eBay

somanypostcards · ‎08-15-2020

Yesterday I was taking inventory. I found a number of Good Til Cancel (GTC) listings that were listed for 5 or more months, so I selected "Change to Auction" and used a low starting price to get them sold.

Later that day I got an email from someone who had placed a number of these items in a shopping cart while they were still GTC listings. When the buyer went to purchase these items, eBay informed the buyer there was an "error in listing." The buyer sent me an email message asking if the items were still available. When I checked, I saw that this buyer was listed as a bidder on the now auction items. I'm not sure if the buyer placed a bid on these auctions or if eBay entered the buyer's bids when the buyer tried to pay for the now non-existant GTC listings.

Is it possible for eBay to remove the "Change to Auction" option for items in shopping carts? If not, can eBay change its message to be more specific and tell the buyer that the item is no longer available as a fixed price listing, but is currently an auction item?

fern*wood · ‎08-15-2020

If you are okay with the opening bid, you can end the listing using the option to sell to the highest bidder.

luckythewinner · ‎08-15-2020

Your buyer placed the bids, probably because of the new low starting prices. eBay does not enter auction bids on behalf of buyers when you send to auction.

Your listings are now auctions for everyone. Listings cannot be auctions for some buyers and fixed price for others. That would be far too confusing.

If the current bids are acceptable, you can end the auctions early and sell to the winners at the current high bids.

But if not, you'll need to either tell your buyer to wait for th auctions to end, or end the auctions (and pay fees because they have bids) and then set up a fixed price listing.

postingid7659 · ‎08-15-2020

Looks like eBay ignores if items are in the cart when you convert them to an auction.

Convert them back (cancel the bids first) then have them buy in GTC format.

somanypostcards · ‎08-16-2020

@postingid7659 wrote:
Looks like eBay ignores if items are in the cart when you convert them to an auction.

Convert them back (cancel the bids first) then have them buy in GTC format.

Yes, I posted this situation in hopes that eBay would NOT ignore items in carts when sellers convert GTC listings to auctions in the future. At a minimum eBay could tell sellers if an item was in a shopping cart so sellers could decide whether to proceed with the conversion to auction format or not.

luckythewinner · ‎08-16-2020

@somanypostcards wrote:
At a minimum eBay could tell sellers if an item was in a shopping cart so sellers could decide whether to proceed with the conversion to auction format or not.

eBay has a "send offers to interested buyers" feature, which will send offers to watchers, repeat visitors, and people who have the item lingering in their cart (for more than 5 days, I think).

I always use the feature a day or two before I need to end listings, just in case I can prompt a sale. I did this a few days ago and got a half-dozen quick sales after offering 10% off on about 25 items.

It's not exactly what you are looking for, but I thought I offer it as an alternative to "send to auction" if you haven't tried it before.