selling on ebay..

[janzman]

..I have an item on ebay at the moment thats received 7 bids so far but all 7 bids have come from the same bidder.Why would anybody up their own bids or can these bids be generated automatically.Can anyone cast some light on this for me,thanks

[mrs_overall]

Is it someone fairly new to EBay, i.e. with a low feedback number?

[hc4361]

Have you got a reserve?

[NOX]

You must either have a reserve price on it, in which case each bid will go up incrementally until the reserve is reach (you can have dozens of bids this way) OR
the person who has bid has say intially valued your object at £10, then changes their minds and decides to bid say £20, then £30 etc etc etc- but the bid will never be higher than the genuine bid, so it shouldn't show it increasing unless you have se a reserve.

Hope that makes sense to you.

[janzman]

Theres no reserve but mrs o isprobably right the bidder is new with a very low feedback thanksyou both (personally I hope my bidder just keeps bidding against him/herself all the better for me lol)

[weecalf]

They just have up their bid to make sure of winning maybe

[snags]

Or possibly the bidder really wants the item and is rebidding - maybe only by the minimum increment - to hopefully put off other potential bidders.

[mrs_overall]

I had something similar happen to me with a person who was new to Ebay. In fact the person was an idiot who was bidding against themselves.

[maclarencat]

I dont believe you can bid against yourself on Ebay. I thought that it only took the minimum bid required to keep you top bidder so if no one else bid your bid would not increase?

[snags]

Correct. But by adding subsequent bids, increasing your maximum each time, you're 'hopefully' ensuring that any other bidders will not top your earlier 'top' bid. If that makes sense.

[NOX]

If there is only one bidder who constantly ups their bid, you won't benefit at all, that'll only help you if someone else subsequently comes and bids, as you can't bid 'against' yourself, just up your own personal maximum.

[snags]

''If there is only one bidder who constantly ups their bid, you won't benefit at all, that'll only help you if someone else subsequently comes and bids''

Which is what I was attempting to say.

[NOX]

Quite snags, unless there is something seriously adrift with the auction then no-one should be able to bid against themselves unless there is a reserve, when they can until and only until it's met, which apprently in this case there isn't. I managed to try to explain it badly much earlier on, but both this poster and Mrs O seem to have had people they say are ' bidding against themselves' but that just shouldn't happen. I'm quite perplexed.

[jomifl]

I expect when the snipers come in the last 5 seconds your initial bidder will be blown out of the water.

[janzman]

Wow this is getting quite exciting.Everything else I've sold has been in the normal way with a varity of bidders.I'll keep you posted.

[wildwood]

Mmm... I thought that Ebay kept bidding on one's behalf up to the maximum. If you haven't got a reserve why would Ebay keep increasing that person's bid? Very puzzling!