{One quick note here (you'll find more information on retractions further down the page): Contacting the seller and gaining his approval for removing your bid does not constitute making the retraction "okay" or "valid" according to eBay's rules. That is why it is very important to know exactly what you are bidding on before placing a bid. Follow the link listed below for the three, very specific reasons eBay (not the seller) allows retractions! Remember, the rules for using eBay's site are written by eBay, not sellers. If the seller is willing for your bid to be removed, he should likely be willing to cancel your bid for you so that the retraction is not on your record for the next six months.}

Also do some research on the seller: check not just his feedback rating number, but also what comments are written about him, especially any negatives. Sometimes undeserved negatives get written about people, buyers and sellers alike. Try to determine a pattern in the transactions that drew the negatives. Is the seller basically honest? Does he work to solve any differences or problems that may arise? This gives you the chance to determine what his patterns of working with people are like. Avoid those with a high proportion of negatives to positives, especially if they are from a number of different people. Be sure to also check feedback he leaves for his customers. An easy way to do this is to visit Feedback Forum. You'll find the link for it at the bottom of most eBay pages. Look for the blue link titled "View feedback a member left about others" and click on it. On the page that comes up, enter the seller's user name, then click the View feedback button. The comments he has left for his customers will then come up. Carefully read what he has written about his customers. Is he happy with most of his transactions? If he must leave negatives, is he calm and factual, or is he retaliatory, ANGRY, VAGUE, NAME-CALLING AND SHOUTING!!!!! (You get the idea.) If you don't feel comfortable in any way search for the item being sold by someone you feel more comfortable about.

Study the description of the item carefully. What payment methods does the seller accept? Does he ship to your area? What are the shipping charges? If there is anything you don't know or understand about the item or the listed terms, use the "Ask seller a question" link and politely ask the seller what you want to know. Do NOT bid on any item if there is anything about the Terms of Sale (aka, "TOS") you do not understand or agree with. The time to clear up any misgivings is BEFORE bidding. When you place a bid, you are agreeing to all terms in the seller's listing whether you have read them or not, so make certain you understand exactly what you are bidding on and all conditions. When you've emailed a seller with questions, if you do not receive satisfactory answers before the auction ends, let it go. Most items will come up again sooner or later. *A few pointers on bid retractions. A common problem for many people new to eBay is that of invalid bid retractions. Often after having placed a bid the novice bidder will rethink his position and want to "lower his maximum". Ebay's system is not set up to "lower" a maximum (or proxy) bid. Although to increase one's bid all one must do is simply re-bid, once a bid is placed it cannot be lowered. The only way to lower a bid would be to completely retract the bid and re-bid for the lesser amount. However, there are only three valid reasons for retracting a bid according to eBay's rules. Retracting a bid in order to place a lower one is not one of them. Remember that any bid placed is viewed as a contract to buy the item from the seller should that bid become the winning bid. This is a primary reason for placing an item on one's watching page and researching the item to discover its value and determine its worth to the bidder prior to placing any bids. One can always go back and re-bid later in the auction, but he cannot simply retract a bid just because he has changed his mind about how much he is really willing to spend for the item. Keep in mind that eBay is an auction venue, not a shopping site at which items can be bid on as though they were being placed in one's shopping cart only to be returned to the shelf if another more desirable or less expensive item is found. The only avenue on eBay which may be used as such a "cart" is your "my eBay" watching page. Here up to 30 items can be safely listed, watched, and removed with no obligation or penalty. For information on bid retractions and the very few allowable reasons for them, please see eBay's page on bid retractions here:

Bid retractions

There is another typical (yet invalid, nonetheless) reason newcomers find they want to retract a bid. Oftentimes they have bid on an item only to be overbid by someone else. Perhaps the price has now increased to become more than they wish to pay for the item. Thinking they are now "safe" due to the outbid, they proceed to bid on another auction for the same or a similar item. However, all bids are "live" until an auction actually closes with one specific person as high bidder. It is not until the auction closure occurs that those who were overbid are no longer obligated to honor their bid by completing the transaction. Should a seller decide to cancel the top bidder's bid or that bidder retract his bid before the auction closes, the next highest bidder then becomes reinstated as top bidder and is now once again responsible for honoring the bid by completing the transaction. This is another good reason for placing an item on the watching page. Should you find the item at a better price on another auction, you are not already "tied up" in the first one and are free to bid on the second (although for the same reasons as for any other auction, that one too, would be better placed on the watching page until the auction is nearer to its end). Hence it is never a good idea to place bids on multiple listings of an item, unless one truly wants to buy each one he has bid on. The policy of reinstatement can be found listed on eBay's Bidding Tips page, which is a wonderful read for those getting started on eBay. Simply click the following link and on the page that comes up, click the blue Bidding Tips link:

