How long does a buyer typically have to reply to an auction they won?

[Khte]

I hope this is in the right place. I've been searching for a while and couldn't find a better place to post- unless I'm silly.

But I was just wondering how long a buyer has to respond to an auction they won before it goes to the next person or the auction is invalid.
I auctioned off one of my villagers that is in boxes and it's been 4 hours since the auction ended and the buyer hasn't been online since.
The villager leaves in the morning and I'm kind of worried they won't show and the villager will go to waste.
I really don't want to stay up all night waiting for them to respond, so I was wondering when and if I could invalidate their offer?

 

[LambdaDelta]

afaik, there aren't any ground rules for a maximum response time, and instead is up to the auctioneer

though I'm also not sure about it going to the next person either. rules state the winner can't change, but more in line with preventing someone from coming in with a bigger offer right after. not much of a mention on someone up and not responding and it going to the next highest bidder

 

[Faux]

The new rules don't really say in this case, so I would say it's safe to go to the last bidder since it's now impeding on your ability to make the sale in a reasonable timeframe.

 

[FireNinja1]

I would say that whoever wins the auction has a fair amount of time to respond. What is deemed as "fair" depends on the situation -- four hours is a pretty long for someone to pick up a villager, but the same isn't true for a collectible auction.

Since you've specified that your villagers is in boxes, that you've (presumably) already made multiple efforts to contact them, and that they haven't shown any indication that they're going to come anytime time, I don't think going to the second highest bidder is necessarily a bad idea. It should be well-understood that villagers need to be picked up soon after the auction ends. I took a look at the auction you posted, and you mentioned that you don't TT, which only furthers my point.

In the future though, you should specify a timeframe for someone to pick up a villager / an item before going to the next highest bidder. The sitewide auction rules are defaults; they can be negated as long as you say you're going to do so upfront.

 

[PinkyPoo]

That’s a hard situation to tell if you’re being ghosted or they’re just busy with work or something. What I would do, is send a message to the person who won, let them know they’ve got a certain amount of time (maybe another hour or two) to confirm the deal before you decide to move on to somebody else. Then, I would message the person in second place and let them know the situation. Hey, the person who won hasn’t messaged me and I told them they have until this time, would you be interested still if they’re a no-show?

 

[Khte]

@Everyone
Thank you for responding <3 I really appreciate all your help and I will def message the person again and let them know I'll give them a few more hours before moving on to the next person. It's already almost 10 PM where I am so I was just worried. I really understand people being busy and that's why I want to give them as much time as possible, but at the same time, I don't want to wait around until midnight only to have them no-show xD I will take this situation and make sure to post in future auctions/sellings the timeframe of when they should pick up their goods.