once more on e-bay

[Hgrove]

I am currently the high bidder on one item, but I have not met the reserve price.  Does that mean the vendor does not have to sell to me and may decide it is not worth his while to do so? Would it be a good idea to increase my bid?  There are a couple of days left.

[dirtyharriet]

I think if you haven't met the reserve price then he doesn't have to sell to you, as the reserve is the minimum he is prepared to accept, so if you really want the item you will have to up your bid.

[Hammer]

You are not high enough. The seller will not sell to you at this price. If you really want it then you will have to increase your bid.

[03andpea]

if you dont get past the reserve price you wont get it end of story

[tomd]

Not completely, but the seller might not want to sell you it. Most people bid within the last five minutes anyway, to avoid pushing the price up early, so there's a good chance there'll be more bids yet (assuming it's an item with interest).

[Octavius]

whatever the reserve price is, you should only bid the most you are prepared to pay.  There are a lot of people sitting there waiting for the auction to end to put in a bid at the last second.  If you up your bid, then be prepared to pay what you have bid as it may even far exceed the reserve price.  As someone said above, you can always ask the seller if he is prepared to tell you what the reserve is.

[ianess]

A reserve price is the minimum the vendor is [at present] willing to accept.  Put in your maximum bid and don`t be tempted to increase it.  As others have stated, the last few minutes of an auction can be frantic.........but it would do no harm to contact the vendor by e-mail to register your interest should the item not meet the reserve price.

[gerry]

Like what most people have said  the seller has put a particular price on the item he/she is willing to sell at.Even if you win the auction the item is only yours if you matched his reserve price.However in saying that i won an auction last week on ebay i bidded 4 times on the auction i was the only bidder but i hadn't met the sellers reserve price.A couple of days later he contacted me & sold the item to me at the last price i bidded for.He did this because i was the only bidder for the item so it wouldn't have been worth his while puttin it back on ebay again.However sometimes if an auction has had alot of intrest & no one has met the reserve price.The seller may well put it back on ebay & try their luck again.

[Octavius]

Why has my answer got an edit beside it when it looks like exactly what I typed??

[Hgrove]

I wonder if it is a bug Octavious - I have noticed an edit in my answers when it looked as if nothing had actually been edited.