E-bay is worthless

I have made a lot of money off ebay and bought and sold my last two vehicles, My Dakota and Dart were both purchased with the proceeds of ebay sales. I made $8K in January this year. ebay protects both the buyer and seller with their rules. All of them are there for a reason, many of them are for protection, many are for legalities. What happened to you does happen, but they cannot legally make someone buy from you. That rule is there because it allows someone to change their mind before the auction is over. I am currently watching 85 items in My Ebay, I have in the past bid on an item when I was watching 3 or 4 similar items, then realized that I bid on the wrong item. I have retracted bids before, when you do, you dont get to type in why, you pick from a short list, some of which may not match the reason you have, but you still have to pick.

Further more, its stupid to list low and set a reserve. I have missed bidding on some other items while waiting for auctions to be over. I have bid what I thought was a fair amount and still not met the reserve. When I do an auction, I usually reveal the reserve in the auction to stop people from doing what he did to you. Why make somebody believe thay may have a chance to win an auction, when the reserve might be twice what they have to spend.

My recommedationS

Buying:
Figure out a maximum price and stick to it. If you can be there when the auction ends, dont place you final bid until the last 30 seconds, then bid you maximum you will pay.

Selling:
Set the starting price at the minimum you will accept, or if you are confident that it will be bid up high, like a high demand item, set the starting price at $.01. Remember that if you are offering something people want, many will wait until the last minute to bid. If you don't meet your reserve by the last day, cancel you auction, you have until 12 hrs from the end to do so.