I am interested in an item currently advertised on E-bay, for £120. I
have it on my Watch list. I just received a message from e-bay that
another buyer has just made an offer. But when I go to the item's page,
it says "0 bids", and merely repeats that the opening bid must be £120.

I tried to bid £100, but it won't let me offer anything below the
quoted £120.
The site hints that the existing bid is for £120, but it never actually
says so.

Clarity is obviously not e-bay's strong point. Is there a bid or not?

--
Davey.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Davey <davey@example.invalid> wrote:

I am interested in an item currently advertised on E-bay, for £120. I
have it on my Watch list. I just received a message from e-bay that
another buyer has just made an offer. But when I go to the item's page,
it says "0 bids", and merely repeats that the opening bid must be £120.

I tried to bid £100, but it won't let me offer anything below the
quoted £120.
The site hints that the existing bid is for £120, but it never actually
says so.

Clarity is obviously not e-bay's strong point. Is there a bid or not?

If it's an auction, £120 is the *starting price*. Bids will be 120, 125,
130, whatever. You can alternatively offer a higher amount to stop the
auction right now - this is presumably what somebody has done.

My local car auction does the same - sales are Wednesdays, but some cars
have a buy now price that you can use to buy before the sale. Your choice whether to gamble it goes for a lower price in the sale, but risk somebody
else buys now or outbids you.

Theo

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Davey wrote:

I am interested in an item currently advertised on E-bay

The sensible way to play is think what your maximum bid is and place
that bid. The less sensible option is to wait until 2-3 seconds before
the closing time and enter it as a snipe bid ...

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 13 Jun 2025 11:07:05 +0100 (BST)
Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

Davey <davey@example.invalid> wrote:

I am interested in an item currently advertised on E-bay, for £120.
I have it on my Watch list. I just received a message from e-bay
that another buyer has just made an offer. But when I go to the
item's page, it says "0 bids", and merely repeats that the opening
bid must be £120.

I tried to bid £100, but it won't let me offer anything below the
quoted £120.
The site hints that the existing bid is for £120, but it never
actually says so.

Clarity is obviously not e-bay's strong point. Is there a bid or
not?

If it's an auction, £120 is the *starting price*. Bids will be 120,
125, 130, whatever. You can alternatively offer a higher amount to
stop the auction right now - this is presumably what somebody has
done.

That is the impression given, but that bid price is not shown, it says
"0 bids".

My local car auction does the same - sales are Wednesdays, but some
cars have a buy now price that you can use to buy before the sale.
Your choice whether to gamble it goes for a lower price in the sale,
but risk somebody else buys now or outbids you.

Theo

This auction is not allowing any offer lower than £120.

--
Davey.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Fri, 13 Jun 2025 11:23:08 +0100
Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:

Davey wrote:

This auction is not allowing any offer lower than £120.

You can put in a bid of £125 (or whatever minimum bid it should tell
you) if it then says current bid is £125, you're the highest bidder

but you've revealed you're willing to bid, and other bidders will
react to thay, but in the end the result is everyone keeps upping
until nobody is prepared to any more, so you can bypass all the
faffing, stick your maximum bid of e.g. £198.76 now, then walk away
.. you might get it for £121 or might lose out to someone bidding £200

£120 is more than I am willing to pay, when it said that offers would be accepted, I hoped I could bid £90. But it meant 'bids less than £120'
not any bids at all. Ok, that's what it means.

But I'm still puzzled as to why it e-mailed me to tell me that somebody
else had put in a bid, but it still lists 0 bids. I just checked again.

--
Davey.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Davey <davey@example.invalid> wrote:

On 13 Jun 2025 11:07:05 +0100 (BST)
Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

Davey <davey@example.invalid> wrote:

I am interested in an item currently advertised on E-bay, for £120.
I have it on my Watch list. I just received a message from e-bay
that another buyer has just made an offer. But when I go to the
item's page, it says "0 bids", and merely repeats that the opening
bid must be £120.

