Ending Ebay listings early

[pgellis]

Yeah and to end it after only listing it for a couple of hours with a bid already placed is just plain stupid!

[glchen]

Originally Posted by pgellis

Yeah and to end it after only listing it for a couple of hours with a bid already placed is just plain stupid!

I don't think we know that. I think you need to ping the seller and ask him how much he sold the item for. This happened to be me before, and the offer that the seller took was reasonable and in the thousands of dollars.

I think ebay's policy is that sellers definitely cannot do off-ebay deals, which happens a lot, and probably in this case. So if ebay ever tightened up on this policy, the case that happened here would probably be significantly reduced (although a lot of sellers would be extremely angry). However, you cannot remove the option for sellers to end items early on ebay because there are many legitimate reasons why this may happen. For example, they may have lost or misplaced the item, or if they have a real store front, they could have sold that item in the store before it ended on ebay. In addition, auction values on ebay do not necessarily maximize value. For example, if the seller found a significant item and didn't realize it, it would be better for him to pull the item from ebay and instead go with one of the major auction houses where he'd see a wider audience (e.g., one of the Peck / Snyder cards found a few months ago on ebay).

Anyway, the point, I guess, is these days, no matter if there is a bid on the item or not, if I really want to item and want to prevent an offline deal on ebay, I always message the seller either with an offer or a message that I am very interested in the seller, so please let the auction go to completion. Or if they are taking offers, I want to be a part of it, so that I can also put my offer in if others are doing so. I only do this w/ cards that are rare and don't come around often. No point doing this w/ common T206's or Goudey's. When you do this, you also reduce the chance that you will win the card for an absolute "steal" since you are basically telling the seller that he has something valuable, and he will start doing more research in it, etc, and may even pull the card, raise the reserve, etc. It is what it is, however.

[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