Sometimes. A change of mind is the only case your store's returns policy actually governs — every other reason comes back regardless.
What decides it
The store's policy: No returns, 7-day returns or 14-day returns. Read it on the listing before you bid, because it is the one thing that varies between sellers.
No returns means no change-of-mind returns. It does not stop a faulty item coming back. How returns work
Four things block it whatever the policy says
Even at a store offering 14 days:
- The item is marked final sale.
- It is a hygiene item — those cannot come back once shipped.
- It was made to order. It was made for you specifically, so a change of mind is not a return.
- Its category or the listing itself does not accept them. The most specific setting wins: the item, then its category, then the store.
Why auctions make this harder
Not a rule, but worth understanding: you chose the price. In a live room you decided, against other bidders, what the thing was worth to you — and a change of mind afterwards is asking the seller to carry the cost of your decision.
Sellers know that, which is why change-of-mind returns are less freely given on auction wins than on buy-now listings. It is also why deciding before you bid matters more here than on a shop website. Every bid is binding
What a seller may still agree to
Plenty, if you ask well:
- A return anyway, outside their policy, because they would rather have a happy buyer.
- A partial refund, with you keeping it. Often the best outcome for both. Can I get a partial refund?
- A swap for something else they have.
Ask from the order, say plainly that you have changed your mind rather than inventing a fault, and offer to pay return postage. That combination gets a yes surprisingly often.
Do not claim a fault that is not there. It is the one approach that reliably fails: a seller who can see from their own photographs that the item was as described will refuse, and the record of what you claimed is read if it becomes a dispute.
What is not a change of mind
If the item is not as described — smaller, a different colour than shown, missing something, faulty — that is a seller-fault return and comes back for 7 days whatever the store's returns policy says.
The line between disappointment and misdescription is where most of these actually sit. It is much smaller than I expected, the colour is different to the show
Who pays the postage
You, on a change of mind, unless the store's Return conditions say otherwise. Who pays to send something back?
More: how to return something, how refunds work, seller return policies.