I tried to bid £100, but it won't let me offer anything below the
quoted £120.
The site hints that the existing bid is for £120, but it never
actually says so.

Clarity is obviously not e-bay's strong point. Is there a bid or
not?

If it's an auction, £120 is the *starting price*. Bids will be 120,
125, 130, whatever. You can alternatively offer a higher amount to
stop the auction right now - this is presumably what somebody has
done.

That is the impression given, but that bid price is not shown, it says
"0 bids".

An offer is not a bid. It's an invitation to stop the auction right now and skip further bidding.

The amount of the offer is only visible to the seller, not to the punters.

My local car auction does the same - sales are Wednesdays, but some
cars have a buy now price that you can use to buy before the sale.
Your choice whether to gamble it goes for a lower price in the sale,
but risk somebody else buys now or outbids you.

Theo

This auction is not allowing any offer lower than £120.

You can't offer less than the starting price. You're saying 'if I agree to
pay £200 will you skip the auction?' and the seller has to decide to take £200 or let the auction run. Since the bid price only goes up (if there are any bidders at all), the seller is not going to take less than the starting price in order to skip the auction.

Theo

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Davey wrote:

This auction is not allowing any offer lower than £120.

You can put in a bid of £125 (or whatever minimum bid it should tell
you) if it then says current bid is £125, you're the highest bidder

but you've revealed you're willing to bid, and other bidders will react
to thay, but in the end the result is everyone keeps upping until nobody
is prepared to any more, so you can bypass all the faffing, stick your
maximum bid of e.g. £198.76 now, then walk away .. you might get it for
£121 or might lose out to someone bidding £200

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Davey <davey@example.invalid> wrote:

£120 is more than I am willing to pay, when it said that offers would be accepted, I hoped I could bid £90. But it meant 'bids less than £120'
not any bids at all. Ok, that's what it means.

That's down to the seller, not the ebay system. If the seller says
something, it doesn't mean it's reflected in the ebay system - they could
say 'I'll take XYZ in part exchange' which ebay has no facility for. They
may try to do deals under the table (which are banned), or to bend ebay to
do something it's not designed for (eg cancel the listing, start a new buy-it-now listing for the agreed price, and send you the link in the hope
you buy it before somebody else does).

But I'm still puzzled as to why it e-mailed me to tell me that somebody
else had put in a bid, but it still lists 0 bids. I just checked again.

Offers are not bids, see my previous message. They're telling you that
someone else is interested in the item in the hope of getting you anxious on missing out and increasing your spend.

If you only want to pay £90, best thing you can do is message the seller and say 'would you take £90'. If they don't want to, you know where you stand. However you're likely to come across as a chancer, because they probably set the starting price for a reason and will prefer to let the auction run to
see if they achieve it. Most bidding activity is in the closing minutes so
the current bid a few days before is no guide as to what it'll actually go
for.

If the auction doesn't sell and they relist, then you're in a better
position. Or you can make your offer more attractive in some way (eg £110 collection against £120 'free postage' could be attractive if it saves the hassle and cost of posting)

If the item has received an legit offer (which must be over £120 if ebay
won't allow you to go lower) then I think it highly unlikely they will take £90.

Theo

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 13/06/2025 10:12, Davey wrote:

I am interested in an item currently advertised on E-bay, for £120. I
have it on my Watch list. I just received a message from e-bay that
another buyer has just made an offer. But when I go to the item's page,
it says "0 bids", and merely repeats that the opening bid must be £120.

Does the listing have a 'make an offer' button?

I tried to bid £100, but it won't let me offer anything below the
quoted £120.
The site hints that the existing bid is for £120, but it never actually
says so.

