eBay auction vs Buy It Now: what changes at the first bid

What the first bid changes

On an eBay auction that also shows a Buy It Now price, the first bid usually makes the Buy It Now button disappear, for everyone, including the person who bid. The exception is an auction with a reserve price. There, Buy It Now stays until the bidding reaches the seller's hidden minimum. A plain fixed price listing never has bidding at all, so nothing happens to its price until the seller changes it or someone buys it.

The mixed kind in the last row is where most of the surprises happen. A fixed price listing has no closing time to catch, because by default it relists every month until it sells. What you risk there is someone else buying it first.

Why did Buy It Now disappear when someone bid?

Nobody hid it and nothing broke. Somebody bid. The whole rule fits in two sentences on eBay's Buy It Now help page:

When someone bids, the Buy It Now option usually disappears; however, in the case of reserve price listings, the Buy It Now option remains until the reserve price is met. In some categories, the Buy It Now option may continue to be available after the first bid for a limited time.

On an ordinary auction with a Buy It Now price, one bid from anybody turns the listing into a straight auction, and the price you could have paid outright is gone. It doesn't matter who bid or how little.

A reserve auction works differently. If the seller set a reserve, Buy It Now survives the first bid and keeps going until the bidding climbs to the reserve. Until then you can still buy at the listed price, even with bids on the page.

That last sentence about "some categories" is eBay leaving itself room. It doesn't say which categories keep Buy It Now after a bid, or for how long, so we won't guess at either.

So if you see a Buy It Now price on an auction and you'd happily pay it, decide now. Any other bidder can end the offer at 3 a.m. without even meaning to. If it's already gone, you can still set your maximum bid at the Buy It Now price you'd have paid. With luck the bidding stops short of it and you get the item for less.

The 30% gap between the two prices

In most categories, eBay requires the Buy It Now price on an auction to be at least 30% higher than the auction price. A seller who lists an auction at $50 can't put the Buy It Now under $65.

So when the Buy It Now looks steep next to the auction price, that gap is eBay's rule at work. It tells you nothing about whether the seller is greedy or generous.

The Buy It Now can come down late in a quiet auction, though. Sellers are allowed to lower it once an auction has 12 hours or less left and no bids. An auction in its last half day with nobody bidding is the one where that price can still drop, so it's worth a second look before it closes.

Whether $65 is a good price for the thing in front of you has nothing to do with the auction it's attached to. Compare it with what other sellers are asking for the same item today. FindersKeepers, the free eBay search tool this blog belongs to, shows you the other live listings for the same search, and you can try it without an account.

What you actually pay when you bid

When you bid on eBay, you're setting a ceiling. You enter the most you'd pay and eBay's automatic bidding bids for you, a step at a time, only as high as it needs to keep you in front. Those steps are published, and they grow with the price:

Say your maximum is $80 and the only other bidder's is $60. eBay bids for you one increment above theirs, so you lead at $61. If nobody else bids, you pay $61. If someone does, eBay keeps raising your bid for you, up to $80 and no further. Now and then a bid goes up by less than the table says. That happens when someone's bid lands only slightly above your maximum.

Because your maximum sets the most you'll pay, the moment you type it in doesn't change that ceiling. Sniping means placing your bid in the last few seconds. Against the same two maximums it can't lower your price, and it only saves money when the other bidder would have raised theirs given time.

The maximum is also a promise. eBay calls bidding "a contractual obligation," and shipping comes on top of whatever you win at. If you bid on the wrong thing, the grounds for taking it back are narrow: which bidding mistakes you can undo.

Can you see an eBay seller's reserve price?

No, unless the seller writes it in the listing. eBay's reserve price page says: "Unless they state their reserve price in the listing, you won't know what it is until you either meet it or bid above it." The listing shows you that a reserve exists and whether it's been met. The reserve notice itself doesn't show the number.

You find a reserve by bidding past it. Before you do, it helps to know what the seller can and can't do with it, all of which is on eBay's seller page for reserves.

The seller paid for the reserve. It's an optional upgrade with a fee charged when the auction is listed, and the seller doesn't get that fee back if bidding falls short. Someone who sets one has already spent money to avoid selling below that number.

The seller can lower it while the auction runs, as long as nobody has met it and at least 12 hours are left. Taking the reserve off entirely needs no bids at all and the same 12 hours. Vehicles on eBay Motors are the exception, where the reserve can come down inside the last 12 hours.

Lowering it can change your bid. In eBay's words: "If you lower the reserve price below the high bidder's maximum bid, we'll lower the high bidder's maximum bid to $1.00 below the new reserve price." Suppose you're the high bidder with a $300 maximum and the seller drops the reserve to $250. Your maximum becomes $249, and eBay messages the bidders asking them to bid again if they're still interested.

Leading the bidding and still losing

"Reserve not met" next to your bid means you'd lose if the auction ended now, even if you're on top. Being the highest bidder at the end doesn't win you the item while the reserve is unmet.

The bid history ranks you against the other bidders. The reserve ranks you against the seller, and that's the one that decides whether there's a sale.

Every bid you place while hunting for the reserve is binding, so set a maximum you'd actually be glad to pay and let the reserve be the seller's problem. Timing won't help here either. A bid that doesn't reach the reserve falls short whether you place it on Tuesday afternoon or two seconds before the end.

If the listing also has a Buy It Now price, the unmet reserve is what's keeping that button alive. On a reserve auction that hasn't hit its number, Buy It Now is the only price on the page you can see and actually buy at. The moment someone meets the reserve, it goes.

Why did you get a Second Chance Offer after losing?

Because the seller still wants to sell, and eBay lets them come back to a bidder who lost. It could be that the seller found more stock or the reserve wasn't met.

The price is your own last bid. The seller picks how long you have to answer: 1, 3, 5 or 7 days. If you ignore it, the offer expires by itself, and you can switch these offers off in your communication preferences in My eBay.

Fake ones exist, and there's a simple test. A real Second Chance Offer always shows up in your eBay Messages and in the Bids/Offers section of My eBay. eBay never sends one with the subject line "Message from eBay Member," so forward any email like that to spoof@ebay.com. A seller who suggests finishing the deal by email or another payment app is asking you to leave eBay, and eBay says buyers who do "aren't covered by our protection programs if something goes wrong." What eBay's Money Back Guarantee covers explains how far that protection reaches when you pay through eBay.

A real offer still isn't automatically a good one. Your last bid was a number you picked in an auction you didn't win, sometimes against a reserve you never saw. Before you click Buy it, look up what the same item is listed for today, and only pay your old bid if it still beats that.