eBay had further revised the way sellers can revise the duration of their listing.  Many sellers were taking advantage of software that automatically changed the duration if the item had no bids.  eBay feels that this is a way to circumvent paying fees, and no longer would allow this software to be used.  They also restricted the time period during which sellers could change the duration of their listing.

eBay has further revised that policy.  eBay sellers will not only be able to change the duration of your listing for 2 hours after the start time.  After that time, you will not be able to change the duration of your listings.  Here is the announcement:

Hi everyone...This is Jim Ambach of the Seller Experience team. Back in January, our Trust & Safety policy team made an important change that prohibits the practice of extending the duration of an auction. These auction extensions disrupt normal bidding patterns, creating a poor buyer experience. Some sellers were also using this ability to gain an advantage for their listings in terms of exposure on the site. In the next few days, the option to extend your listing duration in our listing tools will be modified to be in compliance with this policy change.

Two-Hour Window to revise item duration

Sellers will notice that the ability to change their listing’s duration will be removed from the Sell Your Item form, Turbo Lister, and any third-party tools which utilize our API once 2 hours have passed after the start time of the listing. We wanted to be sure to make a 2-hour window available so that sellers will still have the opportunity to correct their listing if they discover they have listed it with the wrong duration.

For more details, see our Fee Circumvention policy.

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-circumventing.html

Sincerely,

Jim Ambach

Vice President, Seller Experience