first. Then, if you come along and bid a max. of $7, EBay will inform you that you were outbid and it will say my new bid is $8.00 or something.. because I gave EBay permission to bid for me up to $10. In this scenario, you'd have to bid over $10 to outbid me.

K, so that was probably confusing, but hope it helped!

Answer 4

Sniping.......it ROCKS...!!!