Ebay best offer

Lol. You make it sound like some sellers need to consult their astrological chart to see if the transaction is a good one. use it or don't use it but if you use it and someone makes you an offer and you decline it let them know what you are willing to accept as a courtesy. I have people making offers to me on items I am watching all the time I decline them and let them know I would buy it if it were this price. I can watch something to see what it sells for or maybe at a later time decide to buy it. It's up to the seller to decide what he wants to sell it for and once he decides he wants to sell it for a certain price why wouldn't he sell it for that price? Like I said I just completed a transaction I made an offer to some guy in Canada and to my surprise he accepted my offer and I paid him immediately. I then told him I was sorry that I paid him because had I known he had other options of things I wanted I would have probably bought more from him. He then responded saying what CDs are you interested in. I gave him a list then he said well I could bundle those all together and sell them to you for this price. I found the price reasonable but just a little bit more than I wanted to spend so I asked him to throw in an additional CD and that would be acceptable for me. He agreed and said I'll put up a listing. This to me appeared to be a motivated seller who did not have an emotional attachment to a product and price. if I was going to offer him next to nothing for what he was selling I'm sure he would refuse. But since I made a reasonable offer to him on things he had that he wanted to get rid of we both won.

 

All offers are welcome, but none are accepted. I only run auctions.

 

I usully accept offers for 90% and often for 80% or 70% as well. Of course depending on what I paid for the item and how long I already have it on eBay. Otherwise I almost always send a counteroffer. Don't worry, I'm not a "problem seller".

 

Then don't use make offer option. Unless you want to upset your buyers

 

I treat others like I want to be treated. I want you to be fair with me so I try to be fair with you. If I offer you 80% of your asking price and you come back with 90% then I offer you 85% aren't we being fair with each other? or maybe you just send a message to me saying that you spent so much on this and you can't afford to sell it any less than this then at least I have an understanding of where you're at.

 

Sure, I wouldn't expect any problem with you as a buyer.

 

I don't, it wouldn't be an auction then, that still doesn't stop people from making offers

 

I never use the offer option; only "Buy It Now". But occasionally someone will make an offer anyway; I always decline the offer. One time someone emailed me and offered $15 on a $20 BIN item. I declined and ten minutes later, much to my surprise, he buys it for the full amount. He pays, I ship it and after he receives it he emails me "claiming" that it was damaged but would be ok with it if I refund him $5 with a thinly veiled threat that he might have to give me a negative review if I didn't comply with his refund request. What an A-hole! I refund him the $5 but after that incident, anyone who emails me with a lower offer immediately gets placed on the Blocked Bidder List!

 

Sometimes it's the buyer and sometimes it's the seller but if one person is behaving badly then there should be recourse. In your case the buyer wasn't honest he wanted it for less and he should have either just walked away or accepted what you were asking paid it and if he wasn't happy just don't leave you any feedback. I would never do that. I would look at what the seller was offering come to an agreement on price pad if I got what I paid for I would be happy. In one case I saw a lot of CDs offered a price be negotiated came to a price and the items were sent to me. When I received them they were poorly packaged all the CD Jewel cases were smashed and the items that I was purchasing were similar but not exactly what I was paying for. I contacted the seller told them first of all the items were poorly packaged and they were all received broken and then the items that you offered or entirely different. he realized I noticed and was going to bulk to eBay so decided to accept them back and sent me a return shipping label which I did and he were funded the money immediately. The whole transaction was stupid because one he didn't give me exactly what he was offering secondly he ship them so poorly that he knows it would have resulted in me being unhappy. so as I said before sometimes it's the buyer and sometimes it's the seller.

 

Lately when I put a CD on my watchlist sellers are being proactive and sending me special offers of a discount on that CD. This is also an indication as to what they're willing to discount. Overall if I like it I think he fair price for a CD used is $10.

And if there is no indication and the CD is real expensive all offer 70% of what they're asking and see what they say. I just bought a Petula Clark CD this way I was surprised they accepted the offer.

When a seller makes a decent discount offer to me I counter offer and if it's a dollar or two they normally accept it because who would walk away from a solid offer over $2?

 

Some people don't have a lot of money, and even if you accept their offer, they can take a while (until next payday sometimes) to get the scratch together. As a seller, that's OK with me.

I offer Best Offer on the majority of stuff I list, and will tend to take offers up to 10% off easily, and sometimes up to 20-25% off.

I have made offers on stuff from other sellers before and offered << 10% less than the listing price and had it auto-rejected. My thought is: If you're not even going to consider an offer within 10% of the listing price, why are you even offering Best Offer? I move on.

