How bidding works

A timed auction on Encave runs on maximum bids. You enter the most you are willing to pay; the software bids on your behalf, one increment at a time, and stops the moment it is in front. If nobody comes near your maximum you pay far less than it.

• Your maximum is never shown to anyone — not to the seller, not to other bidders, not in the bid history.
• It is never spent in one step. A £500 maximum against a £120 bid takes the price to the next increment, not to £500.
• If two maximums are equal, the one entered first wins. There is no advantage in waiting.

The step between bids grows with the price, so a £3,000 lot does not crawl upward in fivers.

Below £100

£5 steps

£100 to £300

£10 steps

£300 to £1,000

£25 steps

£1,000 to £5,000

£50 steps

£5,000 and above

£100 steps

A bid in the last 2 minutes extends the auction by 2 minutes, up to 10 times.

Sniping — a bid landing in the final second, leaving nobody time to answer — is the most complained-about mechanic in online auctions, and the usual cure is an extension rule nobody can predict. Ours is published, it is capped so a lot cannot run all night, and every extension is logged on the lot page with the bid that caused it. Keep the lot page open in the last few minutes: it is where an extension shows up, and nothing emails you about one.

A reserve is the lowest price at which the seller will part with the wine. Where a lot has one, the page says whether it has been met; a lot that ends under its reserve does not sell. Lots with no reserve carry a “No reserve” badge, and they sell to the highest bid however low it is.

There is no way in the software to withdraw or lower a bid — you can only raise your own maximum. A mistyped maximum on a lot that has not yet closed is a demonstrable input error and we will correct it, but you have to tell us before the lot ends.

Check the lot, the condition, who you are buying from and the all-in total before you confirm. Every card and every bid box shows the total including fees.