Great!  If you’ve bid on eBay before the short version is that our auctions work a lot like that.  If you’d like a little more detail, read on (then go try it out).

You often will pay LESS than what you bid.

This one is important to understand.  You could bid $300 on an item but only pay $150 for it.  Our system is designed to help you.  You win the auction paying the smallest amount more than the next highest bidder… even if your bid was much more; you only pay what is needed to outbid 2nd place. This makes it easy to bid what you are willing to pay on a host of items and then just walk away.  (If you do get outbid you’ll get an email letting you know so you can go and bid again if you like.)

“I just got outbid in less than a second?  What is going on?”  …If you see a high bid of $100 and you bid $110; why did the bid instantly go to $115 and it is still the same high bidder?

The system knows what the current bidder is willing to pay (their real bid), but it only shows whatever is needed to beat the next highest bidder.  This lets the person who wants it the most win it; but only charges them a hair more than what the second highest bidder offered to pay.

Nobody (not even us) knows the actual high bid of the current bidder.  So there is no way to know ‘how much is enough’ to outbid them.  Bidders just bid what they are willing to pay and have to see if they become the high bidder.

Your bid on an auction is a legally binding contract.  It is very important that you understand this is an auction to raise money for a good cause and the contributors worked on this without compensation.  Please help keep it a success and fun for the other bidders.   Read the auction carefully, making sure you understand what you are bidding on and any limitations or restrictions related to it.  Ask questions before bidding.  If you can’t pay, don’t bid.

What if you meant to type $100 and typed $1000 instead?  Email us immediately.  If we know about right away it is a lot easier for us to get it handled quickly so as not to disturb the auction much.  At the end of the auction we may not be able to correct a mistyped bid fast enough; so being extra careful to double check your bid before submitting it on the last day will be really appreciated.

An auction might have a minimum bid.  So if you bid and it rejects it or it doesn’t show up you’ll know why.  Take a look at the minimum bid and have another go at it.

1) Bid early. By placing a higher bid early on you can often ’scare off’ other bidders.  If they never bid, they can never get emotionally attached.

2) Bid odd amounts. Let’s say you’d like to pay $150 for something.  Consider bidding $160 or $165.  What happens is this.  Lets say you bid $150 for an item, and are now the high bidder at $100.  Someone comes and bids $110.  You are still winning.  Now they say “I’ll just bid $150, I’m sure that’ll take it.”  You are still winning.  They think… “I’ll just bid a couple more dollars.”… and now with a bid of $155 you are still winning and they leave because in their mind if you have it over $150 then you likely have it to $175 or even $200.

That extra $5 or $10 will defend many a bid.  The only person likely to unseat you is the person who will pay $175 or $200… the only question then is if you are gonna let them have it, or see if for $180 or $210 if it could be yours.