Save money with the loopholes of the Buy It Now feature.
The Buy It Now feature that appears in some auctions allows a bidder to bypass the bidding process and end an auction early at some predeterminedprice. Whether or not this is a good deal for the buyer, however, depends on the Buy It Now price the seller has chosen.
The Buy It Now option remains visible on the auction page until the first bid is placed, after which it disappears. (The exception is reserve-price auctions, where Buy It Now will be available as long as the reserve hasn't been met, regardless of the number of bids.) There are several ways to use this to your advantage.
Some of the best deals on eBay are Buy It Now items, where the seller specifies too low a Buy It Now price, allowing you to snatch it before anyone else gets a chance. If you see a good price, why wait? Just click Buy It Now and end the auction without bidding.
There may be a reason that an auction has a low Buy It Now price; make sure you read the auction description carefully before you commit. And watch out for seller scams [Hack #25] . Buyers have the same obligation to complete Buy It Now transactions as those that end normally.
Click the Buy It Now tab in search results, and then sort by Newly Listed, and the newest Buy It Now auctions will appear first. This gives you a good chance to catch early deals, as they're unlikely to last more than a few hours.
Auctions with too high a Buy It Now price are just as common as those with too low a Buy It Now price. But there will always be some yahoo who doesn't know any better, and will come along and buy these items anyway. If, however, you place a bid right away—say, the minimum amount—the Buy It Now option will disappear, and bidding will proceed normally. This will not only give you a chance to win the item for less than the Buy It Now amount, but will also give you more time to decide whether you really want the item. (This is an example of when it pays to bid early, a strategy contrary to that of sniping [Hack #26] .)
This works best on auctions with artificially low starting bids, because bidding is likely to exceed your first bid and you'll be under no obligation to buy. For example, consider an auction with a Buy It Now price of $12 and a $1 minimum bid. Suppose you were to under cut the Buy It Now price by bidding $1; the item might then end up selling for less than $5, yet could easily have sold for $12 if someone who really wanted it got there before you.
Let this be a lesson to sellers to choose their starting bids and Buy It Now prices carefully. Had the seller in this example set the starting bid at $6 and the Buy It Now at $9, you might have bought it right away for $9. You would've been happy to get a deal, and the seller would've gotten twice as much for the item. See "What's It Worth?" [Hack #42] for similar strategies.
Naturally, you run the risk of the bidding exceeding the original Buy It Now price, something that happens often on eBay. But if the Buy It Now price is more than you're willing to pay, you're going to lose the auction either way.
There's also a chance that the auction won't get any other bids, and you'll end up winning the item with your starting bid. Assuming the bid was low enough, you should be happy to get a good deal. However, if you suspect that you may be stuck with something you don't want, you probably shouldn't bid, lest you be forced to try to retract your bid [Hack #32] .
Buy It Now is an optional feature, chosen by sellers on a per-auction basis. A seller may not wish to include a Buy It Now price if she is unsure of the value of the item, or if she doesn't want to scare away early bidders with too high an opening price. The Buy It Now option is also available only to sellers with a feedback rating of 10 or higher, so sellers new to eBay won't be able to include it even if they want it. And as stated at the beginning of this hack, the Buy It Now feature disappears once bids have been placed on the auction.
For whatever reason, there will be an auction without a Buy It Now price, but that doesn't mean you can't "buy it now." Just contact the seller; in some cases, you'll be able to convince the seller to accept your offer and end the auction early.
Using eBay's resources to conduct business behind eBay's back is a blatant violation of eBay's policies. The purpose of this section is not to aide off-eBay transactions, but rather to enable communication between buyers and sellers to help close deals more quickly.
There are good and bad ways to broach the subject, and, as with many aspects of using eBay, diplomacy is very important here. The idea is to get what you want, but also to make it worth the seller's while.
Here are some good ways to request a Buy It Now:
This is polite and nonconfrontational, and the seller will typically respond with a price or ask you what you'd be willing to pay.
This is similar to the previous example, except that it doesn't send the message to the seller that you're trying to circumvent eBay's rules. Use this only if the auction hasn't yet received any bids. (See "Make Changes to Running Auctions" [Hack #65] for details on how sellers can accommodate this request. Remember, sellers with a feedback rating of less than 10 will not have this option.)
Pique the seller's interest by including a specific offer in your first email. Even if it's too low, you can always raise it later.
About half the sellers I've contacted with offers like these end up agreeing, and the other half have preferred to wait. In nearly all cases where a seller has declined to sell early to me, though, I ended up buying the item for less than my original offer. Let this be a lesson to both buyers and sellers!
Here are some examples of what not to do:
Why would any seller sell at the current price when they can wait and most likely get more money? Remember, make it worth the seller's while, or they won't give you the time of day.
The tone here is condescending and aggressive, and most sellers will respond poorly (if at all). Furthermore, if the bidding has been healthy and your offer is not much higher than the current price, the seller will probably take it as an insult that you'd expect her to sell so cheaply. You're asking the seller a favor, so be nice!
Again, the tone is too aggressive, and the message offers the seller nothing for her trouble. Furthermore, it pressures the seller to quote a price right away, which is never good. Sellers put in this position will quote you a higher price for fear of quoting too low. It's much harder to haggle a seller down than to increase a low opening offer.
If a seller seems disagreeable to the whole idea, you're unlikely to convince her otherwise (unless you offer so much money that it's no longer worth your while).
You can often determine a seller's disposition before you write by simply reading the auction description and even the feedback comments she's left for others. If the seller's tone is relaxed and positive, then she'll be more likely to make a deal. If the prose is stiff and curt, the seller will likely want to proceed "by the book" and let the auction play out.
Assuming the seller agrees, you'll have three choices:
One, you can wait for the seller to add a Buy It Now price to the auction, and then purchase the item normally. Just make sure to check the auction page frequently and purchase it as soon as the option becomes available, lest someone beat you to it.
If the seller can't use Buy It Now for whatever reason, you can always bid and become the high bidder, with the understanding that the seller will then end the auction early and sell to you at the agreed price (regardless of the closing price of the auction). This allows both you and the seller to leave feedback for one another and use eBay's other services. Keep in mind, however, that this can be seen as a form of fee avoidance,[3] which is strictly prohibited on eBay.
The other option is for the seller to cancel all bids, end the auction early, and then sell to you outside of eBay. The seller may prefer this, as it will save the eBay fees normally charged to successfully completed auctions (though possibly get her in trouble with eBay), but there will be little advantage for the buyer, because any transactions not completed through eBay aren't eligible for feedback, fraud protection, or any other services. Of course, this is also a clear violation of eBay policy, but you already knew that.
See "Let's Make a Deal" [Hack #66] for strategies for sellers, as well as a few other options.
[3] Strictly speaking, it's against eBay policy for any user to intentionally circumvent the fee system, which should not be too surprising. But eBay also can't prevent members from completing transactions any way they choose, even if the end result is a coincidental lowering of the fees eBay ultimately receives.