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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Why ask for something you don’t want?

30 replies

StillCoughingandLaughing · 11/02/2019 12:12

I was looking at some jeans on eBay, listed at £15 starting bid, but with a ‘Make an Offer’ option. I offered £9, which I didn’t expect to be accepted, but was hoping we might meet halfway.

I got a counter-offer email back - but the ‘counter-offer’ was £15 The accompanying note said ‘I cannot accept less than £15; these jeans were £100 new’.

What was the point of saying she was open to offers if, in fact, the minimum bid was just that? It’s not that I think £15 is an unreasonable price, but why suggest that price is open to negotiation if you’re adamant you won’t accept anything lower? (For context, this is a relisted item that has already failed to sell.) I might even have bid at £15, but now I just think the seller is a time waster.

I declined the so-called counter-offer and suggested she amend her listing to remove the Make an Offer option. AIBU?

OP posts:

CroesoY · 11/02/2019 12:18

YANBU that’s very annoying

keepingbees · 11/02/2019 12:22

Yanbu but at least they've replied. I've put offers in before of only slightly less that the asking price and been completely ignored. I just let it go if that happens and people don't have the decency to even respond.
I think eBay does sneak the accept offers option on when you do a listing though and you have to opt out so maybe it gets added by mistake in some cases.

Newsername · 11/02/2019 12:23

Weird. What an idiot!! (Them not you)

I got ds a waistcoat for dressing up in and it was on for £6 including packaging on eBay. I offered £4 and it was accepted. That’s the whole point of being open to offers. Equally once got a Harry Potter cape and tie, was on for £12, we had a little bartering session and I got it down to £8.50.

2birds1stone · 11/02/2019 12:24

EBay brought out a new feature and on every listing it allows best offers. It pre sets the lower best offer price alot lower than the starting (don't know the %)

If a seller doesn't realise they then get offers alot lower than they wanted to sell for.

The only way around it is to set the best offer price at 1p lower than the start price. You can't set them to the same .

It's a pain in the arse and causes alot of confusion and annoyances for buyers and sellers.

I have not yet found how to switch that feature off on listings but I am sure there is a way. For now I use my workaround.

Don't always blame the seller eBay does so crazy stuff to policies and how to list.

Mmmmbrekkie · 11/02/2019 12:24

She accidentally allowed accept offers
I have done the same

2birds1stone · 11/02/2019 12:25

Oh also if they ignore your best offer then it gives them chance to accept close to the ending time. Or it goes away on its own and you can submit agaib (yet to get my head round that one as a buyer or seller)

ScreamingValenta · 11/02/2019 12:28

Yes, it's a default option now and some sellers don't know how to switch it off.

PBo83 · 11/02/2019 12:33

If it was a Buy-It-Now listing for £15 then, I agree, having the offers option on the listing if you're not willing to accept less is pointless.

If it was an AUCTION listing with a starting bid of £15 then wanting offers on or above this amount is perfectly fine. If you see something you like but don't want to risk the auction (or won't be about when it ends) then you may want to offer, say, £20 so you know you've got the item.

HollyBollyBooBoo · 11/02/2019 12:35

I expect she doesn't know it's even open to offers.

Just like I didn't know it automatically puts 1st class post on items - so annoying!

bingoitsadingo · 11/02/2019 12:45

tbh it wouldnt occur to me to offer less than the starting bid for an item - why on earth would they accept, surely they'd wait and see if they got any bids.

If something had a starting bid of £15 I would expect it to go for £20+, so I'd probably make an offer of £20 and hope they accepted it so I didn't have the faff of bidding and they had a guaranteed sale.

If they were willing to accept £9 why would they not just put the starting bid as £9?!

TeacupDrama · 11/02/2019 12:56

maybe it's because I use a PC and I sell quite a bit on ebay but Buy it now only includes best offer if you tick the box, but if you tick box next time you go to sell it will remember and be ticked
postage options are easy to alter
if something is an auction the buy it now has to be 40% more than start price,
the ebay on phones does seem to have less options to keep it simple but if you go right to bottom of page and click classic site more options appear
ebay is full of idiots and cheeky people I sell mostly vintage antiques only on bargain hunt does anyone sell anything for 50% of price tag for vintage standard hassling will generally get about 10% reduction
if I do something with best offers I set it up
so if I want £50, i will set up to say automatically accept offers of 44.99 and to auto decline anything below 39.99 anyone offering less than 80% is just cheeky so it saves me dealing with them

MsHopey · 11/02/2019 12:58

I've had this before.
But the seller had put an automatic decline on offers they knew they wouldn't accept.
The item was a £50 punch bag.
I offered £45, it was automatically declined.
I offered £47.50, it was automatically declined.
I was thinking they were taking the piss and I offered £49.50. So only 50p less than the buy it now, it was automatically declined.
People are weird.

MrsJane · 11/02/2019 12:59

It's a starting bid of £15, not a buy it now. She's set the starting bid at £15 as that's the minimum she'll accept but she was obviously hoping for offers over £15.

