6 ms·

I thought that's what "Buy it Now" was for: to end the auction early, with a sale.

• jstanley 9y ago
  If you add a Buy It Now option (which I've done a few times), it costs you 50p upfront, and it disappears as soon as the first bid is placed. It's just a waste of money unless you get really lucky and it sells before anybody places a bid.
  • brianwawok 9y ago
    That's not how buy it now works. The main use if it is for fixed price listings. The auction game is not worth the hassle. Want $100 for something? List it for $100 eith buy it now and payment required. Listing stays up till money is sent. Easy cheesey. Using auctions for things with fairly well known values is a waste. Days to collect bids then hope winner paid. EBay is still alive and well. It's just not really an auction site anymore. Most people only use buy it now.
    • jack9 9y ago
      > That's not how buy it now works. Except that it does. Observing that other people use it another way, doesn't change the existing functionality.
      • brianwawok 9y ago
        I mean sure, they can use it wrong. If you REALLY want buy it now + auction, you use a reserve price. Say, start at a penny, reserve price of $50, buy it now price of $70. Then buy it now dies not "disappear" with 1 bid for a penny. It sticks around until you hit $50. If you really but no reserve and buy it now on an auction, you are literally flushing money down the crapper. Unsure why eBay allows this, maybe easy money for them. But this use case is user error mode, and not how anyone who uses eBay would actually sell on eBay.