Clarity is obviously not e-bay's strong point. Is there a bid or not?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Scott <newsgroups@gefion.myzen.co.uk> wrote:

On Fri, 13 Jun 2025 10:54:32 +0100, Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk>
wrote:

Davey wrote:

I am interested in an item currently advertised on E-bay

The sensible way to play is think what your maximum bid is and place
that bid. The less sensible option is to wait until 2-3 seconds before
the closing time and enter it as a snipe bid ...

Why? The item may be of little interest to anyone else and go for far
less than your maximum bid.

ebay does bid increasing for you. If the current price is £10 and you bid £5000, ebay will bump up the price to the next step which is maybe £10.50, with you as the highest bidder. If somebody else comes along and bids £20, you'll still be winning but at £20.50 (or whatever the step above £20 is).
If nothing changes, you'll win it at the ending time and pay £20.50.

(you can bid any amount and it'll work out the steps, eg if that person bid £20.36 then the next step might be £20.86. It's good practice to bid an odd number to avoid ties where the earliest bidder of the identical amount would win it)

Different I know, but in a property auction I saw a plot of land for
£10. I assumed this was a ploy to attract attention and it would never
go for that price. In the end it went for ... £10. I am very glad I
did not bid £5,000.

ebay is not an auction - it's not subject to auction laws. They borrow
some pricing strategies from traditional auctions, but they don't work the
same way.

In real auctions it's strongly advantageous to place your bids live, but
ebay autobidding makes that much less necessary.

The one advantage of 'sniping' at the last moment is it avoids revealing
your interest until the last seconds of the auction, which gives others less time to respond to up their bids. But the highest bidder on the table always wins at the end of the day.

(a piece of land for £10 often carries more liability than value - caveat emptor!)

Theo

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 13/06/2025 11:34, Davey wrote:

On Fri, 13 Jun 2025 11:23:08 +0100
Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:

Davey wrote:

This auction is not allowing any offer lower than £120.

You can put in a bid of £125 (or whatever minimum bid it should tell
you) if it then says current bid is £125, you're the highest bidder

but you've revealed you're willing to bid, and other bidders will
react to thay, but in the end the result is everyone keeps upping
until nobody is prepared to any more, so you can bypass all the
faffing, stick your maximum bid of e.g. £198.76 now, then walk away
.. you might get it for £121 or might lose out to someone bidding £200

£120 is more than I am willing to pay, when it said that offers would be accepted, I hoped I could bid £90. But it meant 'bids less than £120'
not any bids at all. Ok, that's what it means.

But I'm still puzzled as to why it e-mailed me to tell me that somebody
else had put in a bid, but it still lists 0 bids. I just checked again.

Try contacting the seller and offering £90

--
"When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign,
that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."

Jonathan Swift.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Fri, 13 Jun 2025 10:54:32 +0100, Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk>
wrote:

Davey wrote:

I am interested in an item currently advertised on E-bay

The sensible way to play is think what your maximum bid is and place
that bid. The less sensible option is to wait until 2-3 seconds before
the closing time and enter it as a snipe bid ...

Why? The item may be of little interest to anyone else and go for far
less than your maximum bid.

Different I know, but in a property auction I saw a plot of land for
£10. I assumed this was a ploy to attract attention and it would never
go for that price. In the end it went for ... £10. I am very glad I
did not bid £5,000.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Fri, 13 Jun 2025 12:59:27 +0100
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

On 13/06/2025 11:34, Davey wrote:

On Fri, 13 Jun 2025 11:23:08 +0100
Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:

Davey wrote:

This auction is not allowing any offer lower than £120.

You can put in a bid of £125 (or whatever minimum bid it should
tell you) if it then says current bid is £125, you're the highest
bidder

but you've revealed you're willing to bid, and other bidders will
react to thay, but in the end the result is everyone keeps upping
until nobody is prepared to any more, so you can bypass all the
faffing, stick your maximum bid of e.g. £198.76 now, then walk away
.. you might get it for £121 or might lose out to someone bidding
£200

£120 is more than I am willing to pay, when it said that offers
would be accepted, I hoped I could bid £90. But it meant 'bids less
than £120' not any bids at all. Ok, that's what it means.

