Thoughts on selling before auction ends?

zef204

I just put a slew of cards on e-bay both graded and ungraded, and I am getting several e-mails asking for what price I would end the auction early. I was looking to hear your thoughts on this from either side, the seller or the buyer. I buy a lot on e-bay and have never asked a seller to end an auction early. Looking forward to your opinions...

baseballfanatic

99 times out of 100, what the buyer will offer is much lower than what it would go for if you let the auction run. A fellow not too long ago gave a seller 600.00 for a grouping of 67 punchouts he had for sale. The guy turned around and sold them individually for 1,400.00. It gets kinda scary, but no one bids anymore until the last minute or 20 seconds anyway. If you are comfortable with the price offered, than go for it. But if you wait you could double your money...

zef204

In 2 cases they are both PSA and I have had an offer on each above SMR. On one of them I think is fair unless 2 people get into a bidding war then it could go for a few bucks more. The other is well above SMR but I have no idea as I have seen some unlisted SMR rookies go for well over $100.

baseballfanatic

Tough call. A lot of high end PSA have been going for WAY over SMR lately. A lot of cards that book for the 75-100 range have been going for 200-400 bucks. I guess we have the PSA set regestries to thank for that. Try a check of completed auctions for cards that are like yours. I have made a ton of offline offers, and it is always for much lower than I think they will go for. Factor in your final value fees too since they take away from the profit...

sixdart

As long as there are no current bidders on the auction. Make sure you're getting a price that you're satisfied with, otherwise you may be limiting your options for the very best price.

MorrellMan

Do what you like, but I stop being interested in anything offered by sellers who end auctions early.

sixdart

I agree ... especially if you cancel bids to sell!

baseballfanatic

Forgot about that part. Dont you hate having something bookmarked and finding it in your "ended auctions" as the item has been lost or broken or finding it as an "invalid item" in your favorite places?

zef204

I was afraid of that. I have never ended early in the past. They just went on last night and there are still no bids. I would never cancel bids to end early as I would be livid if that were done when I was buying. Its also good to know from fanatic that he comes in low. My thoughts are that the guy is probably willing and prepared to pay more than he offers, but just hopes he doesn't have to.

ctsoxfan

I wouldn't do it. Every time I have gotten such an offer, the item always ended up selling for much more. Let the auctions run.

baseballfanatic

<< <i>I was afraid of that. I have never ended early in the past. They just went on last night and there are still no bids. I would never cancel bids to end early as I would be livid if that were done when I was buying. Its also good to know from fanatic that he comes in low. My thoughts are that the guy is probably willing and prepared to pay more than he offers, but just hopes he doesn't have to. >>



Bingo!

jvineyard

I'm getting the same kind of offers for some of the stuff I have listed now. My policy has always been that I will not end an auction if there are either bidders or watchers. Once somebody has put it on their watch list, I won't end it early. I've explainied that to two guys in the last few days, and both have come back with higher offers? My reputation as a seller is worth much more than the few bucks extra I might make - and if they want the card that bad - BID on it.

Lothar52

they are scammers..most of the time they end up not paying you..check them and make sure they are not selling a similar item at the same time...they could be messing your auction over

loth

joestalin

From a modern card collector's point of view, these offers are often the best ones you are going to get. Today there "player set" collectors
who are on the lookout for rare numbered cards. Leaf Certified is a great example..there are parallel cards numbered to colors with
decreasing rarity....white to 250, red to 100 blue to 50 gold to 25 emerald to 5 and the unique mirror blacks. There are collectors
who try to get what is known as a master set..one of each...this makes the mirror black priceless. There are also people who try to
get all the emeralds.

Many times these collectors will pay whatever they need to, to get the card...the hardest part for them is locating the card. They realize that
unlike a PSA card which is always increasing in number, a numbered card, especially of a popular player, may only show up once on ebay
before it sinks into a private collection forever.

