This guide will help readers bid smarter by using eBay's bid history. By viewing the bid history, you can sometimes figure out what the user's max bid is and this can give you a huge advantage over those who are not aware. You're simply using the information provided by eBay so this is NOT against the TOS or anything.

When viewing bid history, there are two things you need to look for. One is what the difference between the current bid price and the second highest bid. Second is for instances of same bids by different users.

Bid Increments
Make sure you understand eBay's bid increments. Bids go up by a certain amount depending on the current price. The table on the page linked shows what the bid increments are. If the difference between the current bid and the second highest bid does not equal what the bid increment is supposed to be, that means that the current bid is the high bidder's maximum bid.


eg. User 1 bids $12.50. User 2 comes along and bids $12.80, making them the high bidder. For items between $5 and $24.99, the bid increment is 50 cents yet the difference between $12.80 and $12.50 is only 30 cents, which tells User 1 that the current price of $12.80 by User 2 is their max bid. User 1 then can bid any amount and that amount will make them the high bidder. (Near the end they raised their bid, which is why you see User 1 at $13.30 twice.)

Same bids by different users
Looking at the bid history, do two users have the same bid amount? Is that amount the current price? If so then this tells you that the maximum bid of the high bidder is that amount. When two users bid the same amount, the bid of the first user is accepted while the second one just bumps the price to that amount.


Notice how there are two bids for $15 and $15 is currently the high bid (bolded).
User 1 bid $15 for the item. Later, User 2 comes along and starts bidding. Their fourth bid was $15 and the current price was pushed up to $15. Any time you see two bidders bid the same amount and that amount is the current price, it tells you that the next bid will beat those two and will become the highest bid.


That's it! You can easily figure out what the current bidder's maximum is when you see this. In the second example, if User 2 had known about this, they would know that if they just bid 50 cents more, they would become the high bidder. The auction ended with User 1's bid of $15.


And now for a couple quick tips. Nothing new but most people seem to always forget so it's worth mentioning again.

Always bid your max.
When bidding at the beginning of an auction or during the last few seconds, always bid the maximum amount you are willing to pay.

• If you bid at the beginning and other people start joining in on the bidding, if they see that no matter what they bid they keep getting beat by your one bid, they will more likely be deterred from bidding any higher because they think you have a really high max bid.
• If you snipe at the end, bidding your max will allow you to bid closer to the end time. You don't want to be sniping and finding out that your bid isn't high enough and then ending up losing because you ran out of time to put in another bid.

Always bid odd amounts..
Don't bid round numbers. Most people do and this makes their max bid easy to figure out. By bidding an odd amount you can literally win by pennies. eg. The second highest bid is a round number like $15 while your bid is $15.08.


I hope you found this guide helpful! Happy bidding!