But I'm still puzzled as to why it e-mailed me to tell me that
somebody else had put in a bid, but it still lists 0 bids. I just
checked again.

Try contacting the seller and offering £90

A good idea, thanks.

--
Davey.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 13 Jun 2025 12:50:36 +0100 (BST)
Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

ebay is not an auction - it's not subject to auction laws. They
borrow some pricing strategies from traditional auctions, but they
don't work the same way.

In real auctions it's strongly advantageous to place your bids live,
but ebay autobidding makes that much less necessary.

Our local auction house, a large East Anglian company, will auto-bid
for you. In the same way as ebay does. I have found it useful.

--
Davey.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Davey <davey@example.invalid> wrote:

On 13 Jun 2025 12:50:36 +0100 (BST)
Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

ebay is not an auction - it's not subject to auction laws. They
borrow some pricing strategies from traditional auctions, but they
don't work the same way.

In real auctions it's strongly advantageous to place your bids live,
but ebay autobidding makes that much less necessary.

Our local auction house, a large East Anglian company, will auto-bid
for you. In the same way as ebay does. I have found it useful.

Yes, a lot of traditional auction houses now have a blend between in-person
and online bidding (which are true auctions according to law). I've not
used the various online platforms, but the idea is that bidding in the hall
is still a sensible way to buy (you get to inspect the item first etc) and
the auction 'event' on the day is not just a bunch of people hammering the website from their phones. For another thing you get to see how much other lots are going for, which is often hidden with online only auctions.

Theo

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 13/06/2025 12:32, Scott wrote:

On Fri, 13 Jun 2025 10:54:32 +0100, Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk>
wrote:

Davey wrote:

I am interested in an item currently advertised on E-bay

The sensible way to play is think what your maximum bid is and place
that bid. The less sensible option is to wait until 2-3 seconds before
the closing time and enter it as a snipe bid ...

Why? The item may be of little interest to anyone else and go for far
less than your maximum bid.

In which case you'll get it for a fraction over the next lower bidders
price ...

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 13/06/2025 10:12, Davey wrote:

I am interested in an item currently advertised on E-bay, for £120. I
have it on my Watch list. I just received a message from e-bay that
another buyer has just made an offer. But when I go to the item's page,
it says "0 bids", and merely repeats that the opening bid must be £120.

I tried to bid £100, but it won't let me offer anything below the
quoted £120.
The site hints that the existing bid is for £120, but it never actually
says so.

Clarity is obviously not e-bay's strong point. Is there a bid or not?

What you are trying to say is the starting bid is £120.

That is why it won't accept anything less that £120.

The bid counter will only increment once someone has bid £120 or more.

I use a eBay snipe bidding site. I suggest you look them up and join one.

Using a sniping site place the highest you're willing to pay and it will present that bid in the later seconds of the auction. That stops shill
bidding from the seller or his accomplices or from overreaching buyers.

While shill bidding is technically illegal in the UK in auctions, eBay
claims not to be an auction where shill bidding is rife.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Davey wrote:

£120 is more than I am willing to pay, when it said that offers would be accepted, I hoped I could bid £90. But it meant 'bids less than £120'
not any bids at all. Ok, that's what it means.

When the auction has ended it may allow you to "make an offer"

But I'm still puzzled as to why it e-mailed me to tell me that somebody
else had put in a bid, but it still lists 0 bids. I just checked again.

Maybe the bidder withdrew? or the seller cancelled the bid?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 13/06/2025 10:12, Davey wrote:

I am interested in an item currently advertised on E-bay, for £120. I
have it on my Watch list. I just received a message from e-bay that
another buyer has just made an offer. But when I go to the item's page,
it says "0 bids", and merely repeats that the opening bid must be £120.

I tried to bid £100, but it won't let me offer anything below the
quoted £120.
The site hints that the existing bid is for £120, but it never actually
says so.

