Difference between starting bid and enter $X amount US or greater.

[bp_stonehound]

Hi:

Obviously my question will reveal I'm new to eBay. Some listings have a starting bid, as I understand it, I must enter at least that amount. Others show, enter $X amount US or greater. I've noticed in bid history, starting bids are often much lower than the specified amount. Just wondering what the difference is?

Thank You:

bp_stonehound

[pjcdn2005 · Accepted solution]

Auctions can work 2 ways. The seller can set a starting price and buyers bid up from there. The winner is whoever has bid the highest when the auction ends.

Or, the seller can have a starting bid and a buy it now price. So, if you don't want to wait 7 days or however long the auction is on for, you can pay the buy it now price and win right away.

There are also fixed price listings which only give you the option of paying that amount..there is no bidding. Some fixed price listings will allow you to make an offer to the seller. On those ones you will see a "best offer" option.

Good luck!

[dmil8030 · Accepted solution]

Hello 'bp...', 

If you have not already seen it, you might like to poke around in the following link.  It has all the info you will need to sufficiently arm yourself for ebay auctions.  It's short & easy reading, especially the stuff under the Basics heading, like Automatic bidding and Getting outbid, - those always puzzle new people because it's different from real life auctions.  If you plan to do much bidding at all, it's worth a look:

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

[bp_stonehound]

Many thanks to pjcdn2005 and dmil8030 for your help, much appreciated.

bp_stonehound