| When your listing is complete, the auction itself begins. But what if, for whatever reason, you need to make a change to your listingor cancel the auction altogether? Editing Your Listing One thing I heartily recommend doing is to look over your ad carefully after you've posted it. Maybe you like itgreat. Maybe you don'tnot so great. Fortunately, if you don't like your listing, eBay lets you revise it. If you haven't received any bids yet (and there's more than 12 hours left before the end of your auction), you can edit anything you want about your listingthe title, description, pictures, starting price, you name it. If the item has received a bid, you can only add information to your descriptionyou can't change the existing description or other information. (And if there's less than 12 hours left, you're stuckyou can't change anything.) To edit your listing, go to your item listing page and click the Revise Your Item link (located at the top of your listing, just below the item title). This leads you to an editing screen where you can change whatever information you want. Canceling an Auction What if your auction starts and you decide you really don't want to sell that item? You need a good excuse, but you can cancel eBay auctions. Canceling an auction is a two-step process: 1. | Cancel any existing bids on your item. Go to the Bid Cancellation page (offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?CancelBidShowor go to the Site Map page and click Cancel Bids on Your Listing) and cancel the first bid on your item. Then return to this page as many times as necessary to cancel all the outstanding bids.
"Mike Sez"  | You can also use the bid canceling feature to delete bids from undesirable bidders. Let's say you stipulated in your item listing that your auction is for U.S. bidders only, and you discover that someone from Japan has placed a bid. Just cancel the bid. (And maybe email the bidder and tell him why.) Or maybe you stated that you only wanted bidders with positive feedback, and a no-feedback newbie (or below-zero slime) places a bid anyway. Just cancel the bid. (And no emails are necessary!) |
| 2. | Officially end your auction. (You can't end an auction that has open bids, which is the reason you had to cancel all the bids first.) Go to the End My Listing page (cgi3.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll? EndingMyAuctionor go to the Site Map page and click End Your Listing) and enter the auction item number. Click the Continue button to proceed, and then click the End Auction button to officially cancel your auction.
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Blocking Buyers Here's something else you'll eventually run into. Not every member of eBay is worth dealing with. When you run into a deadbeat bidder or otherwise slimy customer in one of your auctions, you don't want to have to deal with that person again. The best way to remove this person from your life is to block that bidder from all your future auctions. To block a bidder, you have to add that user to your Blocked Bidder/Buyer List. Follow these steps: 1. | From the Site Map page, click the Block Bidder/Buyer list link (or go directly to pages.ebay.com/services/buyandsell/biddermanagement.html).
| | | 2. | When the Bidder/Buyer Management page appears, click the Add an eBay User to My Blocked Bidder/Buyer List link.
| 3. | When the Blocking a Bidder/Buyer page appears, as shown in Figure 15.18, add the buyer's user name to the list; separate multiple names with commas.
Figure 15.18. Blocking unwanted bidders from your auctions. 
| 4. | Click the Submit button when done.
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You can remove blocked buyers from your list at any time. Just return to the Blocking a Bidder/Buyer page and delete the user name you want to unblock, and then click Submit. Relisting an Item This is maybe getting a little ahead of things, but it's a good place to talk about the subject. What happens if your auction ends and you don't have any bidders? The answer is simple: If at first you don't succeed, try, try again! When you relist an unsold item, eBay automatically issues a refund for the second insertion fee, assuming the following conditions are met: You didn't receive any bids on a regular (no-reserve) auction or, in a reserve price auction, you didn't receive any bids that met or exceeded your reserve price. or The original buyer backed out of the deal, resulting in your filing an Unpaid Item alert. You are relisting an item within 90 days of the closing date of the first auction. If you're relisting a reserve price auction, the new reserve price is the same as or lower than the original reserve price.
One last thing. If your item doesn't sell the second time, eBay won't waive the insertion fee. In other words, if you have a real loser item, eBay won't give you a free ride! To relist an item, follow these steps: 1. | Go to the item listing page for your completed auction, and click the Relist Your Item link.
Caution  | You can't take advantage of the relisting offer if you tried to sell a fixed-price item at your eBay Store. |
| 2. | Proceed through the normal listing creation procedure. Your information from the previous listing will already be entered, although you can make any changes you want for this new listing.
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eBay will refund your listing fee for this second listing time, although you'll still be charged a final value fee if it sells. (That's only fair.) If your item doesn't sell the second time around, there's no third chance. "Mike Sez" | If your item didn't sell the first time around, there was probably a good reason for itmaybe the starting price was too high, or the description stank, or you didn't include a picture. When you relist an item, take the opportunity to spruce up the listing, revisit the pricing, and so on, to try to make the item more attractive to potential bidders. |
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