by Lyla O'mara

Created on: November 26, 2007   Last Updated: February 01, 2012

There's canceled appointments, canceled checks, and sometimes even canceled live performances. Whatever the reason for canceling your eBay listing, you can do it in less than two minutes. There has to be more than twelve hours left on the auction for this to work. It's important to remember how you reacted the last time something was canceled for you, and what you would consider to be a reasonable explanation. If this equation equals a need to cancel, it's very easy to do.

Before You Cancel

• When you are only concerned about one buyer, then you don't have to cancel the whole listing. eBay makes you cancel all bids to end the auction. Acceptable reasons for this action include ~ Bidder contacts you to back out ~ You cannot verify bidders identity, after trying all methods of contact.

• If you're simply in a hurry about things, eBay also offers a "Sell to the Highest Bidder" option.

• You may want to e-mail the bidders before you actually cancel the bid with a brief, professional explanation. It gives them a heads up, and it's better to get a friendly e-mail from you than to log in and see that their object of fancy has been removed from grasp.

When You're Ready

eBay calls it "Ending Your Listing Early", and there's links almost everywhere, but this one's the quickest. ~*I.) Go to the site map at the very top, right corner of the home page. Right down the center category "Selling" you'll see an End Your Listing' tab.

The form will prompt you for the ~*II.) item number (located next to the item in your Summary or on your confirmation e-mail, whichever is more convenient). Copy and paste that, then ~*III.) select the reason for ending it from a menu that includes ~ No longer available ~ Error in Price or Reserve ~ Error in Listing ~ Item Lost or Broken.

For an error in price, reserve, and listing I should mention that all of those things can be revised. Although, price can only be changed if there are no bidders.

Next, you'll ~*IV.) click on a tab that reads "End My Listing", and your form will be submitted. Your item ends almost immediately.

Watch the Rules

Sometimes, sellers may consider doing this to avoid the reserve fees that most certainly narrow profit margins on low dollar items. Well, eBay has thought of that one and has a pretty long list of things that they call *Reserve Fee Circumvention. Using the "End My Listing Early" form too often will most certainly send up a red flag, and could result in penalties.

People can react all sorts of ways to cancellations. There's no way to predict for sure how they'll respond. As long as the feature is used for the good reasons it was set in place for, it will be fine. Besides, they can leave you a negative feedback on a bad purchase, but not on a cancelled listing.

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