GB: I forgot a starting price! ...Cancel auction?

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I have been around a number of auctions where I got some valuable stuff for $1, $5 or whatever the minimum bid is.

I have also been to some where the owner has bought the item, from himself and had to pay for it, plus the buyers AND sellers fees too because they just couldn’t see it go for so little.

There are substantial contracts signed on that last example and they could have set a reserve but it’s common for folks to start at zero, just to get things going then let bidders battle it out.

If you can stop the rolling ball and want to, stop it. If you can’t, you might quit biting your nails a little to know most of the serious guys don’t run up the price all along and put their best bids down right at the end, before others can think about how bad they want it. Why many high end auctions add time to auctions if bids are placed inside the last few minutes.
 
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OP is assuming that the gun will sell for way below market since he didn't set a reserve. Why? With a no reserve auction the price it sells for literally is the market price. Setting a reserve won't increase the sales price because if the reserve is above market price people will stop bidding before the reserve is met. You might not like the high bid but it wouldn't be any higher if you had a reserve.
 
Scooter22 said:
Well yes. YOU set up the auction. BUY NOW is just that. Highest bidder is the winner. You need to read the rules of the platform you are selling on and check out your auction. The auction as listed should sell to the winner unless you cancelled it before bids. Its up to you to make sure YOUR auction is what you want before bids. You did look at it after you posted it right? Your auction ran even though it wasn,t right according to you. Thats not the bidders problem.
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Proof read.
 
I went to the listing and read the plaintive notation you posted there ---

"...I'm not willing to dump this gun. I'm willing to sell it for somewhat less than my Buy It Now amount."

What the heck does that mean? If the high bid is lower than you like ,do you plan to negotiate with the winning bidder for a higher price? Refuse to sell?
Man , that's no way to run a railroad. You should have gritted your teeth , ridden it out and hoped for the best.

Imagine a scorned buyer's feedback: "Seller refused to complete the transaction unless I paid him an amount higher than my winning bid!"
Oof.

When I consider bidding on GB I go to the feedback on the seller and search out the negative posts . Most all sellers have a few and that is not necessarily a disqualifier , it depends entirely on the nature of the situation. If I were to read something like the one I wrote above I would definitely not bid with that seller.
 
earlthegoat2 said:
Well, I don’t like to get ugly but the OP is making it really hard to sympathize with.

From the Gunbroker ad:



Feedback score: 14

With a negative feedback ding already to boot about not completing a sale.
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We've all made mistakes over the years that cost us monies. Most of us suck it up, learn from it and move on. I personally would have let the auction run it's course and accepted what the gun was worth to those bidding on it. I may have been pleasantly surprised and got all in a tilly over nuttin'.
 
MAKster said:
OP is assuming that the gun will sell for way below market since he didn't set a reserve. Why? With a no reserve auction the price it sells for literally is the market price. Setting a reserve won't increase the sales price because if the reserve is above market price people will stop bidding before the reserve is met. You might not like the high bid but it wouldn't be any higher if you had a reserve.
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Jeez. Sounds like....idk....capitalism. A system in which a thing is only as valuable as what people are willing to buy it for.
 
JeffOYB said:
.....The Support ppl did say that I could cancel AFTER the auction but that seems WORSE to me than canceling right now.....
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Wait........you have that in writing?:scrutiny: That would be completely at odds with GunBroker policies and their business practices to date.
If GB were to allow sellers to cancel the results of a no reserve auction simply because the seller was unhappy with the final price, they would see thousands of sellers doing exactly that. That's called fraud. The terms that you agreed to when listing your item....you now wish to reneg?
Do you know that failing to complete an auction is grounds for getting kicked off GunBroker? Not only that, but your reputation will take a hit. If I won an auction fair and square and the seller reneged....I'm going to let the world know what I think of that seller.



