Knowledgeable eBay Folks

[boykinlp]

I have a question for you knowledgeable eBay folks. I saw something that didn’t make sense to me. Why would you have an item listed in an auction format with an ending date, but say in the body of the ad that the item would only be sold at a given “Buy it Now” price? I understand selling an item and having a reserve, where the item won’t sell unless the price is over a certain price, but I don’t understand what I posted above.

A seller with a bunch of positive feedback listed many items like this yesterday.
Larry

 

[SweetMK]

The seller is using "boiler plate" to create the ad,,
the seller is not proof reading the ad, it is copy-paste,, and the extra wors just get copied over.

That happens to sellers with thousands of items for sale,,
no time to read the ad, post it, go on to the next,,

 

[boykinlp]

This person had it on every item I looked at, which was quite a few. I was thinking that maybe it was some kind of scam to beat eBay out of their fees somehow. I mean all items had a different starting bid and were set up for a weeklong auction, but in the body of the description, there was listed a BIN, and stated that that was the only way to buy the item.
Larry

 

[glowe]

The auction is normally started lower than the expected value. The Buy-It-Now is the price the seller would like to sell the piece for, but if it ends up with a lower qualifying bid, it will sell at whatever the winning bidder offered.

The potential advantage of the buy-it-now is that someone will come along and want the item badly enough that they do not wait until the end of the auction to potentially lose the item to another bidder who slips in the last second to claim the item. So the seller gets the money they want, while the buyer gets the item ASAP. If the bidding exceeds the buy-it-now price, the item can no longer be bought at that fixed price.

The other thing you see is that the seller will list the item as being for sale in their shop as well as on ebay. If so, they can sell the item out of their store if no bids have been placed online. Once online bidder starts the auction, the seller can no longer sell the item at their location. This is another reason why a buy-it-now price is shown on some items being auctioned.

Hope I made sense here.

 

[boykinlp]

The auction is normally started lower than the expected value. The Buy-It-Now is the price the seller would like to sell the piece for, but if it ends up with a lower qualifying bid, it will sell at whatever the winning bidder offered.

The potential advantage of the buy-it-now is that someone will come along and want the item badly enough that they do not wait until the end of the auction to potentially lose the item to another bidder who slips in the last second to claim the item. So the seller gets the money they want, while the buyer gets the item ASAP. If the bidding exceeds the buy-it-now price, the item can no longer be bought at that fixed price.

The other thing you see is that the seller will list the item as being for sale in their shop as well as on ebay. If so, they can sell the item out of their store if no bids have been placed online. Once online bidder starts the auction, the seller can no longer sell the item at their location. This is another reason why a buy-it-now price is shown on some items being auctioned.

Hope I made sense here.

Gary, I may be confused, but I understand an auction with a BIN, but this wasn’t really that. The only way to BIN was to contact the seller and tell them that you would pay their price. Again, the BIN price was only listed in the body of the description. I wish I had taken a screenshot of it, but I didn’t expect it to disappear. I probably am not making sense here.
Larry

 

[pawngal]

Fee avoidance. It cost a whooping 5 cents to have a BIN on an auction.

 

[deadin]

If the bidding exceeds the buy-it-now price, the item can no longer be bought at that fixed price.

Now I'm confused. How could an auction with a BIN have a bid that exceeds the BIN? Once the BIN is reached, the auction should be over.

 

[raljr1]

Bidding can exceed the BIN price. It happens when there is a price just below the BIN and the increment takes it aboved the BIN and bidding continues.

Robert

 

[Jon651]

I have a question for you knowledgeable eBay folks. I saw something that didn’t make sense to me. Why would you have an item listed in an auction format with an ending date, but say in the body of the ad that the item would only be sold at a given “Buy it Now” price? I understand selling an item and having a reserve, where the item won’t sell unless the price is over a certain price, but I don’t understand what I posted above.

A seller with a bunch of positive feedback listed many items like this yesterday.
Larry

If I understand you correctly, the seller listed an item for auction but also listed a "Buy It Now" price.

A seller can set a "Reserve" price on an auction - an amount below which the item would not sell. Reserve prices were not made public so bidders had to continually increase their bids until someone hit the reserve. Listing a "Buy It Now" price the same as the reserve is a way for a seller to set a minimum price that everyone can see.

Quite often you will see an item with a starting bid and a Buy It Now price that are like a few pennies or a dollar different, and if someone actually makes a bid at the lower price then the Buy It Now price disappears and the bidder has to wait until the auction runs its full amount of time before he gets the item. From a buyers point of view this is a foolish move to try to save not much money, because it only adds a delay to getting the item and someone else can still outbid you.

 

[Skeet 028]

And listing an item with a reserve usually costs extra. With BIN when a bid is made the BIN disappears and the auction goes to the end date and time. If the listing disappeared, then ebay caught the discrepancy and DC d the auction...There are people in the ebay world that report things to ebay that are not allowed. I listed some Gas checks which are allowed...someone reported it to ebay and an AI discontinued the auction

 

[deadin]

With BIN when a bid is made the BIN disappears

Sometimes..... (Copied from eBay rules)

When someone bids, the Buy It Now option usually disappears; however, in the case of reserve price listings, the Buy It Now option remains until the reserve price is met. In some categories, the Buy It Now option may continue to be available after the first bid for a limited time.