Ending Auctions Early

[eurobeads]

H everyone & Happy Belated Canada Day!
Does anybody know wether ending auctions early when there is a bid (ticking off "sell to highest bidder") has any negative impact on our ebay seller account? I do this quite often when a buyer buys Buy It now items & also has active auction bids, so they don't have to wait for the auction to end. Thought I'd make sure I'm not somehow getting dinged by eBay for doing this!

[pjcdn2005]

You are allowed to do that  so there shouldn't be a negative impact from eBay. It's possible though that someone else was waiting closer to the end to bid and they were disappointed that you ended it but since most auctions including yours tend to get just 1  bid that's probably not the case.

[femmefan1946]

Since you are an experienced seller, I won't bother with the usual warning to newbies about bottom feeders who make a decent but not wonderful offer on an underpriced auction.

• That's not 'illegal' but does disappoint the bidders who may be watching or even have a snipe bid set up electronically. The seller is leaving money on the table.

I do this quite often when a buyer buys Buy It now items & also has active auction bids

Given your low priced and impulse buy items, I wonder why you have any auctions at all?

Because newbie buyers think eBay is still an auction site?

Like your own listings, more than 85% of eBay transactions are now Fixed Price.

Or because it gives you a chance to look at the bidder's FB left for others?

But no, there would be no harm to your selling account in ending auctions early to sell to the high bidder.

[eurobeads]

Thanks! I thought it should be ok to end them early. Yes I almost always only get 1 bid, I don't know why...Gone are the exciting days I used to see bidding wars all over the place. Where did all the bidders go? Probably to $0.01 China auctions 😞

[pierrelebel]

eurobeads  -   " I do this quite often ..."

???

From eBay:

Ending an auction-style listing early once it has received a bid can lead to disappointed and frustrated buyers who may be less likely to bid on listings the next time around. For this reason, we may charge a fee if you end a listing early. This fee is equal to the final value fee you would have paid if the listing had ended on its own and sold for the highest bid received at the time you ended the listing.

• We charge this fee if you cancel bids and end an auction-style listing early without a buyer.

• We don't charge this fee if you end an auction-style listing early and sell to the high bidder. (In this case, normal final value fees apply.)

• This fee doesn't apply to listings in the Real Estate and eBay Motors vehicle categories, and the Classified Ads selling format.

Because we understand that sometimes it may be necessary to end a listing early, we don't charge a fee for the first auction-style listing you end early (where a fee applies) per calendar year (January 1 to December 31).

For more information, please check the official policy:  http://pages.ebay.ca/help/sell/end_early.html

[femmefan1946]

Millennials.

Isn't that the answer to every current problem

Over half of transactions are now made through mobiles.

Impulse buyers (and I suspect yours are) want it immediately. Which is why your offer to end an auction early is smart.

Have you looked at your auctions on a smartphone?

Much of the information that is easily available to desktop/laptop users is hard to access on a mobile.

(I'd leave out all the information you have on shipping times, for example. You have no control so best not to make promises you can't keep.) (Actually I'd leave out everything after weight.) (Hmmm. No. Keep the Shipped from British Columbia, Canada. Tell people they are getting fast North American shipping.)

[eurobeads]

Hi Femme,
No, believe me I hate auctions & i'm not actually using them to sell, I'm only using them as an "advertisment tactic" to increase visibility, to lead people to my buy it now items. The bidders, almost always, bid first, then they buy Buy It Now items, meaning it's the auction that wheels them in in the first place. For some reason, auction listings get more views...and that's regardless of the price. In my experience, more auction listings = more buy it now sales.

[eurobeads]

Lol I know Femme I've been wanting to edit my descriptions & shorten/revise them for A LONG TIME now haha. And the text format shows up all weird on the mobile app. I'm technologically challenged so I never bothered fixing it. It's such a time consuming project to edit descriptions, i never get around to doing it. When I first started out, I had my shipping fee costs written in each item description, then when ship fee rates changed I had to go revise all my listings. What a headache that was!

[ricarmic]

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@pierrelebel wrote:

eurobeads  -   " I do this quite often ..."

???

From eBay:

Ending an auction-style listing early once it has received a bid can lead to disappointed and frustrated buyers who may be less likely to bid on listings the next time around. For this reason, we may charge a fee if you end a listing early. This fee is equal to the final value fee you would have paid if the listing had ended on its own and sold for the highest bid received at the time you ended the listing.

• We charge this fee if you cancel bids and end an auction-style listing early without a buyer.

• We don't charge this fee if you end an auction-style listing early and sell to the high bidder. (In this case, normal final value fees apply.)

• This fee doesn't apply to listings in the Real Estate and eBay Motors vehicle categories, and the Classified Ads selling format.

Because we understand that sometimes it may be necessary to end a listing early, we don't charge a fee for the first auction-style listing you end early (where a fee applies) per calendar year (January 1 to December 31).

For more information, please check the official policy:  http://pages.ebay.ca/help/sell/end_early.html

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Hi Pierre, just to clarify, euro is selling to the highest bidder.... so they are ok, as per point 2 that I underlined, but it is instructive to point out point 1 for those who may be thinking of doing it that way! (I know that in the past when I've auctioned stuff, I've had people NOT the high bidder try to get me to cancel the auction and sell to them for some amount higher than the current bid - which I never do, and ALWAYS the item sold for a lot more than what they were trying to get me to sell it for them. Actually I liked when that happened because I knew I had a hot item being auctioned!)

[eurobeads]

Ric I'm so jealous of your auction glory story!!! How exciting that people fight over your stuff that way! If these scenarios ever happened for me (which they never would), I would never dream of ending an auction early!

[ricarmic]

Its not as glorious as it sounds, what I do is auction 10 things I'm thinking are worth something but not sure.

Of those 1 if I'm lucky is one of the surprises, and they usually are something like stamps from China or India which are my version of selling iphones, lots of problems with communication, payment and INRish things....

It's also been over a year since I've auctioned anything, things are very slow in the stamp world, maybe I'll try some auctions in the fall again....to see what happens....