posted on February 4, 2001 07:34:18 PM new
Hi guys, I just received this email...
hey there! I just bought 1 of your items and I am current high bidder on the others.(I should have just bought them all right off) Anyway..I am very interested in all of your items...can you quote me on the whole lot? That means you would only have to deal with me only and we can end your auctions sooner.
Please contact me
Do you take visa?
What do you think? I mean, is this even allowed according to ebay?
posted on February 4, 2001 07:45:04 PM new
To make it "legal" by Ebay's standards, you could have this person bid on all your auctions, and then end the auctions. They will all show her as the high bidder, and ebay will still get their fees.
posted on February 4, 2001 07:46:32 PM new
Sounds pretty fishy to me! I not sure if this is against eBay's guidelines, but I don't think it would be beneficial to you anyway. I might tell them that you are unable to end the auctions early, as that would be unfair to other bidders, but when the auctions end, you could come up with a price for the unsold items and put them up in a "Buy it Now" auction. I think that this has worked very well for other people.
Martiniswiller (not my name on eBay)
(edited as I can find nowhere that it is against eBay's policies)
[ edited by martiniswiller on Feb 4, 2001 07:50 PM ]
posted on February 5, 2001 03:51:45 AM new
This is a common occurance for me as I sell wedding related items that can be considered "parts" of a larger set of accessories. I use the BIN feature and tell the bidder they can purchase ALL the items they wish with that feature and I will give them a break on the shipping, if I can fit everything in a single box, which is fairly easy. They are happy to have saved as much as $15 on the shipping charges and I have a BIN sale on 4 or 5 items all at once. As for the billing, I require they use Billpoint or Paypal for immediate shipping and I adjust the postage, or if they send funds, the grand total according to the final BIN and reduced shipping total. Either way, it works very well for me and eBay gets their full fees on the auctions.
posted on February 5, 2001 10:53:33 AM new
Be careful. In the "old" ebay, you could cheerfully end the auction with them as the winning bidder and accept whatever amount you agreed upon. However, now if this amount is more than the sum of all the current bid amounts on the auctions, then ebay could theoretically hit you up for fee avoidance. Not very likely of course, but just to give you something to consider (or a good reason to refuse to sell to this person).
Now if the sum of the current high bids is more than the package deal you agree on, you are probably OK, since ebay doesn't care if you give discounts (but they collect the full fee).
If the current high bids are less than the agreed upon amount, one solution is to cancel the auctions, relist them with the agreed-upon bid amount as the BIN (buy it now) price, have them immediately bid on the auctions. However, this stands the risk of them not following through and you paying two listing fees.