Good Luck
Kevin

dallasactuary

I have ended auctions early on rare occasions; what each of the situations had in common was:

There were no bidders or watchers on the auction
I knew the buyer, either from past dealings or by reputation
There were comparable completed auctions to check, and the price offered was fair
The buyer agreed to pay with PayPal before I ended the auction

When all of these conditions are met, I don't see any problem with ending the auction early; but if they're not all met, I'd let the auction run.

MorellMan makes a good point regarding the potential for turning off future buyers if they notice that you have ended auctions early, so it's probably not something you want to do very often in any case.

cardfan07

I have asked and been asked to end auctions early. Recently had a guy ask to end an auction early for my 57 Topps Mantle, PSA 4 for $125. Not the highest of offers..but if I'd taken it, I would have lost out on quite a bit more. He low balled me and I wouldn't have accepted even if there were no bids at the time (there were). I've also asked. Some have done it, others have not. I figure it doesn't hurt to ask-you get the card or you watch it and bid.

ldferg

i've noticed "vintagerookies" on ebay does this constantly...either selling or pulling but the auctions end early.

Griffins

I think it is completely wrong. I did have someone make me an offer once and I refused to let the auction end, he ended up winning the card for 200. less than the offer. It was fine with me and certainly fine with him.
I'll agree with Morrellman that once someone does that I usually won't waste my time with that seller again. There is one seller that did this a couple of times (oopps, forgot, his "server" went down) and not only have I never bought from him I won't even stop at his table at shows.
Just say no to ending auctions early.

SoFLPhillyFan

I have had several offers over the last two weeks for modern cards.

Each time the card sold for more than the offer.

Sometimes I don't even answer the message.

It's just bad business to pull out early, especially if there are bids or watchers.

detroitfan2

Not to sound holier-than-thou, but these are the kind of questions and responses that really chaff me. From selling outside of ebay:

Offers to Buy or Sell Outside of eBay

eBay prohibits email offers to buy or sell listed items outside of the eBay Web site. Offers of this nature circumvent eBay's fee structure and are a potential fraud risk for both buyers and sellers.

Some examples of outside of eBay offers include:

* Using information obtained through eBay to offer to buy or sell a listed item outside of eBay.
* Canceling a listing to sell to a buyer who became aware of the item through eBay

At what point did "it's against the rules" no longer become a valid reason to avoid a practice? Sure, others are doing it. Sure, ebay makes a lot of money. Others are selling fake Mantles too, that doesn't make it right. Maybe I should assume that everyone who has posted on this topic thus far did not know that this is against the rules, but it's about as blatant an attempt to circumvent fees as charging $5.00 to ship a single PSA graded card. Sorry, but that's how I feel guys. We may not like a lot of things about ebay, we may not like ebay's fee structures, but the fact is, ebay has allowed each of us to buy and sell things that we wouldn't have been able to buy and sell in a million years without ebay. And no, I'm not DaBigHurt of ebay.

That is all.

zef204

That seems pretty BLACK and WHITE

I don't think I will do it as I have turned down every offer in the past as well.

jrdolan

Well, for such a black-and-white policy, eBay makes it pretty easy. One of the reasons for ending early is "Item Is No Longer For Sale," which covers just about everything from change of heart to acts of God.

The one thing they did do was prevent sellers from yanking their auctions within 12 hours of the end, which helped.

earlycalguy

if you end the listing early you are doing the buyer a favor. in return for the favor only do it for a premium price on what you are selling.

redsoxcollector

Whenever I have a bid on an item and the seller ends the auction early, they go on my "non-bid list" - sellers who I will never place a bid with again. Just my $.02

ydsotter

The few times that I have asked someone to end an auction... I have always offered extremely generous prices... like way over what the last one sold for...

...but like some of the other guys said... 99 times out of 100, the person asking lowballs you...

When someone asks me to end an auction early, I tell them only if their offer exceeds what I might get anyway and blows me away...

zef204

Good advice...He offered $20 shipped, SMR is $18, sold for over $40

Good Call