Bidding Summary
There are the following amounts on each auction item page:
Minimum Bid: First it appears under the entry field for
your
maximum
bid, and you may enter this amount. Lower bids are not
accepted.
Your Maximum Bid: You may also enter a higher value. The
server
will bid further as your proxy, up to this amount.
Reserve: If it is met, the seller must sell the item, if
not
you can try to negotiate an acceptable price with the seller. Up to
three
days after the end of an auction, you can comfortably bargain using the
server. |
Time and Date
Pay attention if you want to bid within the last minute or even second.
Don't apply the clock of your PC - it might go wrong. The system time
is
the legal local time (and date) of the server location (MEZ). On the
advertising
page the following times are displayed:
Time: Current time when loading the page, it is not
running
but only updated if the page is called again.
Closes: Time when the auction closes. It may be shifted by
a
new bid or not, depending on the preference of the seller. |
How to Bid
It is easy to place a bid. Any item description has a bidding form with
assistence to do it right - but remeber: Placing
a bid is a contract. You
promise
to buy for the price you enter. So don't bid for anything if you don't
want to pay for it.
When posting an item, the seller can enter a reserve price.
The seller can refuse to sell if his
reserve is not met. But he has also the possibility to sell immediately
for the reserve price (this is signified by a chash icon in the lists)
Moreover the seller may enable a starting bid lower than
reserve, if he intends to negotiate the selling price after closing the
auction..
Maybe there are secret procedures how to bid successfully -
maybe not.
Some sellers allow a time delay of a five minutes after each bid - a
chance
to decide in patience whether to bid higher or not. Other sellers force
the auction to be closed at a fixed time - sometimes exciting if many
bids
are placed the last second. We don't know the right method - maybe
there
is none.
|
Let the 
proxy do the job
After each bid, a new minimum bid is calculated from an increment given
by the seller. You can bid this amount, or a higher one.
If you bid more, you can make the server to do your job: You
enter
the maximum, you want to pay, and the server will bid as your proxy,
whenever
someone trys to outbid you.
No need to spend day and night at the screen - the server does
your
job, and will never exceed your maximum bid. Even more important: The
server
will never bid more than necessary to win the auction.
An example for bidder A
(you) and B
(your natural enemy). The present high bid may be 100 (apples,
bucks...),
the seller wanted an increment of 10. So the bid form asks a
minimum
bid of 110.
A enters his personal
maximum 200.
The proxy will bid 110 for A.
B enters his personal maximum
147.
The proxy will now bid 157 for A
(increment 10 more).
B needs 167
to outbid A and gives up - the
battle
is won by A for just 157
instead of the 200, he really
wanted
to pay.
|
Chatterbox
Some auction servers are chatterboxes - filling your email box with
junk. 
keeps patience; no need to bother you with bid confirmations because
you
have a poor chance to leave the screen before it displays the result of
your bid. Just two reasons are important enough for a message: When
you are outbid, you get a message with a link to the
item. So you
can respond without delay if you like.
If you won an auction, you get a message with final price,
link to the
item, and instructions how to proceed.
|
Attention! You may change your
maximum bid anytime without influence on the present bid. The new
maximum bid may be higher or lower than the previous one, as long as
the displayed minimum bid is met. |
