How can the sold price go down when an auction ends?

[sjmiller6404]

I have been watching a sellers auctions. As the auctions ends; the ones that do not get any more bids drop in price. Looking at the bids,  the top bid disappears and the next bid is the one it sells to. What's the deal?

[7606dennis]

Afraid we'll need a bit more detail in order to determine what is going on.  Are you saying that the highest bid is being retracted by the bidder or cancelled by the seller?

[popeye3165]

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@sjmiller6404 wrote:

I have been watching a sellers auctions. As the auctions ends; the ones that do not get any more bids drop in price. Looking at the bids,  the top bid disappears and the next bid is the one it sells to. What's the deal?

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IMO it sounds like the "winner" may have backed out of paying for the item and the seller offered the item to the next highest bidder.

[mudshark61369]

@sjmiller6404,

Usually when someone has this issue it is because they bid against another bidder's automatic bid, and quit when they reached the maximum they were willing to pay.  The High bidder retracts their bid in the last hour or less, if they are not outbid leaving the second place bidder the winner.  (check the bid history and look at the bottom to see if there was a bid retraction and when)

Over the last year it has been mostly low start price auctions from chinese sellers that have had this activity reported. If you still can access one of the auction's bid history, click on the a***b ID of the person who retracted the bid. That will show how many items the person has bid on, the percentage of bidding with the seller, and the number of bid retractions they have.  If the seller is registered in the U.S. check out any negative feedback they have received to see if they shipped from China.