When and How to Cancel an eBay Auction Early.

One day, you might decide that you want to end an auction early. Before you do, though, you should consider why you want to do it: cancelling auctions upsets buyers and upsets eBay, and there might be a better to way to get what you want.

I Want to Change my Listing.

If you just want to revise your listing, you don't always need to end it. For listings that have more than 12 hours left to run and haven't received any bids, you can revise almost everything. You can remove the Buy it Now price or reserve price, change the duration of the listing, or add listing upgrades.

If the listing already has one or more bids, then you can still add upgrades, or add to the description. You add more pictures too, if you want to. Once the listing gets into its last 12 hours, however, what you can do becomes far more limited, even if it has no bids: you can only really add to the description.

It's a very bad idea, by the way, to cancel one listing and ask bidders to bid on another listing for the same item instead. The chances are they'll be annoyed with you, and won't bother.

The Item is No Longer for Sale.

Perhaps you sold the item to someone else, you lost it or it got broken. Whatever happened, if you no longer have the item to sell, you should remove your listing â€" in fact, this is just about the only situation when eBay allow you to.

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However, you need to make sure you get the listing removed quickly â€" if you leave it to the last 12 hours, eBay will refuse to let you remove it, whatever has happened. This might seem cruel, but it's there to stop people from backing out in the last few hours because they want to try again for a better price.

So How Do I End My Listing Early?

You can do it at this page: http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?EndingMyAuction. Just type in the item number and hit ‘Continue'.

Now, be very careful. The option you almost certainly want to choose is ‘Cancel bids and end listing early', NOT ‘Sell item to high bidder and end listing early'. You'll be asked to choose a reason why you ended the listing, and then it will end. Your bidders will be emailed to let them know what happened.

Note that ending a listing early because it looked like it wasn't going to get a good price is against the rules, and eBay could come after you and get upset.

Speaking of breaking the rules, if you're selling software on eBay, did you know that there are special rules that apply to you?

Plenty of sellers have no idea, and are being caught out every day that's why our next article will explain the rules clearly for you, just in case you need to know. Special Rules for Selling Software on eBay.