Clarity is obviously not e-bay's strong point. Is there a bid or not?

Bids and offers are two different things. Is there a "Make an Offer"
button? If no-one is bidding and you make the seller an offer (even
below the minimum bid price), they may decide to accept it or make a counter-offer

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 13/06/2025 11:36, Theo wrote:

Davey <davey@example.invalid> wrote:

On 13 Jun 2025 11:07:05 +0100 (BST)
Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

Davey <davey@example.invalid> wrote:

I am interested in an item currently advertised on E-bay, for £120.
I have it on my Watch list. I just received a message from e-bay
that another buyer has just made an offer. But when I go to the
item's page, it says "0 bids", and merely repeats that the opening
bid must be £120.

I tried to bid £100, but it won't let me offer anything below the
quoted £120.
The site hints that the existing bid is for £120, but it never
actually says so.

Clarity is obviously not e-bay's strong point. Is there a bid or
not?

If it's an auction, £120 is the *starting price*. Bids will be 120,
125, 130, whatever. You can alternatively offer a higher amount to
stop the auction right now - this is presumably what somebody has
done.

That is the impression given, but that bid price is not shown, it says
"0 bids".

An offer is not a bid. It's an invitation to stop the auction right now and skip further bidding.

The amount of the offer is only visible to the seller, not to the punters.

My local car auction does the same - sales are Wednesdays, but some
cars have a buy now price that you can use to buy before the sale.
Your choice whether to gamble it goes for a lower price in the sale,
but risk somebody else buys now or outbids you.

Theo

This auction is not allowing any offer lower than £120.

You can't offer less than the starting price. You're saying 'if I agree to pay £200 will you skip the auction?' and the seller has to decide to take £200 or let the auction run. Since the bid price only goes up (if there are any bidders at all), the seller is not going to take less than the starting price in order to skip the auction.

You can't bid below the minimum asking price, but you can certainly make
a lower offer - and if the item is being auto-listed for the third time
and has had no bids, the seller may choose to accept.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

SteveW <steve@walker-family.me.uk> wrote:

You can't bid below the minimum asking price, but you can certainly make
a lower offer - and if the item is being auto-listed for the third time
and has had no bids, the seller may choose to accept.

Indeed, if you look at completed auctions and can see the item hasn't sold several times over then messaging them with an offer may be worthwhile. If this is the first time the item has been listed then the seller has no information how much interest there is until the closing minutes.

(this presupposes that sellers know how ebay works - it's always possible
that the seller doesn't and wasn't aware of settings like 'allow offers'. There's sadly an endless supply of numpties on ebay, both buyers and
sellers)

Theo

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 13/06/2025 11:16 AM, Davey wrote:

On 13 Jun 2025 11:07:05 +0100 (BST)
Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

Davey <davey@example.invalid> wrote:

I am interested in an item currently advertised on E-bay, for £120.
I have it on my Watch list. I just received a message from e-bay
that another buyer has just made an offer. But when I go to the
item's page, it says "0 bids", and merely repeats that the opening
bid must be £120.

I tried to bid £100, but it won't let me offer anything below the
quoted £120.
The site hints that the existing bid is for £120, but it never
actually says so.

Clarity is obviously not e-bay's strong point. Is there a bid or
not?

If it's an auction, £120 is the *starting price*. Bids will be 120,
125, 130, whatever. You can alternatively offer a higher amount to
stop the auction right now - this is presumably what somebody has
done.

That is the impression given, but that bid price is not shown, it says
"0 bids".

My local car auction does the same - sales are Wednesdays, but some
cars have a buy now price that you can use to buy before the sale.
Your choice whether to gamble it goes for a lower price in the sale,
but risk somebody else buys now or outbids you.

Theo

This auction is not allowing any offer lower than £120.

