Belt Auction

10 pts/ best answer to first to give detailed answer - How do Automatic Bids work on eBay ?

Public Comments

1. You start with an initial bid say $50 and set a maximum bid of say $75. Everytime someone else bids on the item, you will automatically up the bid by $1 until your maximum bid is reached.
2. The first answer is correct, but maybe not detailed enough? Let's say that an auction has a bid increment of $1.00 with a starting bid of $.99. You determine that you would pay no more than $10 for that item. You enter a bid of $10. If you are the first bidder, it will show that you have bid $.99. Then, if someone else comes along and bids $2, then it will automatically re- enter a bid for you of $3 (because your maximum is $10) and you will remain the top bidder. This will continue until someone enters a bid higher than your top bid of $10. At that point, you can either bow out of the auction or place a new high bid, and the process will repeat until your top bid is outdone again or the auction is over. If your top bid is $20 and another bidder's top bid is only $15, then you will win the auction at $16 ($15 opponent's bid + $1 bid increment) even though your top bid was $20. It's a pretty cool way to do it, actually! Just watch out for "snipers" during the last 30 seconds of an auction! They wait until the last possible second to enter a high bid to try to outbid you before you have time to react and enter another higher bid! Here is a link to eBay that might also be useful. Go here, then click on "First Time Bidding and Buying" next to the big #2. Then when the new window opens, click "Bid or Buy" from the menu on the left, then click "Maximum Bid". http://pages.ebay.com/education/buying.html Good luck!