Bidding Tips

The easiest way to avoid retractions is to make certain to carefully read the confirmation page, reviewing the amount of your bid before clicking on the confirm button. If the amount shown is incorrect, use the Back button of your browser to return to the auction page and retype your bid amount. Be careful to insert decimals in their proper place. Many have made the simple error of typing 1000 instead of 10.00, which enters the bid as $1000 rather than $10. Watch that the comma (,) is not accidently entered instead of the decimal (.), as 10,00 will be entered as a $1000 bid rather than a $10 bid. In addition, be careful in using Buy It Now features. Many times new users will mistakenly type the Buy It Now price in the bid box and click on the Bid Now button, only to find that they didn't "Buy It Now", but simply placed a bid for that amount and the auction continued on. The reverse situation has also been a common problem. Clicking on the Buy It Now button (which currently is to the right of the Bid Now button and a little bit lower on the page) will also take you to a confirmation page. If it is not your intent to Buy It Now, but only to bid, do not use that confirmation button. Again, click on the Back button of your browser to return to the auction page and enter a regular bid if it is not your intention to buy the item at the Buy It Now price. Using the Buy It Now confirmation page button immediately closes the auction and you will be responsible for paying the seller for the item.

Please take the time to educate yourself about bid retractions and determine to avoid them if at all possible. All bid retractions remain on the user's record (on user's feedback page) for six months. They make many sellers question the seriousness of the prospective bidder, especially when the user is new. As a result, some sellers will simply cancel the bids of such users and may even block that user from bidding on any of his auctions. Any eBay member who sees invalid bid retractions (they are listed in each auction's bid history page) may report such violations of the bid retraction policy. Excessive bid retractions can get a user completely suspended from eBay.

Plan the amount you will bid. Think about when the auction will end and when is the best time for you to place your bid.

Bid ONCE. Bid the MOST you are willing to pay for the item. Only as much of your maximum amount will be used as needed to keep you on top of the highest bidder until your max is used up. Bid as LATE in the auction as possible to avoid others "nibbling" at your bid, as well as to avoid being a victim of shilling. If you lose, walk away knowing that someone else was willing to pay more than you were. If you win, GREAT!

Positive transactions will help you to enjoy your eBay experience!

Reading Bid Histories

People are often surprised when, at the close of an auction, they look at the bid history to see how/why they did not win and see a winner who outbid them minutes, hours or even days before them and think, "That bid wasn't there before. Where did it come from?" Or some may wonder "Why was I outbid so many times, but the one who outbid me only shows as having bid once? Where are all his bids?"

In viewing the bid history of an auction, it is necessary to understand that bids are listed in descending order based on the dollar amount of the bids, rather than in chronological order. Viewing the date/time stamps of the bids will help you understand which bids were placed when; rather than simply looking at the list from top to bottom. When you see a winning bid that was entered at an earlier time than one that was outbid by it, it's not that the bid wasn't there before. It was. It is simply the proxy system at work. Here's how that happened:

When the earlier bid was placed, what was shown as the current price on the front auction page was not necessarily what the high bidder at that time had entered as his proxy bid. Only the amount needed to make him top bidder is shown as the current price on the auction page. The remainder of his proxy remains behind the scenes to work for him when others come in to bid. Later bids placed by others, if they do not top his proxy, will "push" his bid up higher in the history list (and the current price shown on the front auction page will increase as they do this), even though his bid was earlier. The reason the proxy bidder's bid does not show multiple times is because he physically only entered a bid one time. The bid history does not reflect each individual time his proxy did battle with & topped a later person's bid. Any time you see an individual bidder's name more than once in a bid history, it means that person physically typed in and entered individual bids each time. Proxy bids only show the one time they are placed, not each time they are challenged by later bids. To understand more about proxy bidding, please visit the following link:

Proxy Bidding

For more information on reading bid histories, visit this page:

Bid Histories