Can I bid lower than starting bids on ebay?

Last seconds bid on Ebay?

• As a seasoned Ebayer I never bid on anything until the closing sessions of the auction. As a seller I was wondering if the escalation of the bidding continues after the auction closes or is cut off when the clock stops. For example an item is on Ebay for a starting price of £10,no bids have yet been placed. In the final seconds 3 people place maximum bids of £12, £15 & £20. As the bidding is going up automatically the clock stops before the maximum bid is reached. Does the automatic bidding continue (ie no new bids can be placed but the highest bid is reached) or does the bidding stop when the clock stops? Hence the item can be sold for less than the maximum bid?

• Answer:

  The bidding stops when the countdown is done, which means no new bids are accepted. In the case you mentioned, the item will go to the person who entered 20.00 at a price of 16.00 assuming everyone got their bids in (therefore, it sucks to be in second place as you would have allowed someone else to get a good deal). As a side note: there is a good reason to enter an early bid - it looks discouraging to a competitor who got his hopes up all week, seeing zero bidders on an item. If I'm booked to do something else at the time of close of auction, I'll enter two early bids if there are zero bidders at the time. Then on the day the auction ends, just before I leave for some engagement, I enter a final bid of 5x the maximum amount I am willing to spend. At worst, I ended up paying 1.25 times the amount I was willing to pay; at best, my early bid looked discouraging and I ended up paying a fraction of the average eBay value of the item.