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If you’re really interested in an item with a reserve, e-mail the seller and
politely ask how much the reserve is. Some sellers guard the reserve amount
like the crown jewels but others graciously reveal the figure. The point of the
reserve is to protect their investment and get qualified bidders, not waste
your time.

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Private auctions


Private auctions are handled the same way as plain-vanilla auctions, except
no one but the buyer and seller knows who the winner is. As a matter of fact,
all bidders’ names are hidden from investigation from anyone other than the
seller.
After you’ve been on eBay a while, you might see the same group of names
bidding on the same auctions as you. I like bidding in private auctions
because they’re handy for snaring items secretly, without my regular competitors knowing that I’m bidding on the item. (See Chapter 6 for bidding
strategies.)

Multiple-item auctions


A multiple-item, or Dutch, auction allows a seller to auction multiple identical items. You can bid on one or as many of the item as you want. When the
total numbers of items has been bid upon at the opening price, the next bids
have to beat the previous bids by one bidding increment.
When the auction is over, all winning bidders (those with the highest bids)
win their items at the lowest bid price. I know that sounds ridiculous, but
that’s the way it works. I’m only reporting this — it must have taken a creative mind to come up with this theory of auctions. If you want a more
in-depth description of the Dutch process, go to eBay and read their
description:
to place a bid iin a Dutch auctions, you must input the amount of items you
wantt to bid on and the amount you want to bid per item.

Buying an Item Outright


Although eBay’s success was built on auction, eBay also allows sellers to
handle outrights sales. You can make a direct purchase