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Finally, a little Buyer-Seller equality on Ebay

gameusedhoopgameusedhoop Posts: 3,585 ✭✭✭✭
in Trading Cards & Memorabilia Forum
Starting next week sellers can't end their items in the last 12 hours if there is a valid bid on the item in question. This matches the time period that a bidder can retract a bid. For those of you who have been shutout in the last seconds because the seller fears "his" price won't be met this is good news.

Good news for ebay also, they will now get more in listing fees as you will see sellers raise their minimum bids closer to their "price" and stop risking starting items at $.99 to save listing fees.

Link to the new policy: Buyer-Seller Equality

Comments

  • jrdolanjrdolan Posts: 2,549 ✭✭
    The link didn't work for me, but it sounds like a reasonable solution to try. I'm sure some downsides will emerge, such as when your auction has been hijacked by a bidder who's goofing around or getting revenge for another transaction. I can see how the "no-cancel" rule could be manipulated by those who always find ways to manipulate things.
  • gameusedhoopgameusedhoop Posts: 3,585 ✭✭✭✭
    Link works now. I was logged in on the first attempt.
  • jrdolanjrdolan Posts: 2,549 ✭✭
    "Beginning next week, if a listing has 12 or fewer hours remaining and has, or had, a winning bid during the final 12 hours of the listing, the seller will no longer be able to end the listing, except to sell to the current high bidder on eBay. Sellers may still cancel specific bids that they find unwelcome, but may no longer utilize the "cancel all bids and end this item" feature."

    Hmm, so can you cancel the "unwelcome bids" one at a time and THEN end the auction with less than 12 hours?

    I do like the concept, just looking for loopholes and problems.
  • funlover1974funlover1974 Posts: 84
    Date: 09/30/04 Time: 04:02:29 PM PDT

    Next week, we are updating the policy governing when a seller may end or change their listing. This will align our sellers’ ability to manage their listings with our buyers’ ability to retract bids. Currently, buyers have limitations on retracting bids during the last 12 hours of a listing.

    Today, our policy allows a seller to cancel bids and end an item at any time as long as one of the following reasons is met:

    -The item is no longer available for sale.
    -There was an error in the starting price or -reserve amount.
    -There was an error in the listing.
    -The item was lost or broken.

    Sellers are also prevented from making changes to a listing during the final 12 hours.

    Beginning next week, if a listing has 12 or fewer hours remaining and has, or had, a winning bid during the final 12 hours of the listing, the seller will no longer be able to end the listing, except to sell to the current high bidder on eBay. Sellers may still cancel specific bids that they find unwelcome, but may no longer utilize the "cancel all bids and end this item" feature.

    The practice of canceling all bids and ending an item early with only minutes left is very frustrating to buyers. This change should improve the overall buyer experience.

    Sellers may still end listings during the final 12 hours of the listing if the item does not have any bids.

    Regards,
    eBay
  • funlover1974funlover1974 Posts: 84
    I was just about to post a finally message but saw this one instead.

    The way the rule is being interpretted on the Ebay boards is that you can cancel unwanted bids, but you will not be allowed to end the auction if there were winning bids on it with 12 hours to go. Makes it harder on sellers who wait til the last few minutes and click the cancel all and end button. Now they will have to work harder to make sure their auction ends without a bidder if they don't want to sell at the price. If they cancel to many bids they may hurt their selling price even more Say they get all bids knocked out with 2 seconds left, but one of the one second snipers get it for the minimum.
  • jrdolanjrdolan Posts: 2,549 ✭✭
    I think the plan is fine, and I hope it works well, but there is simply no way to force sellers to complete a sale if they don't want to. As I have discovered to my cost recently, all they have to do is not ship the item and say they did.

    Worst-case scenario for them is PayPal forces them to give a refund ... which suits them fine, they didn't want to sell for that price anyway.

    Best-case scenario (for the sleaziest sellers) is they string the buyer along for 30 days until it's too late to get a chargeback from PayPal.
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