2 min article

Cancelling bids and managing bidders

As a seller, there are some situations where you can cancel bids that have been placed on your auction-style listings. However, once cancelled, a bid can't be reinstated.

To try to prevent potential buyers from being disappointed, we discourage the cancelling of bids unless absolutely necessary. However, you can cancel a bid when:

  • A buyer requests you cancel their bid and you agree
  • You have to end the listing early because the item is no longer available for sale
  • You made an error in the listing
  • You're concerned the bid may be from a fraudulent buyer

How to cancel a bid

If you need to cancel a bid:

  1. Go to Cancelling bids placed on your listing - opens in new window or tab.
  2. Enter the item number, the username of the member whose bid you're cancelling, and the reason you're cancelling the bid.
  3. Select Cancel bid.

Tip
When sellers remove a bid, we call it cancelling a bid. When buyers remove a bid, we call it retracting a bid.

Managing who bids on your items

To help your listings sell for the highest price possible, you'll normally want as many bidders as possible. However, you can set up buyer requirements to control where you'll send items to, and whether to accept bids from buyers with poor Feedback scores.

In very rare cases you may also want to avoid specific bidders who have a history of not paying, or who have been aggressive or threatening in their communications. You can do this by adding a buyer to your blocked buyer list.

As a seller, you can cancel bids on eBay in some situations: when you agree to a buyer's request, when the item isn't available anymore, if you made an error in the listing, or if you're concerned the bidder might be fraudulent.

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