How to Bid on a Multiple Item Auction on eBay

You can find many great bargains on eBay. Most items are listed on eBay individually. A few items are listed on eBay as multiple item auctions. Unlike regular bidding multiple item auctions are offering several identical items to several winners. To bid on a multiple item auction you need to be smart and efficient. Multiple item auctions can be in the format of auction listing, fixed price listing, or lot listing.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Internet access
• Computer

1. Get online and sign in to eBay. You can do this by visiting eBay.com and entering your username and password.
2. Find the item you want to bid on. You can do this by browsing categories or by simply searching for the item on the eBay main page.
3. Determine that the item is a multiple item auction. There should be something written about how many items are on auction. Multiple item auctions have two or more identical items for sale.
4. Under the heading, “Ready to bid?” specify the number of items you are interested in as well as how much money you are willing to pay for each item. Place your bid.
5. Check the bidder’s list. This list will show you bids that are currently not winning and those prices. The bids that are currently winning will show the price those bidders would pay if the auction ended. In the bidding history list, all of the winning bids will show the price of the lowest winning bid. This is how you will determine if you are winning.
6. Exceed the lowest winning bid listed in the bidder’s list in order to win.
7. Monitor the auction until it closes. Stand by and keep checking the bidder's list. When you are not winning, you will have to keep exceeding the lowest winning bid.

Tips & Warnings

• If it is a fixed price auction, you can just specify the number of items you want and pay the price set by the seller.
• Bid on the auction as soon as possible. If two bids are the same price, the earlier bid will get priority.
• You cannot use automatic bidding to enter a maximum or proxy bidding for multiple item auctions.