The Garage Sale Millionaire: Make Money with Hidden Finds from Garage Sales to Storage Unit Auctions and Everything in Between, Revised and Updated

Bidding on eBay

Bidding for items on eBay follows many of the practices and procedures found at a traditional auction house. The usual acts of bidding and re-bidding are the same and they are essential parts of the online auction process.

I do have one major word of caution about bidding for any item on eBay and I cannot stress this strongly enough: every bid on eBay is a legally binding contract between the buyer and seller which cannot be retracted. You must be very sure you want to bid on something before finally clicking that enter button.

The only exception to the legally binding bid rule is when a bidder mistakenly adds a zero or multiple zeroes to the end of a bid. For example, a bidder incorrectly makes a bid of $2,000 or $20,000 instead of a proper bid of $200. (eBay will allow you to make a few retractions per annum without consequence.) If you do renege on a bid, your user rating will be affected in a negative way. User ratings are similar to popularity contests. When you have a higher user rating as a buyer or seller, more people want to do business with you and, in turn, you become much more popular. As a bidder, being more popular means more sellers will sell to you with fewer or no restrictions. As a seller, being more popular on eBay means more bidders will be attracted to your auctions because you’re considered a legitimate and trustworthy vendor. The complete opposite occurs when your user rating is low. As a seller, not many people will take your auctions seriously. ...