Selling to specific buyer

[aptmtb]

It's been a LOOONNNG time since I sold on ebay and I'm interested in selling some purses soon.

It used to be that I could make a "personal offer" and sell to just one specific ebayer. Only that ebayer can buy the item.

Can I still do this? how?

thanks in advance!

 

[Lvbabydoll]

I usually just put their username in the title and say something like "special auction for ___." I do this when an item I'm selling ends and they contact me afterwards to ask if it's still available.

 

[peppy]

You can also block all the other buyers and pre-approve only this one person whom you want to sell to. This will prevent some can't-read-buyer doing a BIN and then you'll end up with 2 very upset buyers.

 

[4theluvof-it]

I know you used to do it like Peppy said, it was in the blocked bidder area, but I just went and looked and I couldn't find it anywhere

I don't see why they would have changed it, but then again...

 

[Kathyy]

You cannot do this anymore. It takes a while for an auction to get on the search results so if you contacted the chosen buyer as soon as you listed she could buy the item before anybody else found it. I would contact your buyer and make sure she could be online for that time period.

 

[sweetneet]

You cannot do this anymore. It takes a while for an auction to get on the search results so if you contacted the chosen buyer as soon as you listed she could buy the item before anybody else found it. I would contact your buyer and make sure she could be online for that time period.

yeah, apparently private auctions aren't allowed on eBay anymore. i think because they were overused/abused by scammers. but yeah, a great way around it is to tell the buyer as soon as you list (give item #), and only she will be able to find it then (designer items usually take at least 8 hours to show up).

also like rebecca said, as an exstra precaution in the title you can put that it's a private auction only for a certain ebay user id (say that all other bids will be canceled)

 

[designermummy]

You cannot do this anymore. It takes a while for an auction to get on the search results so if you contacted the chosen buyer as soon as you listed she could buy the item before anybody else found it. I would contact your buyer and make sure she could be online for that time period.

Although the listing wll not show up straight away you can still sell it before it shows. The warning that flashes up once you list a designer items informs you that the listing may take upto 24 hours to show, but is searchable by the auction number. So all you do is as soon as it is listed send them the uaction number they key it into the search box and it will come up for them straight away!

 

[peppy]

ah, I didn't realise the block/preapprove bidders function has been changed. Why on earth would ebay do that?? it was a good way for sellers to prevent NPB bidding for fun on their expensive items. Ebay really doesn't care much about sellers (or buyers), just the fees they can earn from a sale. Matters not that the seller is facing a non-paying bidder. @#$@#

Well, yes, now the only way is to email the buyer your Item # once you've listed. Personally, I still don't like this, it gives me an anxiety attack everytime, I worry about the buyer not reading the email in time and some can't-read-buyer BIN'ing instead.