I’ve bid on something and nobody else has yet. It started at 99p as many things do. I just stuck my maximum bid in so eBay can do the rest. Can the seller tell at this stage that I have a maximum bid that is higher than the current 99p bid? I know he won’t be able to see what it is, just wondering if he’ll be able to tell that there is a potentially reasonable bid there rather than a 99p chancers bid. I suspect if it stays at 99p it will get withdrawn, I certainly wouldn’t be happy if it was mine and went for that.

They can’t tell unless they shill bid. If it is worth more it’ll go up unless its poorly advertised (mis-spelt, collection only, funny finish time, etc)

If the seller doesn’t want to sell it for 99p, they should have set a reserve, or a higher start price.
Most people bid in the last few hours or last seconds anyway, so the price may shoot up. Unless its something really obscure, and no-one else bids, then you might get it for 99p.

As things stand all they can tell is that there is 1 bid on the item, unless they shill bid as mentioned above.

Had you bid 99p, then later gone back and increased your maximum bid then the seller would be able to see that there had be 2 “bids” but you were winning for 99p and from that could deduce that you have entered a higher maximum bid, but again would not know how much that was for.

I have sold stuff on ebay that I was certain would fetch a price and it has gone for 99p, and on the flip side I have also won items that I was certain were worth more. It’s a game, sometimes you win sometimes you lose, I wouldn’t withdraw a sale as it wasn’t for the price I was hoping for.

OK cheers. I am expecting it to go up at the end, but you never know.