That, then, is effectively the reserve price.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 13/06/2025 14:30, Andy Burns wrote:

On 13/06/2025 12:32, Scott wrote:

On Fri, 13 Jun 2025 10:54:32 +0100, Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk>
wrote:

Davey wrote:

I am interested in an item currently advertised on E-bay

The sensible way to play is think what your maximum bid is and place
that bid.  The less sensible option is to wait until 2-3 seconds before >>> the closing time and enter it as a snipe bid ...

Why? The item may be of little interest to anyone else and go for far
less than your maximum bid.

In which case you'll get it for a fraction over the next lower bidders
price ...

This is generally true, but there are some categories of product where a
bid from a well known dealer or expert in a field[1] will create demand
where previously it might not have existed. So they need to manage
multiple proxy accounts or snipe to avoid that.

[1] Typically collectables like art, china, precious metal items etc.



--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk | |-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk | \=================================================================/

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 13 Jun 2025 16:22:45 +0100 (BST)
Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

SteveW <steve@walker-family.me.uk> wrote:

You can't bid below the minimum asking price, but you can certainly
make a lower offer - and if the item is being auto-listed for the
third time and has had no bids, the seller may choose to accept.

Indeed, if you look at completed auctions and can see the item hasn't
sold several times over then messaging them with an offer may be
worthwhile. If this is the first time the item has been listed then
the seller has no information how much interest there is until the
closing minutes.

(this presupposes that sellers know how ebay works - it's always
possible that the seller doesn't and wasn't aware of settings like
'allow offers'. There's sadly an endless supply of numpties on ebay,
both buyers and sellers)

Theo

And folks who rarely, if ever, use it, so are not familiar with how it
works, especially things that are not obvious.

--
Davey.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Fri, 13 Jun 2025 19:03:51 +0100
JNugent <JNugent73@mail.com> wrote:

On 13/06/2025 11:16 AM, Davey wrote:

On 13 Jun 2025 11:07:05 +0100 (BST)
Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

Davey <davey@example.invalid> wrote:

I am interested in an item currently advertised on E-bay, for
£120. I have it on my Watch list. I just received a message from
e-bay that another buyer has just made an offer. But when I go to
the item's page, it says "0 bids", and merely repeats that the
opening bid must be £120.

I tried to bid £100, but it won't let me offer anything below the
quoted £120.
The site hints that the existing bid is for £120, but it never
actually says so.

Clarity is obviously not e-bay's strong point. Is there a bid or
not?

If it's an auction, £120 is the *starting price*. Bids will be
120, 125, 130, whatever. You can alternatively offer a higher
amount to stop the auction right now - this is presumably what
somebody has done.

That is the impression given, but that bid price is not shown, it
says "0 bids".

My local car auction does the same - sales are Wednesdays, but some
cars have a buy now price that you can use to buy before the sale.
Your choice whether to gamble it goes for a lower price in the
sale, but risk somebody else buys now or outbids you.

Theo

This auction is not allowing any offer lower than £120.

That, then, is effectively the reserve price.

I didn't go anywhere with it, as I had more important distractions come
along. And checking today, it appears to have not been sold, and the
auction has ended. So nobody thought, like me, that it was worth £120.

--
Davey.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 13/06/2025 10:12, Davey wrote:

I am interested in an item currently advertised on E-bay, for £120. I
have it on my Watch list. I just received a message from e-bay that
another buyer has just made an offer. But when I go to the item's page,
it says "0 bids", and merely repeats that the opening bid must be £120.

I tried to bid £100, but it won't let me offer anything below the
quoted £120.
The site hints that the existing bid is for £120, but it never actually
says so.

Clarity is obviously not e-bay's strong point. Is there a bid or not?

No, there is an offer at below the starting price.
The auction would have had a 'Make Offer' button below the 'Bid' button. Someone has made an offer, ebay told you, as you have it in your watched
items list, so you you could make an offer, or bid on it.
The seller could reject, accept, or make a counter offer to the
prospective buyer.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Davey <davey@example.invalid> wrote:

I didn't go anywhere with it, as I had more important distractions come along. And checking today, it appears to have not been sold, and the
auction has ended. So nobody thought, like me, that it was worth £120.

