send to online auction???

[sam72ca]

what is the option "send to online auction"??? I thought that is exactly what it was when you list an item open from bidding???? I am confused.

[momcqueen]

You have one active item as an auction format with Buy It Now enabled as an extra feature. 'Send to Online Auction' is a feature available to Buy it Now-limited listings. 

[hyperrush]

Means your listning  will show you acept aution&buyit now at same time.

[reallynicestamps]

EBay offers two kinds of listings.

Auction-- which most newbies know it for.

and Fixed Price-- which is what most experienced sellers use. (Over 85% of transactions are Fixed Price).

When your listing ends Unsold, you have the choice of relisting it as Auction or as Fixed Price.

The advantages of Auction are:

• If you are not sure of the value of the item, you can start it at an acceptable price* and it might possibly in the best of all possible worlds find two or more customers who will bid it up.
• ummm-- thats about it.

The advantages of Fixed Price are:

• you set the price at what you want to get
• the listing is shown for up to 30 days at the same cost as a 7 day auction
• if you find a customer, she can buy immediately and pay immediately
• you can add Best Offer if you want less money than you are asking for.

I think you may notice I have a preference in listing types.

EBay is one of the few online auction sites. To keep that difference, it encourages the naive new seller to use the format. Most move on pretty quickly to Fixed Price.

*Do NOT get sucked in by eBay's recommendation that you open an auction at a low price. You are unlikely to find more than one bidder, nowadays. Your opening price is the price that covers your costs (including labour) and that you would be content with.

[thestuffofchris]

It doesn't appear you've gotten an exact or correct answer to what you're asking.

"Send to Online Auction" does just what the name implies: it allows you to convert a Buy-It-Now listing to an Auction listing. The option is there for sellers who start an item as Buy-It-Now but, for one reason or another, want to convert it to an Auction at a later time. The Auction that gets set up is the same as any other Auction listing on eBay.

See the following link for more information:

https://pages.ebay.ca/help/sell/fixed-price.html

[pierrelebel]

"The option is there for sellers who start an item as Buy-It-Now but, for one reason or another, want to convert it to an Auction at a later time"

For the sake of clarity, a seller CANNOT change the format of a listing while the listing is active.

The "send to online auction" function can only be used on ended fixed price (BIN) listings.

[momcqueen]

Yes and no. Selecting that 'send to online auction' on an active BIN will end the listing as a BIN and create it as an Auction in one simultaneous move.

[thestuffofchris]

mjwl2006 is correct, as I have done this myself a few times.

[momcqueen]

Pierre is not incorrect. You can't change the format of any listing while it is active. What the 'send to online auction' feature does is a lovely two-part movement. It ends one and starts another altogether. In one user-created step. 

[momcqueen]

To split hairs. 

It really is a nice user-friendly feature. 

I've used it on numerous occasions lately to shift some items from BIN to Auction. I was over-budget on BIN and under-budget on Auction for my store subscription allotment. 

[thestuffofchris]

Oh, I wasn't saying Pierre was wrong. He's absolutely right. I was simply stating that your message about what happens to an active BIN when "Send to Online Auction" is used was correct.

[momcqueen]

Oh, I know.

But I felt the need originally to clarify what he said in the event it was misinterpreted by others to come.

And then I felt I should clarify that he was also correct, and that the devil is in the details of how the function operates. 

[momcqueen]

In case a new seller thought they could only use 'Send to Online Auction' on BIN listings that had come to their natural end. The seller doesn't have to wait until they expire on their own.