is a seller allowed to bid on his own product ?

[ti_gauth]

i have been watching this perticular seller for about two months his item allay sell for the same price and biding goes up like planed and always same bider on all cases there are about three is that allowed

[pierrelebel]

"is a seller allowed to bid on his own product ?"

No.

[kroutpick]

http://pages.ebay.ca/help/policies/seller-shill-bidding.html

[femmefan1946]

But.

He may just have a loyal customer who knows what he is willing to pay.

Are the items all different?

Are they the sort of thing someone might need to replace fairly often?

There are two ways that a shill bidder can be exposed.

First- a shill bidder doesn't win. He forces another bidder to win at that person's highest price.

This is done by bidding until the other's maximum bid is exposed and then retracting the bid. Or more subtly, bidding until the price reaches a point where the seller is satisfied.

But notice-- the shill bidder does not win. If he did the seller pays fees on the winning bid, but receives no payment. Not particularly profitable.

Second: the shill bidder does win, but does not pay. The seller then offers the underbidder a Second Chance Offer at his highest bid.

This is harder to spot, unless you are the underbidder.

[maggiebvintage2010]

When you state "bidding goes up like planned", do you mean that bids increase by the minimum amount?  Have you read and understood:

http://pages.ebay.ca/help/buy/aboutbidding.html

and

http://pages.ebay.ca/help/buy/bid-increments.html

Three items over two months?  When you say his items always sell for the same price to the same bidder, are these 3 items the only listings he has had in the past 2 months?  What percentage of his listings do they represent?  Do all his other items sell in exactly the same way?  I've noticed that quite a few (generally) newer eBayers subscribe to a conspiracy theory about shill bidding, but I don't think it happens very much in practice.  Much more dangerous to a new buyer is understanding who not to buy from based on location, % of positive feedback, and feedback comments both given and received.

As an experiment, I just tried to enter a bid for one of my own listings.  It was not allowed. (Hope that doesn't lead to a defect!)

I see you have only just registered on eBay.  It's good to see you have found the Community Boards.  I suggest you read through all the information you can find about buying on eBay, and read the "Buyer Central" posts, which is where your post really belongs.  Site Issues are generally about technical difficulties in using the eBay site.