So now is a great time to message them with an offer...

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 15 Jun 2025 19:19:07 +0100 (BST)
Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

Davey <davey@example.invalid> wrote:

I didn't go anywhere with it, as I had more important distractions
come along. And checking today, it appears to have not been sold,
and the auction has ended. So nobody thought, like me, that it was
worth £120.

So now is a great time to message them with an offer...

The 'Contact Seller' link has disappeared. And there are no 'Seller's
Other items'. I think it's off the radar at the moment.
Oh well, that's life.

--
Davey.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sun, 15 Jun 2025 21:47:35 +0100
Davey <davey@example.invalid> wrote:

On 15 Jun 2025 19:19:07 +0100 (BST)
Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

Davey <davey@example.invalid> wrote:

I didn't go anywhere with it, as I had more important distractions
come along. And checking today, it appears to have not been sold,
and the auction has ended. So nobody thought, like me, that it was
worth £120.

So now is a great time to message them with an offer...

The 'Contact Seller' link has disappeared. And there are no 'Seller's
Other items'. I think it's off the radar at the moment.
Oh well, that's life.

I found the link, on an old copy of the webpage, and I have made an
offer. It will almost certainly be rejected, but what the hell.

--
Davey.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sun, 15 Jun 2025 21:52:59 +0100
Davey <davey@example.invalid> wrote:

On Sun, 15 Jun 2025 21:47:35 +0100
Davey <davey@example.invalid> wrote:

On 15 Jun 2025 19:19:07 +0100 (BST)
Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

Davey <davey@example.invalid> wrote:

I didn't go anywhere with it, as I had more important
distractions come along. And checking today, it appears to have
not been sold, and the auction has ended. So nobody thought,
like me, that it was worth £120.

So now is a great time to message them with an offer...

The 'Contact Seller' link has disappeared. And there are no
'Seller's Other items'. I think it's off the radar at the moment.
Oh well, that's life.

I found the link, on an old copy of the webpage, and I have made an
offer. It will almost certainly be rejected, but what the hell.

And the answer came back that it has sold for £105, which is more then
my offer. Fair enough.

--
Davey.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 15/06/2025 05:09 PM, Davey wrote:

On Fri, 13 Jun 2025 19:03:51 +0100
JNugent <JNugent73@mail.com> wrote:

On 13/06/2025 11:16 AM, Davey wrote:

On 13 Jun 2025 11:07:05 +0100 (BST)
Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

Davey <davey@example.invalid> wrote:

I am interested in an item currently advertised on E-bay, for
£120. I have it on my Watch list. I just received a message from
e-bay that another buyer has just made an offer. But when I go to
the item's page, it says "0 bids", and merely repeats that the
opening bid must be £120.

I tried to bid £100, but it won't let me offer anything below the
quoted £120.
The site hints that the existing bid is for £120, but it never
actually says so.

Clarity is obviously not e-bay's strong point. Is there a bid or
not?

If it's an auction, £120 is the *starting price*. Bids will be
120, 125, 130, whatever. You can alternatively offer a higher
amount to stop the auction right now - this is presumably what
somebody has done.

That is the impression given, but that bid price is not shown, it
says "0 bids".

My local car auction does the same - sales are Wednesdays, but some
cars have a buy now price that you can use to buy before the sale.
Your choice whether to gamble it goes for a lower price in the
sale, but risk somebody else buys now or outbids you.

Theo

This auction is not allowing any offer lower than £120.

That, then, is effectively the reserve price.

I didn't go anywhere with it, as I had more important distractions come along. And checking today, it appears to have not been sold, and the
auction has ended. So nobody thought, like me, that it was worth £120.

The seller may well relist it with a lower reserve.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)