Mmmmdanone · 11/02/2019 13:01

I keep leaving it as offers by mistake. Really bugs me that eBay make it that you have to opt out as I often forget. When it happened to me though, I apologised to the offerer and told them what had happened.

Original poster

StillCoughingandLaughing · 11/02/2019 13:04

If they were willing to accept £9 why would they not just put the starting bid as £9?!

Because they were hoping for more than that, but might accept it (or another offer) if they didn’t get what they wanted? That’s what being open to offers means. Had they listed at £9 with an offers option, someone would have offered £6.

I can see the logic in what PBo83 is saying - that maybe the seller is hoping someone might offer over the odds to end the auction - but in the majority of transactions, people don’t negotiate up. I got £10k off the asking price of my flat. By your logic, the vendor should have listed it at that price because he was prepared to accept it. Presumably he didn’t in the hope of an asking price offer.

OP posts:

toriatoriatoria · 11/02/2019 13:06

eBay have now started basically made it compulsory to have the "make an offer" feature live (if you don't, you get charged a listing fee). So it's likely they've only left that feature live to avoid the listing fee.

highheelsandbobblehats · 11/02/2019 13:07

I'm guessing she was hoping for offers once bidding had got to a certain point. I've walked away after my under the starting bid offers have been rejected. More often than not a week or so later they come looking to see if I'm still interested as it hasn't sold. Might have been £100 new, but something is only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it.

People on eBay are cheeky though. I bought a three piece suit for my eldest DS when he was a year old to wear to a family wedding. Opening bid was 99p, plus the postage. No-one else bid, so I won, and was most pleased about it too.
The seller then messaged me to tell me how much it cost new, to remind me that it had only been worn once and to tell me that they hoped for rather more for it, so could I please pay them £15 for it instead. Suffice to say that I laughed and replied that eBay bidding is a contract that is expected to be honoured on both sides, and that I'd look forward to receiving the suit.

Allusernamestakenbutthis · 11/02/2019 13:08

I think the seller can do what she wants. It's either a default thing with EBay or a genuine mistake it was open to offers. In the end she's made it clear she wants to sell at no less than 15 and that is up to her.

Original poster

StillCoughingandLaughing · 11/02/2019 13:14

I think the seller can do what she wants.

Of course she can. But she’s wasting her own time as well as mine by claiming one thing and then doing another.

OP posts:

slappinthebass · 11/02/2019 13:18

Because Ebay automatically selects 'make me an offer' for you on eBay Mobile app. It's caught me out loads of times, it's easy to miss, especially when it has re-listed automatically.

bingoitsadingo · 11/02/2019 13:21

@StillCoughingandLaughing
but you can't accept an offer if there have been any bids on the item. So unless there was very little time left on the auction she has nothing to gain by accepting a lower offer than the starting bid.

If it's a buy-it-now then negotiating down makes sense. If it's an auction listing you need to negotiate down from the estimated final bid, not the starting bid - because the potential for the price to go higher is what they are comparing your offer to. Seems pretty straightforward to me.

Original poster

StillCoughingandLaughing · 11/02/2019 13:24

but you can't accept an offer if there have been any bids on the item. So unless there was very little time left on the auction she has nothing to gain by accepting a lower offer than the starting bid.

But if there had been a bid on the item, I wouldn’t have made the offer - no one is going to turn down an asking price or above bid to accept a below asking price offer.

If you can’t accept offers once someone bids, then surely it’s pointless? Who’s going to offer over the minimum when there’s no competition?

OP posts:

Juells · 11/02/2019 13:30

I rarely buy anything on ebay, but was thrilled and delighted when I needed an ancient suitcase for a project, found the perfect one for £50, offered £20 and it was accepted. My heart sings every time I look at it (I'm silly that way)

ClarabellaCTL · 11/02/2019 13:33

In fairness to the seller, the eBay app has recently been updated and it automatically adds 'accept an offer' option which you have to unselect if you don't want to accept offers. Possibly just that she's missed it. An honest mistake probably.

PBo83 · 11/02/2019 13:35

I think there is real confusion here. Typically, eBay had two options:

Auction - What it says on the tin
Buy-It-Now - Fixed price with the option of allowing offers below the fixed price.

Recently they added Auctions with a 'Best Offer' facility which seems to be what we're talking about here.

I expect this is in reaction to deals occurring outside of eBay, thus losing them fees. For example, someone starts the bidding on a laptop at 99p. Obviously they expect to get more than 99p for it but they start it low to attract bids. They then get a message saying "Will you accept £100 and I'll pay now" (normally because the buyer is chancing their arm or can't be bothered to wait for the end of the auction).

In the example above, if the seller agrees and they arrange a deal outside of eBay, then eBay loses out on its final value fees (which make up the majority of selling fees). This new function is to prevent this loss, for example, in my example above, the potential buyer could have just clicked the 'offer' button rather than messaging the seller directly.

Like I say, it's a relatively new function and not to be confused with the old 'Buy it Now with Best Offer' which does also still exist.

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