First maximum bid that meets the reserve

[maujohwai]

Is it true that the first maximum bid of at least the reserve immediately moves the price up to the reserve? I've been trying to find this out in eBay Help, but the information doesn't seem to be there. If so, it strikes me as very unfair, since it may be that no other bid is anywhere near, and you should only be committed to one increment over the next highest bid, as normal; if that doesn't win, so be it. The only way to avoid the trap that I can think of (unless you have been told the reserve, of course) is to bid repeated small increases for as long as you want, which is a bore.

[john1297576]

I don't think you understand what a reserve is all about. What is the point in moving up in increments knowing you can't win.

As soon as you see the words "Reserve not met" you should understand that you need to bid at least £50  the minimum reserve before your bid has any meaning.

How is it unfair, if you want to waste your time bidding in increments do it, but until you meet the reserve you are not going to win.

There is nothing secret about a reserve, if I was daft enough to use one and pay the 4% fee at the very least I would put in the desciption what the reserve was to save bidders wasting their time. The 4% Fee is payable by the seller whether it sells or not.

[pixiesen2012]

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/buying/bidding/reserve-prices-work?id=4018&st=3&pos=1&query=How%20reserv...

[rusticrye]

Everything you need to know about using Ebay, including how auctions work (and what auction Reserves are) is in the Help pages with their integral search. Links are at top and foot of any page.  🙂

@maujohwai 

[maujohwai]

Could you possibly me point me at a page that says specifically that the price jumps up to the reserve as soon as a bid meets or exceeds it? I've been searching the Help pages, and the only two results for "reserve" ("How reserve prices work" and "Setting a reserve price") don't cover that.

[pixiesen2012]

how is it unfair?

the whole point of a reserve is the item doesn't sell for less than the reserve set

if someone is willing to pay more than the reserve and places a maximum bid higher than the reserve the bid jumps to the reserve, not the maximum bid, and the auction continues from there

if you want to buy the item hitting the reserve is how you do it,

why do you want to bid in increments when you know you haven't reached the reserve and won't win the item until the reserve is met?

[maujohwai]

Thanks for your succinct comments.

Say, in an auction with no reserve , the current price is £60, I bid a maximum of £100, and no one else bids. I would deservedly win for about £62. Suppose, however, that there turns out to be a reserve of £80 that has not yet been met: I would pay £80. That's what I see as unfair, but is there another way of looking at it that I'm missing?

The point of bidding in small increments in an auction with a reserve that has not been met would be to avoid hitting the reserve and automatically paying it even if no one else bids anywhere near it. So in the above example where there is a reserve (unless I know what the reserve is, I repeat), instead of bidding £100, I would bid £62, then £64 if necessary, then £66 if necessary, and so on, and I might well win it for less than £80.

(I didn't know that the min reserve is £50, as another member has helpfully pointed out, so I can now see that there'd be no point in doing this below £50.)

[61stephenuk]

Until you hit the reserve the item wont be sold so you would not "might well win it for less than £80" its the reserve price or higher that wins

[pixiesen2012]

you cannot 'win' an auction with a reserve if your bid doesn't reach the reserve, that is the whole point of a seller paying to use a reserve,

if the bids don't reach the reserve the item isn't sold, no matter how many bids under the reserve have been made

if you are willing to pay £80, bid £80 if this is higher than the reserve the bid jumps to the reserve, think of it like someone else had placed a maximum bid

[maujohwai]

I meant to say that I might win for less than the reserve if the seller either lowers it or makes a Second Chance Offer.

[m25jet]

If you're that interested in the item why don't you just contact the seller and ask him/her what the reserve fee is on the listing, as you were considering placing a bid but you didn't want to have to keep on playing guessing games as to how high the reserve has been set?  If the seller decides to tell you then you can place a maximum bid that would either equal or exceed the reserve, but unless one or more of your opponents placed a bid that forced the other bids up to the point where the highest bid equalled or exceeded the reserve price then the listing would still say "Reserve Not Met."  If the auction ended with the highest bid being lower than the reserve price then the item wouldn't sell, although the seller would still have to pay eBay the fees for having used the reserve option on the listing.

As far as being able to buy the item without knowing the reserve price is concerned, the only other options that I can think of would be to either place a bid and see if the reserve is met and you win the auction, in which case you can pay for the item when you win the auction, or if not then if the auction ends without the reserve having been met then perhaps it would be worth contacting the seller to ask him/her whether he/she would be prepared to relist the item for sale again, and try to ascertain how much the seller wants for the item.  If the seller comes up with an asking price that you would be willing to pay then ask him/her if he/she could relist the item as a Buy It Now listing so that you could buy the item outright at that price.  If the seller agrees to do this then once the item has been relisted just buy the item outright and you won't have to play these silly guessing games as to how high the seller has set the reserve.

[maujohwai]

Thanks. The scenario you describe in your first paragraph seems to be the fair one to me: even if you bid the reserve price or higher, the selling price only goes up when others bid, as normal. It seems that you disagree with pixiesen2012 and **peaseblossom**, who both think the price jumps to the reserve, which is what I originally said would be unfair if true. This just shows that the eBay Help pages should cover this explicitly.

[**peaseblossom**]

Yes, if your max bid meets the reserve it will show up.  Any max less than that by the end of the auction and the item is not sold.

[maujohwai]

Thanks for your answer. Just to be clear, when you say "it will show up", you're saying that if a maximum bid equals or exceeds the reserve, the current price immediately goes up to the reserve price?