eBay has launched the Bid Assistant tool which allows buyers to create ‘groups’ of similar items in their Watch-lists that they would like to bid on. Buyers set a maximum bid amount then hand over the auction bidding to eBay. eBay will then bid on each item successively in chronological order until it wins one of the items in the group. Then the Bid Assistant stops and you pay for the winning item.

The Bid Assistant tool will certainly benefit buyers who don’t mind which of a group of items they buy – such as when they are watching a number of Ninendo Wii’s for sale and don’t mind which one they buy.