Here's a fix.
1. Remove that silly "I APOLOGIZE BUT I AM IN A BIND. I MADE A MISTAKE IN THIS LISTING." nonsense. If you can't remove it, then clarify that you will honor the winning bid.
2. Have yourself or a friend click "Buy Now".......and be a standup guy and eat the GunBroker fees for that $900 sale.
3. Buy the gun back from your friend. (no, its not a straw sale)
4. Relist once you've figured out how to do GB listings.
 
dogtown tom said:
Wait........you have that in writing?:scrutiny: That would be completely at odds with GunBroker policies and their business practices to date.
If GB were to allow sellers to cancel the results of a no reserve auction simply because the seller was unhappy with the final price, they would see thousands of sellers doing exactly that. That's called fraud. The terms that you agreed to when listing your item....you now wish to reneg?
Do you know that failing to complete an auction is grounds for getting kicked off GunBroker? Not only that, but your reputation will take a hit. If I won an auction fair and square and the seller reneged....I'm going to let the world know what I think of that seller.



Here's a fix.
1. Remove that silly "I APOLOGIZE BUT I AM IN A BIND. I MADE A MISTAKE IN THIS LISTING." nonsense. If you can't remove it, then clarify that you will honor the winning bid.
2. Have yourself or a friend click "Buy Now".......and be a standup guy and eat the GunBroker fees for that $900 sale.
3. Buy the gun back from your friend. (no, its not a straw sale)
4. Relist once you've figured out how to do GB listings.
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Now that is tough love... :)
 
I looked at this gun on gunbroker. It’s in pretty rough shape. Whoever has the current high bid has some work to do. It would have went higher till all the dilemma added in the extra posts.
 
JeffOYB said:
I had a Buy It Now for $900 for a custom Browning BT-99 skeet gun
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Awful tough to shoot Skeet with a single shot. Heckuva good Trap gun, though.

JeffOYB said:
It's not my attachments that are messing me up. I'm happy to sell the gun. It's the error in the listing.

If someone had a million$ item they accidentally listed for a penny as Buy It Now, should they be forced to sell for that?

This is a case where GB doesn't have as many tools as ebay for fixing mistakes, is all.

At least I've explained it now in a Added Description. It's my only option at this point. I don't want to disappoint bargain hunters. It's good fun and often people list with that in mind. But that's not how I'm selling this gun.
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Not sure I'd buy a gun on GB from a guy who thinks a BT-99 is a Skeet gun. Your history, or shall I say the lack of it, doesn't help, either.
 
What a mess.
Made a mistake - then made it much worse. You’ve probably muddied the waters badly enough to cause a self fulfilling prophecy- bidding is stifled so that the “winning” bid will be lower than you want.

Get it over with- bribe a buddy to hit BUY NOW , then close your GunBroker account.
 
OP would probably have been pleasantly surprised. The thing about penny start, no reserve auctions is that nobody can resist a bargain... if people are remotely interested in that type of gun with some money in their pocket, they’ll bid if they see it going for any less than what they consider “going rate.” I’ve sold a few guns on GB that brought less than I hoped/wished, but none that really went for dramatically below what they were really worth. It usually happens on common stuff like S&W model 10s or glocks (before the latest craziness.) They’d get lost in the herd of similar guns and occasionally one might go for $250 when I felt it should bring $300-350. To me, the tradeoff of a quick sale and a buyer who is usually excited to get his “bargain” is more than worth it. More often, I see rougher guns going for very fair/high retail prices. And once in awhile something goes for crazy money, like 2x what I would have expected retail.
 
Accidents happen. Sometimes for the best. Seller's remorse is not uncommon.

When we get a good deal it is usually because someone didn't do their research before offering. It's not un-American to give someone a good deal. There's a karma in buying and selling guns and most other things. The important thing to keep in mind is that it is just stuff.
 
Shipping Buyer pays actual shipping costs for the following option(s): Ground, Priority
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Add some "handling" charge to it. About $300. :D Last bid $601. With 2+ hours to go.

Last minute bids may get close to $900. Good luck.

Edit add- A fair price imo for a gun in that condition...
Sold $621.
 
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This is gonna sound harsh. It's rare to meet someone who screws the same pooch twice. I see two options, one more honorable than the other: 1. Take your lumps. 2. Have a friend buy the gun and reimburse him and take your lumps on the fees both ways.
The "High Road" thing is what we're here for, isn't it? And people wonder why I don't trust on line auctions.
 
You could have a friend bid on it.

I’m not saying I would do that. I had an auction I started out for a penny and it sold for a penny. Lost big on that one. I learned never start at a penny
Look up the other selling prices for the same item and list it for that
 
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