Posted By:
Josh K.Actually, it was me who said that sellers could end the auction whenever they want. To be precise, I said:
"they can end an auction and choose to sell it to whoever they want, whenever they want."
I also do not agree that this is a faux pas on ebay - buyers may not like it, but its certainly not a rules violation to end an auction early prior to the last 12 hours. If it were, ebay wouldnt have a procedure for doing so. One of the permissible reasons to end an auction early is that the item is no longer for sale. When a seller ends an auction to sell off line, that is exactly what has occured - the item is no longer for sale - on ebay. It doesnt mean you can never sell the item again or cant sell it to someone off line.
In fact, there is no law that prohibits selling items listed on ebay off line - just like if you are selling a house, there is nothing that stops you from deciding not to sell. The only reason ebay cares and tries at all to make it difficult to end auctions is that they dont want to lose too much in final value fees.
Now, all that being said, it would probably be easier if sellers just placed reserves on their items and let the auctions run their course - of course the response to that is that buyers often dont bid on items with reserves because they are afraid they wont get a good deal. The bottom line is (and Im just as guilty as the next person) buyers do everything in their power (snipes, staying away from reserve items, etc) to get as low a price as possible. Why shouldnt sellers be able to do the same. I would bet anything that if ebay had a 10 minute rule at the end of an auction or 10% bid increments like auction houses, you would almost never see auctions ending early.