 

See here's the thing, I just have to figure out how much the seller is willing to part with it. The seller has to think how much is the buyer willing to pay for it. I make him an offer not because I'm trying to give him, it's because I think that I feel the item is worth this much.

Whenever they accept my offer immediately I never feel like oh I should have offered him less I could have got it cheaper. Not at all I'm just happy that he accepted my offer. I'm just trying to pay what I think is fair for all concerned.

It's all about communication with me. If you don't like my offer, make a counter-offer. We can go back and forth until we meet in the middle. But usually either the seller contacts me and says this is the minimum that I can accept take-it-or-leave-it or we reach an agreement on some price. half the time I give I'm not going to lose a purchase over a dollar. the other half he loses he is not going to walk away from a sale for a dollar.

 

See what that guy did I think was unfair.

Before the transaction is completed I type in a message " please let me know when you send it" I tell them please pack the item well.

Now when I get the item in the mail and it is crushed I let them know that I didn't get it as advertised. I just want them to know so they can start caring about how their product is received. If they want to refund a dollar or two for new jewel case I wouldn't mind.

I just recently bought a ZZ top eliminator West German import for $4. I got it and the thing was really dirty. I cleaned it up and played it and track 10 was skipping. It was due to physical damage and I couldn't clean it or repair it. I asked the seller would you like me to send it back. They said no just keep it and refunded the amount to me. I just wanted a good CD and that's not what I got and it wasn't the sellers fault. Now I have to consider buying another one or just living with one less track.

It's all about being fair to me. If I agree to pay $10 for your CD then that's what I have to live with. If I think it's worth $7 and you don't want to sell it for $7, well I either have to pay your price or walk away and try to buy it somewhere else for less.

 

If a seller has a “make offer” option on their listing, why would they not respond to ANY offer?

I mean, even if the buyer offers $.01, so what? Just counter with a price you’re happy with. If the buyer comes back with another low ball, just counter one more time with a “final” sell price and move on if not accepted.

If you say you’re open to offers, then understand that you’re opening a negotiation and there may be some back and forth. If you don’t want to negotiate, just do a BIN only or let the auction play out to the natural end. It’s not that complicated...

 

You see it how I see it. Someone here said that if they have a auction with a make offer it's not an auction. I don't see it that way. Before the auction ends the seller is giving someone the option to make a good deal. Maybe it's a real highly prized item where one wouldn't do this.

There's also a buy It now at a set price and a auction starting for less. With this format at least I know what the seller wants to get for it. There is no make offer option. It's either buy it for this or buy it for a little less.

Like I said I don't want to insult sellers so I would never ask them to settle for a great fraction of what they listed as. If the seller wants $100 for a CD and there are others of the same quality that are selling for $30 then the seller won't sell his CD and if he looks around he'll realize it's selling for less. If he's smart he will lower the price and sell his item.

I think that in the most cases it's better to sell your product for a little less to take the money to invest in something else than hang on to that item for a long time locking up your money.

 

Agree.

I've also seen auctions with a starting minimum bid, 7 day duration, AND a "make offer." These folks are basically saying "how much is it worth to you to end the auction early?" I have bit on a couple of these over the years when the auction end time was not going to work for me...

 

Yup. I usually set a minimum acceptable offer. But sometimes I'll forget and then get clowns offering 10-30% of the listing price. These are bottom fishers, and I am in no rush to sell, so I simply ignore their offers. They aren't being realistic, and I don't feel any compunction to reply. Sometimes I'll even block them because this kind of thing annoys me.

If someone makes a reasonable offer (my definition of reasonable will depend on the item, but is usually at least 50-60% of the listing price) then I'll respond and/or accept.

I do my research before I list, so it's not like I have out-to-lunch prices listed and some things are only "worth" 10-30% of their listing price.

On the flipside, I would never offer 10-30% of the listing price for an item.

 

@kwadguy, I get where you're coming from and no one - buyer OR seller - wants to waste time. From your paradigm ("no rush to sell"), that approach can be fine.

That said, let me just share that some sellers ARE anxious to sell/need money NOW. Some sellers also aren't as detailed as you about researching what the market price is on their item. They put out a high BIN price + make offer hoping someone wants it really bad and jumps on the BIN. If not, they'll consider just about any offer because they need to sell. Here's one real life example...

Seller had a Who "It's Hard" Japan "target" CD listed for $15 BIN + make offer option. To me personally, it wasn't worth more than $6 because I've purchased two copies for $5 and $6 in the recent past. So I'm thinking, much like you say above, "I don't want to insult the seller by offering only 33%, even though that's all I'll pay." So I do nothing and put it on my watchlist.

Turns out, the thing actually sold for $5 as a "best offer accepted"! I was kicking myself a bit for not even giving the seller a chance to consider my offer earlier....

