Understanding All the Different eBay Auction Types

Over many years, eBay has implemented numerous auction types, in an effort to give the buyers and sellers more options and flexibility in running their own business. There are numerous people out there that don't like the idea of their product possibly selling for much lower than the price they hoped. On the flip side, there are those who have tons of the same products but prefer not to sell them individually. This article will give you an overview of the many different kinds of auctions and how to effectively spot them.

Normal Auctions

These are the bread-and-butter of eBay, the auctions everyone knows: you bid, others outbid you, you outbid them, and the winner gets the item, simple.

Reserve Auctions

Reserve auctions are basically for sellers who do not want to sell their items for less than a fixed price, a concept you may be already familiar with if you have some experience with real auctions. They work exactly like normal auctions; the only difference is that you the seller would be told whether or not the bid for your product has reached its reserve price. If no one is able or willing to meet the fixed reserve price, then the auction is cancelled and the seller keeps the item.

You can spot these auctions by looking out for 'Reserve not met' or 'Reserve met' written next to the current bid on an item's description page.

Fixed Price ('Buy it Now') Auctions

Buy it now auctions work in two specific ways. A seller of a product may implement a buy it now button to their auction, which gives the buyer two options either they can make a normal bid or the can pay the asking price for the product and receive the product straight away. Many sellers today, eliminate the entire auction process now and simply just list all their items at fixed asking prices. Of recent, eBay has no added a new method to fixed price auctions, the 'best offer'. This simply means that you can now negotiate prices with someone who put their product up for sell using the buy it now feature, which could prove to be a highly effective way of getting bargains on things that don't seem to be selling to well.

Fixed price auctions are easy to spot, as they have a little 'Buy it now' logo either next to or instead of the current number of bids on the search listings page.

Multiple Item ('Dutch') Auctions

These are auctions that entail a seller selling more than one of a specific product. Dutch auctions are done simply by place bids. Buyers make a bid for a product then specify how much of that item they want, then everyone within the mix pays the lowest possible price that was bid amount the winner bidders. If you find it pretty tasking to grasp, don't worry about it, everyone does, that's why these auctions are very rare to see.

What is more common is when a seller has a lot of one item, and lists it using a combination of two auction types: a multiple-item fixed price auction. This just means that they say how many they have, and offer them at a fixed price. You can enter how many you want and then just click Buy it now to get them.

After you've been through all of this, you might find yourself faced with dilemma, when you're given the option, should you make a bid or should you just use the buy it now feature and save yourself all the hassle.

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