I just opened an E-Bay account in order to bid on a used set of heads from a commercial seller. Every time I bid it says I was outbid by $2.50. I bid myself up by $25.00 and stopped, still being outbid by $2.50. Please help an ignorant beginner. Also, if the ad says it ends in X days, does it? Thanks.

If it keeps going up when you type in your bid, that means someone before you already bid more.

For example:

the auction says bid is currently $5.00/it started there.

bidder "A" bid a total of $50.00 on the item early in the auction. The price will stay at the original starting price of $5.00 until someone else bids more.

bidder "B" types in a bid of $10.00. The auction will then jump to that amount, but bidder A is still winning since they bid higher first. It will keep going up and bidder A will keep winning until the amount goes over what they bid (the original $50).

What I do is wait until the last few seconds (yes seconds) of the auction and then type in the most I'm willing to pay for the item (example, $150), that way I have a good chance of winning. Otherwise, the competitive spirit takes over (trust me).

I always bid at the last posssible seconds with the most I'd be willing to pay. It's known as sniping. So if the most your willing to part with is say $50 then whatever the bid closes at your with it up to your $50 limit. Buy it now of course is what it says. Buy one at the buy it now price. The bids automatically increase as bidders add bids so if another bidder put a max of $40 early on the item, every time you bid just triggers his rebid until his $40 threshhold has been met.

Thanks. I will try to restrain myself 'till the very end, type in my max and hope for the best.

There's also software that will "snipe" for you. I don't know exactly how it works but basically you tell it which auction and how much you're willing to bid and it will make the bid for you in last few seconds of the auction.

I have bought 4 cars, restaurant equipmment,
and an assortment of household toys.
Bid what you would pay top dollar on an item IF you must have it. If you are just messing around, then, try and time the last few minutes of the sale, to snipe a bid at the end.

At the top of the page, on ebay, where the items 4 sale are listed is a box on the right hand side, it says ...
sort by.. click on -Items Ending Soonest,
which will make it easier to make a close to the ending bid, since time left is listed...good luck

Keith; How would you rate your satisfaction with the cars you have purchased (won)?

I don't understand why if I raise the current bid by $2.50 I automatically am outbid by another $2.50. Does someone have an automatic program to outbid me up to a certain amount? I'm no comprendo something here.

They have already submitted a bid higher than you. It will do that till you exceed their maximum bid. Say he bid $40 max. Bidding is at $20 now. You bid $22.50 his automatically goes to $25 until his max of $40 has been exceeded.

Sounds like a tease. Why don't they just list the bid to beat? I guess one could just bid up to find out, then cancel and fuggetaboutit if it's too high .

Cancelling bids is frowned upon and would result in dismissal if it happened excessively. Like a real auction, Say a bidder has a max of $100 he would spend to buy a titanium widget. He wants to get it for the lowest possible bid. In a live auction gimme10, gimme 10, who'll gimme 20, I see 20. who'll gimme 30. And it goes till the auction closes with a winner.

Figure out the most you're willing to pay, add $1.28 to it, and bid in the closing seconds.

Anything else will just run up the bid, your $15 bid on that set of tires won't last anyways and just tips them off that there's bidding competition. Ebay will only make you pay for a minimum amount over the second bidder, so if he bid $60 and you bid $98.36, you just won it for $61 or whatever.

Bid weird amounts because it will trump those people who like to bid nice round numbers. If someone had a hidden max bid of $200 for something and you bid 200 at last second you won't get it. But some know that trick and bid 200.01. So I'd bid 201.37 and win.

Or check programs like esnipe.

Some of the items show a hit counter, if you see this increasing as you refresh at the end of the auction that means someone else might be trying to snipe it also.

Danke. I think I got it now.

It,s called proxy bidding where e-bay will bid up for you to your high bid amount, every body above just gave you some good advise, early bids may put you into a bidding war, i used a watch with a second hand at the end of auctions to get a bid in with seconds left you can still lose computer freeze or you will be beat by some one who wants it more than you do. You can win anything you want if you pay the price

When you find what you want, use the "Watch this item" feature. Hit that and stockpile all your items. Now watch them all according to ending time. Also check the Bid history. That way you know how many interested people there are. The time listed on bidding history is good indication of who is also watching as the ending time draws closer. Use an extra 20 bucks on your maximum bid, that way if someone is trying to outbid you he may run out of time jacking with his bid. Then you may win only paying something close to your intentional bid. AND, hehe, if he wants it worst then you, he paid way too much. TOOSHAY !!

I used to keep 2 ebays up on my screen at the same time. If I knew how much I was willing to pay I would enter, but not confirm the bid until the last 5 seconds to hopefully keep the price down and also from being sniped. I would watch the time on the other screen and at 5 seconds to go I would hit confirm on the bid screen. I have also bought and sold a lot on ebay, made over $2K in buying/selling C4 parts year before last.

I got sniped this afternoon on a deal. I thought I had it right up to 5 seconds, but, I bid what I felt I wanted to pay. So no big deal.

I used like to bid on reserve auction bids just to get the bids out of the cellar. Like a 1967 Nova Super Sport at $3250 Reserve not met. I'd toss $9000 at it. No harm, no foul. If I had to buy it for $9000 I'd be laughing all the way to the bank.