So my point is, you know what your items are worth and are willing to sit on your inventory until you get reasonably close to that number. That's great.

Just also understand that other sellers don't know what they have, put a high price on it just in case it's valuable to someone, but really need to sell quickly and therefore will accept a "bottom fisher" offer.

 

you're absolutely correct it all depends on how much the seller wants to sell the item.

I recently made an offer on a Bowie Aladdin Sane RCA CD. The seller had it listed for 34 lb. And 9.50 lbs to ship. The thing looked a little water damaged so I offered 29 lbs. The seller contacted me and told me the best he could do was knock off 1 lb. He declined my offer and I watched him relist the item for to 2 lbs off at 31.99. It now has been relisted two more times so good luck to him.

 

Maybe it's because I spent 30 years in retail but the idea that I might be offended if someone gave me a lowball offer would never happen. It's a business transaction, not a marriage proposal. Someone is welcome to offer me anything they want and I'm welcome to ask whatever I want. In the end, the market will determine the selling price. The rest of us are just dinking around.

I don't generally allow a best offer in my listings. I'm much more likely to start an auction at $1 and let it be bid up. If it's a piece that is worth a bit of money, I'll instead start with the lowest amount I would accept, which is usually pretty darn cheap. If I just want to get rid of something, I'll put a low Buy It Now price on it and forget both the auction and best offer options. Give me $3 and it's yours.

The one thing I won't do is get emotionally involved in the process. It's just stereo stuff, not a family heirloom.

 

Using the Make Offer option isn't always aimed at buyers getting a reduced price, it is also very useful for (realistic) buyers getting something they want - at a realistic price - without the lottery of last minute bidding - eg. I listed an item starting at £10, which had in previous auctions had achieved between £10 and £30. - 10 being the lowest i would let it go for but obviously hoping for more. I got offers ranging from £5 to £26. The bidder making the £26 offer knew the real value of the item and was prepared to pay, and i accepted that immediately. I felt the offers below £10 were clearly from chancers, and a bit insulting when said item was valued, and had regularly achieved, £25 - £30 at auction.

 

You can ask whatever you like for your auction after all it is your item. Me on the other hand can set a price what I'm willing to pay for it irregardless of what the value is. I think in all situations communication is the key. I've never heard of anybody offering more than the starting price of an auction before. I thought most sellers would set a price as a starting point. Say you set the price at 20 lbs. I would look at your auction and think I don't think it's worth that but maybe she would accept 15 lb. Now me personally I wouldn't want to insult you an offer you 2 lb for it.

Again communication is the key so if you were to come to me and say listen 17 lb is the lowest I can accept for this or make a special offer for that amount I can either accept it or walk away.but if we're both reasonable with each other I'm sure that the buyer and the seller can reach an agreement and a sale can be made.

 

The example i gave is only one of several occasions where it happened that way. The first time that happened I realised that more realistic buyers are happy to pay what, or near to what, an item is really worth, and given the chance they will make an offer accordingly, to secure the item without having to get enmeshed in a bidding war. So following that I generally set a starting price that is pretty much the lowest I am willing to accept. (Which is what Ebay recommend). I do at times accept offers below the starting price, usually for lower value items, but record buyers know the real value of the items they are chasing, and offers of £5 for an item that has regularly achieved mid to high 20's is frankly taking the piss. Of course, the price any given record achieves at auction can vary wildly, depending on many factors including time of day, day of the week, etc. etc., and hitting that perfect time (for a seller) where someone is looking for that exact item, there maybe no others on sale, and they're willing and able to pay the upper range of it's value. Of course as a buyer we want to buy at the lowest price possible, but buyers levels of disposable income have to be a big factor. I know I've paid over the odds to win an auction simply because financially i was in a position to do so.

 

There are a lot of less-than-stellar sellers on ebay. I've experienced numerous times when I am interested in an ebay listing that has the make an offer option, I make an offer, and the seller declines it without making a counter-offer. I am so tempted in those cases to reply with an angry message, but I manage to keep from doing so.

My thought on this kind of crap is -- if you have "make an offer" as an option, set up automatic acceptance/rejection parameters so that any offers below a certain amount are automatically rejected!!!! Don't tick off potential buyers by manually rejecting an offer without counteroffering. So, so infuriating.

And, of course, there are the idiot sellers who make a counter-offer that is barely below their asking price, even if the potential buyer made an offer that was substantially less. For example, a seller lists something for $25, I make an offer for $15, and he comes back with a counter of $24. In cases like that, why even have a make an offer option? (And I've even had one or two jerk sellers who make a counter-offer equal to their asking price.)