Why would a seller close an auction early?

GabbaGabbaHey

iomexico wrote:

The starting bid was £30 which is what I bid, I thought if anyone else bids then I will up my bid

That's NOT how eBay works - it is not a "Going, Going, Gone" type auction. You really need to read about Proxy Bidding (there are some good tutorials on the eBay site) before you bid on any more auctions. Basically you should only ever bid once on any auction, and that bid should be the maximum which you would be prepared to pay for the item.

angelcake

thats it tell all these newbies how its done then everything will sell for peanuts!!! :rolleyes: just kiddin!

do it how you want to and bid when you want to! I have bid on things at beginning of auction because I am not too bothered whether I win or not! Also it stops people closing the auction (sometimes!! ) if they see they have interest!

Contains_Mild_Peril

bleugh wrote:

I do this often, if someone offers me a decent amount for an item, and i receive payment before the auction ends, i'll pull the auction.

it's technically naughty as you avoid ebay fees though, but i pay 'em enough as it is, so i don't care :-)

I'm surprised that you would admit to this on an open forum! If you are the same bleugh who sells on eBay, you could deter potential buyers with such a confession. If your eBay username is something other than bleugh, I hope you will say so now, because you could give eBay's bleugh a bad reputation which is probably undeserved if it's not you!
I consider ending auctions early purely for (hoped) financial gain, if there is already more than one bidder or watcher, to be deeply unethical. I always refuse any such requests from buyers. As far as I'm concerned, just because something is allowed doesn't necessarily mean it's OK. I would like to see eBay profiles include statistics on this dubious practice.

iomexico wrote:

What's nibbling? I have only bought one item before on ebay.

That would be entering a bid much lower than your maximum, fairly early in tha auction.

The starting bid was £30 which is what I bid, I thought if anyone else bids then I will up my bid, as the auction did not end until Friday. The other person bid £31 and that was the final bid and price that it sold for.

I emailed the seller and they responded that it was the first time they had sold anything on ebay and didn't know the procedure.

"Really sorry, this was my first one, wasnt quite sure how to go about it".

That's a bit of a pathetic excuse. Still, if they really are that thick, it's their loss. It sounds like they missed out on a good chance to make considerably more money in this case. Many bidders do bid as Hintza suggests - bid late and bid their maximum.
I don't think there is anything particularly wrong with bidding more than once. It's also a common strategy, and although it's quite likely to cost the buyer a little more, it does have the advantage that you're slightly less likely to lose out if the seller ends the auction early for some reason.

soolin

angelcake wrote:

thats it tell all these newbies how its done then everything will sell for peanuts!!! :rolleyes: just kiddin!

do it how you want to and bid when you want to! I have bid on things at beginning of auction because I am not too bothered whether I win or not! Also it stops people closing the auction (sometimes!! ) if they see they have interest!

Angel you have a very valid point and something that is often overlooked. I have often bid early in an auction as a tactical move, I bought a great item a while back, the completed listings showed this item went for around the £22 mark, never more, opening bid was £19.99 so I bid £22.13 very early in the auction and at the last moment someone bid just below my proxy and gave up, so I still won (at £22). If I had not bid until the last moment that probable £22 bid would have been already there, so I would have had to bid at a minimum of £23 to win, where I actually got it at £22. I hope that makes sense..it's all to do with increments and having a ceiling price for an item.

Soo

skintchick

I always watch stuff then sneak in with my maximum bid in the last couple of minutes. Or use auction stealer.