Ending auction early when multiple bidders

[jaggerfan]

We were lead to believe you could cancel all bids, and end the auction early to sell to highest bidder. That is not true. It is one or the other. The highest bidder was willing and supposedly bid a third higher bid, but when the auction ended it did not recognize his higher bid only the bid that showed at time he exceeded other bidder.  We are  missing out of funds because of misinformation and harassment by the bidder who was anxious to get the item.

[rfmtm]

You can end the listing and sell to the current high bidder.  However, if you cancel bids the current bid is revised as if those cancelled bids never happened.

[inceptions]

You misunderstand how it works. If you end an auction early, you sell at the high bid shown when you end it (not some hidden high bid the buyer tells you he placed as his max).

It is almost never in your interest to accommodate buyers who want to wheel and deal outside of your listing terms at the expense of others. You listed an item at auction that would end in X days. Other potential bidders may have been watching the item and waiting to place their bids near the end of the auction when most bidding takes place. I would always respond to these requests that my policy is to allow the auction to run to completion to be fair to all bidders.

At any rate, you've done what you've done, so you need to complete the transaction with your buyer at the winning bid price and chalk this up as a learning experience.

[woodland_gnome]

You were not "lead [sic] to believe" what you misunderstood, you simply misunderstood by confusing the two options:

You can cancel ALL bids and end the auction early without a winner up to 12 hours before the end of the auction.  It is permissible to do so to sell to someone who you negotiated with as long as you make a new listing so s/he can purchase at the agreed price (e.g. fixed-price with high Buy It Now and Best Offer so s/he can make a Best Offer at the agreed price).

You can end the auction early to sell to the then high bidder at any time before the auction actually ends AT THE THEN "CURRENT BID" AMOUNT, not at some other amount s/he might be offering.  The current bid is determined by what the second highest bidder's bid is (and if you cancelled all the other bids you are back to the Starting Price which would be the sales price.

[lady_madonna]

@jaggerfan 

When you end an auction to sell to the highest bidder, you are selling it to them at the current bidding price shown on the listing, NOT the highest bidder's hidden maximum proxy bid.