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Auction procedures vs Buy It Now
Summary: radm-15 expressed confusion about an auction item being marked as "Sold" before the auction's end, even though it wasn't listed as a Buy It Now item. They noted the seller hadn't responded to their inquiry. disneyshopper explained that sellers can include a Buy It Now option that must be priced higher than the starting bid, and buyers might negotiate directly with the seller to end the auction early by agreeing on a price.
I was watching an item that was listed as an Auction; it had no bids and the end of the auction was still 5 days away. Suddenly the listing is shown as "Sold" although (as far as I can tell) no bids were ever placed. The product page showed the item as being Sold. I sent an inquiry to the seller but they never responded. My question is: How can an Auction item be sold to someone when it is not a Buy It Now item, and the end of the auction hasn't been reached? It's not like the seller removed the listing because of an error or anything. This seems to be defeating the entire purpose of having an item listed as an Auction, when the seller could just as easily have listed it as a Buy It Now. Any info appreciated.....
disneyshopper
MentorAug 12, 2026 at 11:49 PMWhen a seller lists an item as an auction, s/he has the option of adding a Buy It Now price that has to be at least 30% over the minimum bid. Did you see a BIN price on that listing? Also, a prospective buyer might have used the CONTACT SELLER link and asked the seller if s/he is interested in selling the item for xxx. The seller can use the REPLY WITH OFFER link in the message reply to the buyer, and if the buyer accepts, the listing is ended as Sold.
radm-15
OPAug 13, 2026 at 4:19 PMNo, there was no BIN listing at all, which is what threw me....but now I understand about the REPLY WITH OFFER option, I wasn't aware of that. Thanks for the info!