Ebay Best Offer thoughts

[mr.miracle]

Hello Forum Readers:

I know a similar thread was discussed regarding Buy it Now on Ebay vs. Best Offer about a month or two ago but I could not readily locate it. Anyway, I have not used Best Offer for a long time due to the fact that every single time I put that up on Ebay, the wise guy's start coming out and sending in ridiculous offers wasting your time like $.01 $.99 etc. on items that you are listing for hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Of course, as soon as I list something with Best Offer, some idiot comes out of the woodwork and within a couple of days I have an offer for less than 5% of the total Buy it now price.

I don't know about anyone else, but when someone has a Buy it now price and also a best offer, I view this as a nogotiating opportunity but not to be a complete moron and waste someone's time. Obviously unless I am so incredibly desperate for cash I am not going to take an offer for 50 or more percent off of my Buy it now price much less accept $1.00 as the winning bid. I typically will put in a Best Offer price somewhere between 10 - 20 % off of the Buy it now price and see what happens. More often than not, I would say 85% of the time, the person will accept that offer. I am not sure why that bugs me so much, I guess because it seems quite juvenile to waste anyone's time with a stupid offer like that. On a positive note related to that issue, I recently had a very expensive item on ebay with a Best Offer option where the buyer submitted an offer at approximately 8% off of my Buy it Now Price. In ten plus years on ebay, that is the first time that anyone has ever submitted a reasonable offer like that which is why I have generally eliminated that option from all of my auctions to weed out the garbage.

Anyway, just my two cents.

Thanks

[Yankwood]

It all depends on how much the seller is asking. Many times the seller is fishing and puts the BIN price at twice what you know they usually sell for. In this case, I might put in an offer that is 75% of 50% of the BIN price. I believe that would then make my offer 37.5% of the BIN price. After a couple days of not getting the amount asked for the seller will accept. It happens because people who might be interested in the item at a lesser price will see the BIN price so high that he (she) figures the buyer will never accept an offer that far beneath the BIN price. I have never offered $.99 or a dollar for a thousand dollar item, but you'd be surprised at what the seller might accept.

[mr.miracle]

It all depends on how much the seller is asking. Many times the seller is fishing and puts the BIN price at twice what you know they usually sell for. In this case, I might put in an offer that is 75% of 50% of the BIN price. I believe that would then make my offer 37.5% of the BIN price. After a couple days of not getting the amount asked for the seller will accept. It happens because people who might be interested in the item at a lesser price will see the BIN price so high that he (she) figures the buyer will never accept an offer that far beneath the BIN price. I have never offered $.99 or a dollar for a thousand dollar item, but you'd be surprised at what the seller might accept.

I will have to remember that one going forward. Maybe I am being too generous with my initial offer. Of course when previous BO's have been rejected by the seller we cannot see what those offers were. It could be they were also $.01 cent or something equally ludicrous or maybe the seller is holding out for a better offer.

[godwulf]

Is dealing with silly "offers" really that time-consuming? Or is it just a matter of ignoring an email? I haven't sold anything for years, and have never used that feature (aside from making a few offers, myself) so I honestly don't know.

[mr.miracle]

Is dealing with silly "offers" really that time-consuming? Or is it just a matter of ignoring an email? I haven't sold anything for years, and have never used that feature (aside from making a few offers, myself) so I honestly don't know.

I believe you have several options in all actuality. You can either completely ignore them and they expire in I think 48 or 72 hours. You can simply choose to decline them manually, and I believe there is a new function (actually not really sure how new this is as I just started doing this again after a year or two of not using Best Offer) that allows you to auto-decline based on a set price or auto-accept as well based upon price. I suppose it is more a matter of disbelief that people are so incredibly stupid but then again, my general opinion is that 98% of the American public is that incredibly stupid so I suppose I should not be in the least bit suprised by the geniuses that frequent ebay on a daily basis.

Thanks

[joelsabi]

there was a alex rodriguez equipment bag with BIN at $650 i think and he accepted an offer of $300 so anything is possible.

i also not that the seller can put an automatic decline amount since once i make an offer and was automatically decline. so i guess its possible to do a reverse phishing for the lowest possible offer he will accept if you notice that your first offer was automatically declined.

i dont think there is anything wrong offering a amount that you seem is fair that is below 50% of the BIN price.

[mariner_gamers]

The last 2 bats I purchased off ebay the seller accepted 60% off the buy it now and the other was 50% off. That being said it was for items I had seen out there for quite a while. In reality I probably got about a 20% discount off the going market value because the Buy it Now was inflated considerably. On another note I offered someone a low ball price on an item and I was declined. After about 4 weeks I was able to purchase the item off the same seller with a no reserve auction for half of what I had previously offered. Any how I dig it since it can add so much more to surfing ebay than just wait till the last few minutes and bid.

Thanks!
Davis
demburey@netzero.net

[mr.miracle]

The last 2 bats I purchased off ebay the seller accepted 60% off the buy it now and the other was 50% off. That being said it was for items I had seen out there for quite a while. In reality I probably got about a 20% discount off the going market value because the Buy it Now was inflated considerably. On another note I offered someone a low ball price on an item and I was declined. After about 4 weeks I was able to purchase the item off the same seller with a no reserve auction for half of what I had previously offered. Any how I dig it since it can add so much more to surfing ebay than just wait till the last few minutes and bid.

Thanks!
Davis
demburey@netzero.net

I think that this point is also one of the keys. I generally never inflate the asking price so most of the time my items when listed are either equal to or even often lower than recent major auction house prices. I generally don't just throw a price out there randomely. I like to research what recent ebay and auction house pricing has brought in over the past six months to one year if there are examples of similar items available. Don't get me wrong, everyone wants a deal however I am wondering if you do sell on ebay do you ever find this to be a major problem with the best offer or do I just get all the lucky ones? I am talking about the stupid offers of $.01 or $.99 on a $1000 or above auction.

As it was pointed out earlier I simply could ignore these offers let them expire or simply decline the offer and recognize it for what it is.

Thanks

[mdube16]

I use the best offer feature quite a bit. It has to be for an item that has a hard to gauge value (low numbered cards, unique game used items ect.) You set a high buy it now price and let the offers come. You can set up to automatically decline offers lower than a certain price so you arent bothered by garbage offers. I have even been surprised and had people pay the full offer price.
Again the key is the type of item. An 85 topps McGwire wont work.

[David]

I have used the Best Offer option a few times and received fair offers, two which I accepted. I would say the offers were on the low end of what I was looking for, but did fall within the range of what i was looking for. I have heard other sellers complain about ridiculously low offers, so you are not the only one to complain about that.

I once turned down an offer on a football jersey, as I thought it was a bit low. When I turn around and auctioned the item, it sold for about $10 less than the offer.

I think it's important to not have a ridiculously high ask price, because buyers might not take you seriously. It's fine to have a high ask price, as it's the high after all, but it shouldn't be ridiculous.

If you say 'Thank you for the offer, but I'll pass" to each off, no matter how silly, you will end the conversation on good standing. It's always good to end the conversation politely, as the person might be a future customer or have a friend who will be a future customer. It does you and your business no practical good to insult the person, even if he is a jerk.