Bidding

[viviana60]

Hi I very rarely bid but, could someone tell me why when I increase the bid by 50p I am outbid fed in milliseconds?! Is it some sort of automatic increasing bid by the seller or can the prospective buyer use it too? Thanks all 🌈

[**peaseblossom**]

It's eBay proxy bid system.  You can enter your maximum bid but the actual bid price won't increase until someone else bids against you. Then it will go up by pre-set increments. Here's more info about it:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/buying/bidding/automatic-bidding?id=4014

[four_mid_able]

Sounds like you are bidding against someone who has already placed a higher bid.

Click on "bids" (in blue) to see bid history.

[m25jet]

If you placed a bid but was outbid literally within a split second then you most likely just slightly nudged up the bidding price of another buyer who placed a higher maximum bid than you did.  The only way to beat your opponent in that case would be to raise your bid so that you end up with a higher maximum bid than him/her.  However, there is no way to tell how high your opponents have set their maximum bids, so to a certain extent it's down to a combination of how high you are prepared to go, as well as down to a bit of luck on your part.

[1902elder]

Your best chance of winning is to decide how much you are prepared tp pay,  then bid that amount. If there is already a bid which is greater, then just look elsewhere.  If you bid, say, £5, and the maximum bid is £2, then your bid will only show £2.50, and if no further bids are placed, that is what you will pay. 

My strategy is to do that in the last few seconds before an auction ends, not allowing another bidder time to increase their bid.