"Buy it now" price reached, but no tranasction

The_Boss

I'm selling some Next Vouchers on ebay and specified a £62 buy it now price.

The current top bid is £62 and has been for the past 2 days, yet the auction has not closed and is still counting down.

In previous sales, the auction ended when someone hit that price. Has something gone wrong?

rsykes2000

Did you have a reserve on ? If no reserve, the BIN vanishes on first bid and is not reactivated even if the price is reached.

The_Boss

I had a reserve of £20.

I just find it strange the top bid has been stuck on £62 for a few days now after quite a few bids before when that was the BIN price.

nightswimmer

The_Boss wrote:

I just find it strange the top bid has been stuck on £62 for a few days now after quite a few bids before when that was the BIN price.

A BIN auction only finishes if the buyer presses the BIN button and buys at that price. If your auction reaches what was the BIN price, it doesn't stop, it just keeps going until the end of the auction.

The fact that the price has stayed at £62 is just coincidence. What I expect happened, was someone saw that you would accept £62 for it and was willing to pay that much, but instead of pressing the BIN button, they bid £62 instead. That way there was a chance that they might win the auction for less than the £62 they were prepared to pay, saving them some money. (If that makes sense! )

The_Boss

Ok. I'm not really up on my ebay so can you please explain how they could save money by bidding £62 instead of doing the buy it now? Could it happen if someone before retracts their bid and their auto top bid would go down?

mah_jong

if no one else had bid then they would have got it cheaper than thier maximun bid of 62.

nightswimmer

The_Boss wrote:

Ok. I'm not really up on my ebay so can you please explain how they could save money by bidding £62 instead of doing the buy it now?

Mr A sees your auction, and thinks £62 is the maximum he is willing to pay for those vouchers. But instead of hitting the BIN button, he takes a gamble and places a bid for £62 instead.

As this bid is above your reserve of £20, the BIN option gets removed and is no longer available.

If no one else bids before the end of the auction, he will win the tickets for £20, saving himself £42 in the process.

If someone else bids on the auction before it ends, but it is below £62 he still saves himself money.

If someone out bids him, he loses the auction and would have been better off using the BIN option, but that's the gamble he took.

Could it happen if someone before retracts their bid and their auto top bid would go down?

Unfortunately yes, this can happen.

The_Boss

Wicked. Thanks for explaining that.

The bid before was £60 so thats ok. To be honest, I was hoping to get £50 for them so all is good.

tom_and_barbara_good

I thought that you couldn't have a reserve of less than £50?

nightswimmer

The_Boss wrote:

Wicked. Thanks for explaining that.

The bid before was £60 so thats ok. To be honest, I was hoping to get £50 for them so all is good.

How many different bidders have you had for the auction?

There is a scam called Bid Shielding. I don't understand it fully but you can find it discussed in this thread:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=369647

If you only have 2 or 3 bidders, it might be worth checking their feedback, and checking to see how many bid retractions they have made in the past.

I'm not trying to alarm you by saying this, as the chances are the bids are legit, but it is always worth checking.

Sugar_Coated_Owl

tom_and_barbara_good wrote:

I thought that you couldn't have a reserve of less than £50?

You can't