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Original poster

EBay best offer - has it changed or was I doing it wrong?

22 replies

teawamutu · 29/09/2018 10:26

I swear people used to put the BIN price, then Best Offer was negotiating below that price.
In the last week I've had two sellers where the Best Offer start price was clearly way below the price they wanted. I thought that was what reserve prices were for. Or am I clueless?

OP posts:

Gammeldragz · 29/09/2018 10:28

Is that on an auction rather than BIN? I've recently noticed that, I think it's so people can offer say £50 more than the start price and if the seller thinks that's good they'll sell, or if not they let the auction run to see if they get more.
Whereas on BIN we'd offer less as a best offer.

Dinnaehinksae · 29/09/2018 10:29

Ebay often sets up the best offer thing automatically when you list something. The reserve price seems to be only for things of high value (there is quite a high minimum it can be set at)

Iwantaunicorn · 29/09/2018 10:31

On an auction listing, you can now add best offers as part of the auction listing, so if you make an offer the seller can counter with what they actually want for it. Once there’s a bid the ability to offer goes away. Reserve prices cost to put on, so this is a nice way round paying it!

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tectonicplates · 29/09/2018 10:32

Ebay often sets up the best offer thing automatically when you list something.

You can switch this off by using the advanced listing tool.

CaptainCorrigan · 29/09/2018 10:37

You can switch this off by using the advanced listing tool
You can but they now charge if you don't have it on which is annoying when you have people bidding less than the start price constantly!

tectonicplates · 29/09/2018 10:40

Seriously, I list everything as Buy It Now. It's so much less hassle. Auctions cause way too much stress.

GrumpyOlderBloke · 29/09/2018 10:46

Ebay now adds Best Offer to Auctions automatically when you list something. You have to remember to switch it off.

But if you are taking advantage of a free listing special offer, you will then be charged a listing fee.

As @Gammeldragz says it is to permit experienced bidders to make an offer above the start price to end the auction early. It should avoid all the 'wot's ur bst prce M8' messages.

Unfortunately this message doesn't seem to have got through to bidders yet and they treat it as a BIN plus Best Offer and try offering below the start price.

We have just encountered this as we have been listing many items following a purge of our respective hobby treasures.

One way of taking advantage of the free listing is to set the automatic offer rejection equal to the start price.

Confuses the bejasus out of inexperienced bidders!

Original poster

teawamutu · 29/09/2018 10:48

Thanks all, it was me then! Will keep in mind and not make any more accidental CF offers.

OP posts:

SandraTheBee · 29/09/2018 10:48

Ah, thanks for explaining. I've been treating this as offering a lower price than the starting bid- like with BIN.

GrumpyOlderBloke · 29/09/2018 10:54

@tectonicplates BIN works well if you are selling a frequently traded item with a well established price.

But when you are selling specialised items with a varying and patchy price history the auction format remains the best price discovery method.

We set the starting price and automatic offer rejection at the minimum we are prepared to accept. So far in this round of clearance we have sold everything we really expected to sell and in one memorable case over twice the starting price.

But we are selling classic car spares and long obsolete knitting/sewing machines, parts and consumables, so somewhat specialised.

tectonicplates · 29/09/2018 10:58

Ah fair enough then - I mainly sell old clothes.

CurcubitaPepo · 29/09/2018 11:39

Best offers are driving me mad at the moment.

I am selling toys on behalf of my son who wants money for a new phone. I always sell on a BIN and ensure the offer feature is turned off. My plan is that I’ll give it a few days / weeks to sell at that price. If it doesn’t, I’ll lower it, or, if I really want to get shut quickly I’ll open it up to offers.

eBay seem to have this thing going on whereby after your listing has been running for a few days eBay puts the best offer on themselves. Sometimes I get a notification, but sometimes not.

This morning I woke up to a best offer of £10 on a £20 item. I counter offer at £16 which the buyer rejects and offers £12. I reject and remove the best offer feature from the listing.

If I see a best offer feature on a listing I’ll probably have a punt on getting a couple of quid off. However, an offer of 50% of the BIN price is a total pisstake.

eBay just seem to think that a sale is better at any price today rather than the right price a few days / weeks down the line. And it makes it really hard to manage.

Grrr.

tectonicplates · 29/09/2018 12:08

@CurcubitaPepo I was actually about to write a post asking if it was worth me allowing best offers again, but you've answered my question already! I did have one on by mistake a while back when I was selling an expensive, popular skirt for £30. I received an offer of £10, which was completely taking the piss. It sold a few days later for the full £30.

Even with best offers switched off, I still occasionally get people contacting me, asking me for a reduced price. They're usually written very sloppily. Protip: if you're really going to have the cheek to do this, you need to have a VERY good reason as to why you think the price should be reduced. "Because I'm asking nicely" or "Because I'm skint" are not good reasons, considering that I'm trying to make some money for myself. I have only ever had one person convince me to drop the price for an actual good reason, which I did, and then he didn't buy it anyway.

Buggerbrexit · 29/09/2018 12:14

This does my head in. It was on one of my auctions and I then had a guy mansplain to me that my item would not get it’s minimum bid and I should sell it to him for half the starting price. Funnily enough i got an offer for double which I was happy to take

Buggerbrexit · 29/09/2018 12:16

Oh I also got a lengthy message from a girl who wanted to buy it but needed me to “give her a break” and give it to her a) at a low price and b) allow her to return it in a months time if it wasn’t compatible.

I sent back a polite, nice email because I would have considered a decent price for her but explaining I couldn’t accept it as a return. I also offered to help figure if it would be compatible. Funnily enough she didn’t reply.

GrumpyOlderBloke · 29/09/2018 12:16

This morning I woke up to a best offer of £10 on a £20 item. I counter offer at £16 which the buyer rejects and offers £12. I reject and remove the best offer feature from the listing.

Last time a 'wots ur bst prc M8' type user did that I counter offered at £22. He/She/It didn't notice and came back for a third and final time!

Use the automatic offer feature to set a bottom limit which automatically rejects the offer - you do not even get disturbed by it. You can also set an automatic acceptance level and only those offers in between get referred to you for a decision.

tectonicplates · 29/09/2018 12:48

@GrumpyOlderBloke Out of interest, if you have these things enabled, do you ever receive messages like "Why do you keep rejecting my offers?"

Buggerbrexit · 29/09/2018 13:23

I haven’t tectonic and I now use it.

CurcubitaPepo · 29/09/2018 16:53

@grumpyolderbloke

I may well do that, but when I do the listings, I ensure best offer is firmly off. It’s bloody eBay who keep putting them back on. But that may we’ll be something I consider.

GrumpyOlderBloke · 29/09/2018 17:37

@tectonicplates not so far, but between my wife and myself we have fewer than 100 items listed.

If we did I would probably ignore them and my wife would fret about them.

tectonicplates · 01/10/2018 16:20

Okay. I've added a best offer option to just a couple of my listings, you see what happens. I've set them to automatically reject any offers below certain amounts. We'll see what happens. If anyone annoys me, I'll remove the option and set it back to how it was before.

GrumpyOlderBloke · 01/10/2018 17:45

@tectonicplates I set the minimum to £0.01 less than the opening bid. That way if any of the M8s make an offer they would inevitably use up their 3 chances without thinking to offer more that the starting bid.

Then I would never need to know they ever existed.

Half the fun of eBay is playing mind games!

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