Hey all you experienced sellers - I have a question for you

[mindrace]

I have an auction that is about 6 hours from ending.  I started the auction at $99 and included a "Buy it Now" price listed at $275.  The item has never been used and sold at retail for $349.  The auction price climbed slowly at first but there are now 18 bids.  This morning I checked the auction's progress and the price had climbed to $280.  I was very surprised that the price was above the BIN at $275.  How could that happen?  Doesn't the BIN price listed kick in once the auction reaches that level?  I'm certainly not complaining . . . but I don't want to have an unhappy bidder to deal with that claims he tried to buy the auction at the BIN price and he was bypassed because a different bidder placed a higher bid.  The 2nd place bid shows at $275 (the BIN price).  The high bid now shows at $280 with an auto bid (the bidder has over 1500 transactions so he is obviously not a novice).  I hope someone can explain this to me and assure me I am not going to have unhappy bidders on my hands.  Thank you so much.

[golfingaddict]

Once the item receives bids (or reaches a certain price) the buy it now price goes away.  The bidder may not even be aware that the buy it now price was there.

This is a perfectly legitimate listing.  It is not unusual for a great item to get bid up over the buy it now price.   

[monica-sells]

no worries, mate....

except in some selected categories, once there is a bid, the "Buy It Now" option is gone bye-bye....

and, as far as I know, unless the bidders saw your listing before a bid, they would not know it had a Buy It Now option....

and those that might have are kicking themselves for not taking advantage of it...

good job!

[chapeau-noir]

In an auction, the BIN gives a buyer the opportunity to purchase the item outright, but doesn't limit the ending price - it's more a threshold - once past a certain percentage of the BIN price (the threshold), the sky is the limit.

[a_c_green]

---

@mindrace wrote:

I was very surprised that the price was above the BIN at $275.  How could that happen?  Doesn't the BIN price listed kick in once the auction reaches that level?

---

No, in fact the BIN price goes away once a bid is received (except in a few categories, where it may remain until bidding reaches at least 50% of the BIN price).

---

@mindrace wrote:

I don't want to have an unhappy bidder to deal with that claims he tried to buy the auction at the BIN price and he was bypassed because a different bidder placed a higher bid.  The 2nd place bid shows at $275 (the BIN price).

---

The second-place bid of $275 matching the original BIN price is just a coincidence. The BIN price went away back on April 11 when your first bid was received. Your second-place bidder didn't come along until 5 days later. It's all good. 🙂

[inhawaii]

Totally normal for an auction price to go ABOVE the buy it now price.

Sometimes bidders get carried away and end up paying more than they should.

Good for you!

[12345jamesstamps]

What is interesting is the "bidder with 81 feedbacks"...who did a retraction on your item when it was very low...then went and bid over that retraction...currently not the highest bidder...but bidder has 5 retractions this month so far. You need to keep a watch on this bidder. This is the person who gave all these bids on the item after the retraction.

[mindrace]

Thank you all for your helpful and informative comments.  I had no idea that the BIN option went away once the bidding started.

[nobody*s_perfect]

---

@12345jamesstamps wrote:

What is interesting is the "bidder with 81 feedbacks"...who did a retraction on your item when it was very low...then went and bid over that retraction...currently not the highest bidder...but bidder has 5 retractions this month so far. You need to keep a watch on this bidder. This is the person who gave all these bids on the item after the retraction.

---

A seller who was worried about dealing with this bidder could just put them on their blocked-bidder list right now to eliminate any chance that they'll come back and place yet another bid, to win the auction.  Between the retraction and the nibble bidding, I'm wondering what else they might do if the become a buyer.

Block bidder: https://www.ebay.com/bmgt/BuyerBlock