Should You End an eBay Auction Early? by Vendio

Post taken from the Vendio blog, Vendable

Ending eBay Auctions Early

It’s a seller dilemma. A buyer emails and asks you to end your auction early and sell to them outright or for the bid they have placed on your item.

This actually occurs more frequently since the best offer option was added to eBay. Countless times I have seen sellers ask the question: “Do I end the Item early and sell?”. Experienced sellers will typically answer “no” as they know that the price is likely to climb in the last few minutes of bidding.

It does appear that newer sellers get these requests most often.

So, what is the best practice?

If there is interest in your item, it is likely that there will be more bidding and a higher realized price if you let the auction run its course. The downside is that you may end up not selling the item or not getting the price offered. However, in most cases, you’ll end up with more bids (money) if you wait it out.

So, how do I answer the inquiry?

To make it easier on yourself, compose a standard message that you keep on hand, which lets a buyer know you appreciate their inquiry, you hope they bid, but there are other folks interested in the item and it would not be fair to them to end the item early (or its your policy), etc. Be kind, but don’t encourage back and forth communication unless you do plan on selling to the buyer at a higher price (I was really hoping to get $30).

Many sellers would not recommend that you end your item early, but there are occasions where you may wish to end the item early and sell it.

If you do end your item early, you are still obligated to sell to the highest bidder, so make sure that the person who inquired is the highest bidder.

Happy Selling!

By Vendio

An eBay Certified Solutions Provider since 2004, Vendio provides an ecommerce solution for eBay sellers of all sizes. Vendio offers a series of applications which can be installed on a standalone basis or used to extend the functionality of the Vendio's eBay listing and inventory management solution.