El Texican

I am selling something on ebay and started the auction with a buy it now option. Well, as soon as I got one bid on the item the buy it now option disappeared. I have someone emailing me saying they will buy it now for my original buy it now price. Is it unethical to shut the auction down and sell it to this person? Also, why did they Buy It Now disappear after one bid? Thanks.

waterrockets 

I'd tell the buyer to bid the buy it now price and hope for the best. Don't sell anything to anyone outside of ebay -- if you shut down the auction, just re-list it for the buy it now price (plus any fees for re-listing), and tell this joker to buy it that way.

PhilThee

Can you add a BIN price again?

Some auctions have a BIN price that is there the whole time of the auction.
I've only purchased things on ebay so I don't know.

bonechilling

The BIN always disappears after the first bid, unless you have a reserve price. Then it disappears when the reserve is met. It's kind of a weird system, and I've never really been sure of eBay's motivation for setting it up this way, except that reserve auctions makes them slightly more money.

I don't think that ending the auction early for the BIN price is unethical at all, although I'm sure some moralists here will disagree. You're arranging a person-to-person transaction, and eBay is simply the intermediary. Until the auction is closed, there is no contract on the item, so you should feel free to sell it to whomever you wish.

What I usually do when I have a generous BIN offer is to tell the person to bid up until they are the high bidder, even if it's $3.00 on a $500 item. I'll then go into the My eBay section, and choose the option "Sell to the high bidder at the current price." Then I sent the person an invoice with $3 for the item, and $497 in shipping. Anyway, that's just one way to do it, you can also end the auction early and sell it all off-eBay, or cancel the current bids so that the BIN returns, and then have your would-be buyer hit the BIN button.

El Texican

That is what I did. It didn't seem right to tell the people who had already placed bids "tough luck"

Thanks WR.

CEE

Many scams happen through deals that go outside of eBay. I've had first-hand experience. Either relist with the BIN price and starting bid at the same price, or tell the buyer to just bid on the item.

jccaclimber

If you're going to have them bid to a high bid then make the difference in shipping why not just have them bid to the BIN price and skip shiping?

jkizzle

always let the auction run its course unless you are going to get screwed. never sell outside of ebay.

ad6mj

I guess I must be a moralist, but I do believe there is a contract once a bid is made. A seller would not be happy if a bidder decided to cancel his bid.

operator

To cheat ebay fees, duh.

fujiroad73

Next time you should have a hidden reserve price, instead of Buy It Now. Let the auction run till the end.

ILUVUK

I'd recommend being careful...just as a reminder! For the first time in 10 years, my eBay account was hacked. no bids were placed nor was anything offered for sale, and credit info was safe (according to eBay), so all is well.

fogrider

the whole point of a bin price is to attract buyers to act quickly if they see a price they like. if you want it at the price, click and pay. if I see an item that has a bin price but want to play the game, I put in the opening bid just to eliminate the bin price. but there has been many times when the auction ends with the final price being over the bin price. these are the rules of the game, can we just play by the rules?

teamcompi

there appears as many ways to ebay as there is to ride a bike

save10

Plus there are alot of geniuses who push the price beyond the BIN price at the last minute. You make more than your BIN. And by idiots, I mean the people bidding on the CAAD 9 frame I was watching.

AnthonyG

Them is the breaks on eBay. You NEED to let the auction run its course. Buyers need to know that you understand how eBay works, the good and bad of it, that you respect it and that when it occasionally bites you in the arse that you will be a good sport and wear it. That's what having a excellent eBay feedback reputation is about and why its so important from a buyers point of view that sellers DO have a good feedback reputation.

I haven't seen your auction but when it comes to setting 'buy it now' prices which I nearly always do then its a necessary stratergy to set a reasonably high starting bid as well. You want to make the 'buy it now' price attractive and put off buyers making a fast, initial low bid. Setting a 99c starting bid AND a reasonable 'buy it now' price is just a waste of time. Someone will put in a 99c bid for the item even if that's the only bid they make in the whole auction.

Let the auction run its course now but learn for next time. Heck, you may even get a higher bid by the end of the auction anyway. You need to relax a little. Selling on eBay isn't for the nervous.

Regards, Anthony

mandovoodoo

No contract until bid is accepted. Can always end early. The eBay organization isn't going to help enforce a contract between you and a buyer or seller. Perhaps their assurances and protections are real, perhaps they aren't. I don't count on them.

Someone bids on eBay and buys something from me, that's great. Someone calls up about an item I have on eBay, I sell it to them and end the listing. I don't even ask if they saw the item on eBay.

There's nothing I can see that's unethical about ending an auction early. Bidders can pull bids, sellers can pull auctions. Until the auction closes, then there's a contract. Until then, just offers coming in for the item.

JMT114

This same thing happened to me in October, on the day my son was born. I came home to clean up and email the news to our friends and I had a bunch of reply emails from ebay members I had not contacted.

Apparently someone hacked my ebay acct. and used it to send email solicitations to other ebay members. They did not bid on or try to sell anything.

carpediemracing 

When you sell on eBay it's best to know the guidelines on how things sell before you list things, not after you've listed and gotten bids.

For example, the BIN price disappears as soon as the minimum bid or reserve price is hit.

For the $3 bid, here is the scenario - if the item started at $ 0.99 and someone bids that, then the next bid will be $1.99 (+$1). If someone bids $1000, the bid will show up as $1.99 because that is the next accepted bid amount. eBay's system allows a buyer to "overbid" in expectation that someone will bid higher. It would be a pain to keep bidding until you reach your budget number. If you "overbid" then eBay will bid on your behalf until your bid is exceeded. So if someone suddenly bid $999.01 on the item, then the next bid would be $1000.01 and since that exceeds your $1000 bid, you'd be out of the running. Until then, you'll be listed as the highest bidder as you automatically counter-bid each sub $999.01 bid out there.

For the original poster, if someone suddenly wants to buy it at the BIN price, it means they think it'll go higher than the price. Let them sweat it out.

This reminds me I have to give some feedback on a couple things.

good luck with your auction,
cdr

Ex Pres 

It's often slimy, though. Every time I've had a auction pulled that I was bidding on the price was still low.

Even worse, I was the only bidder on an item w/99c start (worth more), and after I bought and paid for it, the seller claimed he shipped it. Never came, but then he cheerfully offered to, and did, refund my money after about 2 weeks. Like to think he was just being a good seller, but it was too easy.