eBay have recognised that there’s nothing more frustrating than an auction ending just for the winning bidder to show a bit of buyers remorse and submit a cancellation request. Now, from the 13th of May, winning bidders will be forced to follow through and pay – eBay.com are removing the option for buyers to cancel winning bids.
This is really important, as removing the winning bid sometimes means a long drop down to the underbidder. It’s not fair on the seller and it’s kinda not fair on other bidders either who may have missed out on the chance of a bargain if they hadn’t been outbid. Moral of the story, only bid what you’re willing to pay!
Auctions on eBay work best when winning bidders follow through and pay. You have told us that canceled bids disrupt your sale, hurt the item’s value, and create overhead. To better protect you, we’ll be removing the option for buyers to cancel winning bids.
– eBay.com
What this means for you
- Fewer cancellation requests – US buyers will no longer be able to submit cancellation requests after winning auctions.
- Auction sales are final – While US buyers can still message you directly to request a cancellation, it’s up to you to grant or reject. eBay policy states all auction sales are final and fully supports you in declining the request.
- Protection from negative feedback – If the buyer leaves negative feedback due to a declined cancellation, you can request its removal through Seller Help within 90 days of the sale.
eBay also published some FAQs to give guidance if a buyer tries to cancel a winning bid – short story, tough luck for them and you don’t have to cancel their bid!
- What should I say if a buyer is confused about why they can’t cancel? – You can let them know that this is an eBay policy. Once an auction ends and they’ve won, cancellations are disabled and the order is considered final. If they have concerns or questions about the policy itself, they should contact eBay directly.
- What if the buyer sends me a message to request cancellation? – Per eBay’s User Agreement, auctions are considered binding and buyers aren’t allowed to cancel an order themselves after winning an auction. If a buyer messages you to cancel an auction order on their behalf, you will not be required to do so, however you can choose to if you prefer.
- Which of my orders are covered by the new cancellation policy? – All orders resulting from auctions where the transaction takes place on the US site are covered by the new policy.
- Does this cancellation policy change apply to eBay Live? – No, currently this updated cancellation policy only applies to transactions resulting from auctions on our core US marketplace.
3 Responses
Will eBay effectively then take automatic payment on behalf of the buyer, if they refuse to process the payment manually? I think based on the very few cancellation requests I get, I’ll probably end up just cancelling it manually if they email, as I can envisage headaches with items suddenly arriving not as described etc.
Also, it’s one thing forcing the buyer to pay up, but as a business seller, the buyer will then have consumer rights and can perfectly legally request to return the item, which usually costs us as a business as we have to foot the return postage / risk of it not being packed properly for return.
Hopefully it will make at least a few bidders think twice before bidding, but I suspect there’ll still be buyer’s remorse going forward and it’s not a fail safe.
So eBay are turning cancellation requests (where they lose the FVF revenue) into returns (where they gain the revenue from selling a return label).
I’m sure it’s well intentioned, but unless they address the consequences for sellers of false INR’s and returns, as well as negative feedback if they decline a cancellation message, then they are just shifting the problem rather than solving it.
I hope the experiment fails in the US so we don’t have it inflicted on us in the UK, although does anyone over here actually still use auctions ?
Yes we use auctions exclusively to sell vintage comics and they work wonders for us. I envisage the problems you describe and so going forward will almost certainly manually cancel an order if the buyer requests it, rather than risking a sure fire return, with its associated costs and hassles.