OT: Ridiculous eBay offers

[Mulligans]

Re: OT: Ridiculous eBay offers

Do you guys think someone offering $250 for a bat worth $800-1,000 is a blatantly low ball offer?

I don't think it's low ball....Many times what we consider "fair market" is our own opinion and is rarely achieved at major auction houses or on ebay. The fair market value of sports memorabilia is very volatile and can have huge swings at any given time......I have seen this big time with football jerseys.

I could buy a Jersey on NFL auctions on a Monday for $1200 and have troubles getting $500 3 days later??

[sox83cubs84]

Re: OT: Ridiculous eBay offers

I set up at a show in Kansas City about 12 years ago, and a local businessman with an extensive collection stopped by my table. My father did the KC shows on my behalf a couple of times, and this guy would spend hundreds of dollars with my dad (a fellow senior citizen at the time). He'd come talk to me all the time, was friendly, but never spent a cent with me personally. I had a bat of some common ex-Yankee I was asking $8 for, and he walked away. When a show assistant asked me if I wanted to place any items in the auction coming up later, I gave them the same bat. The old guy got so caught up in bidding (assisted, I believe, by some local who knew who he was, knew he had beaucoup bucks and was bidding him up just to toy with him...NOT a friend nor plant of mine), and the bat he wouldn't give me $8 for at my table he paid $45 for at the auction! Go figure.

Dave Miedema

[trsent]

Re: OT: Ridiculous eBay offers

I assume anyone who uses the eBay Make-An-Offer button sets a decline price for what they will not accept. For instance, if you are asking an opening price of $800.00 for an item, and maybe you'll take $500.00 for it, put in an auto-decline of $400.00 so all lower offers are automatically declined and you are not even notified of them.

When you look at the offer history, don't take the moron who offered $10.00 for your item personally - There are children on eBay also who abuse the system. It is not really a big deal - Low offers are part of the world's largest marketplace. Move on and don't worry about it.

Use the auto-decline for truly low ball offers then if any offer comes in and you want a higher price, counter-offer them and see if you get what you want. The button isn't great, but if you don't take stupid offers personally, it doesn't really matter.

What annoys me as a seller on eBay is when I have an item listed for $9.99 and someone emails me and offers me $9.00 for it. I do not have a Make-An-Offer button on the listing because it is $9.99 - I'm not looking to take offers of a dollar less, I offer free shipping domestically and a $9.00 sale isn't going to make my day.

Now, if the same guy comes to me and offers $9.00 each for five $9.99 items, they have a better chance of me working with them, but this never happens.

[godwulf]

Re: OT: Ridiculous eBay offers

Many times what we consider "fair market" is our own opinion and is rarely achieved at major auction houses or on ebay.

Agree, of course. Fair market value isn't what the Seller hopes he'll get for it, nor is it what he saw one priced at several years ago, nor even what a similar item might have actually sold for - exactly once. If people all around you are buying and selling items very similar to the one you're trying to sell for a fraction of what you're asking, maybe you should reconsider whether you really want to part with the thing, if it's worth that much to you...and apparently only you.

I used to collect pre-'60s police shooting competition medals, and still pick one up occasionally. A few months ago, an eBay seller had some interesting ones listed, at $60 each. I watched them get relisted a couple of times, then sent the seller a message referencing recent auctions for similar medals I'd won for $10-$15, and asked if he had plans to lower his beginning bid prices any time soon. Zero response, and he's probably continuing to relist the things every 7-10 days, as we speak.

[Dewey2007]

Re: OT: Ridiculous eBay offers

Not an offer but ridiculous nonetheless. I had someone message me about a jersey I have listed for sale and ask if I'd consider removing the patch on it and selling that separately. WTF??

[Shipp_96]

Re: OT: Ridiculous eBay offers

I have been selling alot recently on there to buy other items. Some of the emails I have gotten are:

"Even though you bought that helmet directly from the school, and they gave you a COA saying it as game worn, how can you guarantee it's "game worn"?"

"Do you have a COA and what is the cost to ship to Denmark?"
-my listing said 3x (including the title) COA from the team INCLUDED, and I stated 2x I only ship to the USA. Needless to say I did not respond to that one.

I wanted to share these to show it's not just the offers that are absurd. Oh yeah, and I always get someone off the bat that offers me 1/3 of what I am asking before the auction is an hour old.

[coxfan]

Re: OT: Ridiculous eBay offers

There are different sides to this question, as other posters have noted. Once at a show, I saw two rare baseball books priced at $160 for the pair. I said I didn't want to pay that much and started to walk off without making an offer. The seller suddenly reduced the price to $70, which I paid. I found marginal notes indicating he had paid $35 total for them.

As long as there are some sellers ( like the one I described) who initially price much higher than they're actually willing to accept, there will be buyers who will try lower offers. They don't always mean to be insulting or frivolous.