Ending Ebay listings early

[pgellis]

I agree with you that if a seller has a storefront and lists some items in his store on eBay, that the item may no longer be available to a bidder, but do that as a "Buy It Now", don't list it as a straight auction with an opening bid of $50.00 and then pull it after 2-3 hours.

I did message the seller and he told me that his brother saw his listing and asked if he could have the helmet (not sure if he had to pay for it) and the sellers quote to me was "family comes first". What a pile of horse....

[glchen]

Ah, yea, that's a load of *#%#, and the same as in this thread (Link), which had a bunch of E122 cards pasted into a scrapbook that the seller said he pulled b/c his brother in law wanted the Ruth card. That scrapbook then miraculously appeared in a B&L auction, which I won, taking only the Ruth card (which was still there and not taken by the brother in law), and selling the rest of the book.

[pgellis]

Yeah a bunch of crap. I rarely ask a seller to end an item early because I feel that as a seller, if I tell him I am willing to go to, let's say $1000.00 on an item, then why not let the auction run it's course and see if someone is willing to go to $1100 or more?

I just think that a buyer enters into an agreement to purchase an item once they place a bid, doesn't a seller also enter such an agreement once they list the item?

Once I told a seller, "please don't end the auction early, I GUARANTEE you that I will out-bid anybody for the item". He emails me back and tells me don't worry, I won't. Then he ends the item with less than 12 hours to go in the auction and I had placed several competitive bids already. I just don't get that mentality.

[SMPEP]

I too have been burned by items I want disappearing before the auction ends. So if there's an item I really want ... I now contact the seller and let him know that I will be making a last minute bid. I also ask him to not end the auction without at least giving me a chance to win the item.

Frequently, that encourages sellers to let the auction run its course ... but I've also had a couple sellers offer to end their auction early and sell the item to me at a buy-it-now price.

Cheers,
Patrick