My eBay pet peeve - Sellers with Best Offer Options who don't want to negotiate 1 1

[Poka]

4 hours ago, MGsimba77 said:

Amen! That's happened a couple of times. I've countered the original offer only to have the 48 hours expire with cricket sounds from the other party. If you can't meet the seller's counter make another counter or decline it so not to waste people's time!!!

Another thing is people messaging you regarding your listing asking "what's your best offer" or asking if you could go for X amount of money without bothering to put in an offer. Usually the X amount is some ridiculously un-serious low ball number. These people blow!!!

If you just knew how many bidders are letting the 48 hrs run without replying when one make a counter-offer. Goes both ways

[MadGenius]

7 hours ago, SteppinRazor said:

If you list expecting at least to give 10% off, why not list it already with 10% off?

If someone offers 10% less than your ask, do you auto-take it, or make a counter offer?

I don't use Best Offer on all of my listings. I reserve it for bigger ticket items or things that I'm very motivated to sell. In other words, I use Best Offer for items on which I'm truly willing to NEGOTIATE the price. 

That being said, if I am using Best Offer and someone offers me 90%+ of my BIN price I accept it without a counter 100% of the time.

Edited August 20, 2018 by MadGenius

[1Cool]

I've found that I have to offer Best Offer or crickets.  The second I offer Best Offer and the low ball offers start flowing in.  i usually play the game of bumping up my prices by 10% for the 1st month assuming I'll get a lot of 10-15% discount offers and accept pretty much anything close to that discount amount.  After the 1st month I generally give each book a bump down and double check the going price after I get a reasonable offer.  Sometime I say "5% off is the best i can do based on similar sales" and sometime I've given a 30% discount if my price is way off.  I don't want to give a away books but I also don't want to have no sales in a month so it's a give and take.

[stock_rotation]

I'm sure this has been brought up before (and probably in this very thread!), but sellers can eliminate lowball head/heartache by simply setting your BIN to automatically reject offers under a specific dollar amount. I recently listed an item at $350 and set it to reject anything below $299 and accept anything over $300. A few weeks later I happened to look at the actual auction (as opposed to the ebay dashboard), and noticed there were 4 offers on the book, the highest being $200. I'm glad I didn't need to see that ridiculous $125 offer.

[thunsicker]

It might help if they changed the ‘best offer’ button to a ‘start haggling’ button.  Then people would understand that they should enter a value much lower than they are willing to pay to try to haggle to where their best offer is.

[1Cool]

37 minutes ago, stock_rotation said:

I'm sure this has been brought up before (and probably in this very thread!), but sellers can eliminate lowball head/heartache by simply setting your BIN to automatically reject offers under a specific dollar amount. I recently listed an item at $350 and set it to reject anything below $299 and accept anything over $300. A few weeks later I happened to look at the actual auction (as opposed to the ebay dashboard), and noticed there were 4 offers on the book, the highest being $200. I'm glad I didn't need to see that ridiculous $125 offer.

I use to do this also but I like to see what people are offering and possibly adjust my price if necessary.  Nothing worse then getting 3 offers just below my threshold and not being able to give each a small discount and see who pops up to grab the book.  The buyers keep getting automated rejection they assume you don't negotiate at all and go elsewhere.  It is a pain to respond to all offers but it really doesn't take long to respond to 5 offers which came in overnight.

[Transplant]

My takeaway from this thread is to set the price at the top of GPA or at least 10% above what I would really take.  Then, buyers who want to lowball me will be happy when I send back an offer 10% off my BIN price. 

[1Cool]

2 minutes ago, Transplant said:

My takeaway from this thread is to set the price at the top of GPA or at least 10% above what I would really take.  Then, buyers who want to lowball me will be happy when I send back an offer 10% off my BIN price. 

Current buyers are knowledgeable and really, really like to feel like they are getting a deal even though they really are paying your true asking price.  I don't like playing the game but when I price books at my price the books sit and sit.  Give people a 15% discount on a book bumped up 10% and they grab for their wallet.

[MadGenius]

1 minute ago, Transplant said:

My takeaway from this thread is to set the price at the top of GPA or at least 10% above what I would really take.  Then, buyers who want to lowball me will be happy when I send back an offer 10% off my BIN price. 

Or you could just price it at what you want without the Best Offer option. That's really the point here. If, as a seller, you have a fairly wide range of prices you would accept for your item then including the Best Offer option makes sense. If there is very little to no wiggle room on the price then, great, price it at the level you're comfortable with but don't include the Best Offer option. Doing so give the impression you're willing to negotiate on the price. If you're not then you're wasting the time of everyone involved.

[MadGenius]

2 minutes ago, 1Cool said:

Current buyers are knowledgeable and really, really like to feel like they are getting a deal even though they really are paying your true asking price.  I don't like playing the game but when I price books at my price the books sit and sit.  Give people a 15% discount on a book bumped up 10% and they grab for their wallet.

AKA the Mile High method. 

I'm not advocating artificially inflating prices so a seller gets their "true" price by offering a discount. A seller's price might be very fluid on some items and very firm on others. If the price is firm, don't offer the option for any discounts. If the price is fluid, then asking for Best Offers is the right way to go.

[Transplant]

3 minutes ago, MadGenius said:

AKA the Mile High method. 

I'm not advocating artificially inflating prices so a seller gets their "true" price by offering a discount. A seller's price might be very fluid on some items and very firm on others. If the price is firm, don't offer the option for any discounts. If the price is fluid, then asking for Best Offers is the right way to go.

No.  What you're saying is that the flexibility has to be at least 10% to be worthy of make an offer. 

[RockMyAmadeus]

16 minutes ago, Transplant said:

My takeaway from this thread is to set the price at the top of GPA or at least 10% above what I would really take.  Then, buyers who want to lowball me will be happy when I send back an offer 10% off my BIN price. 

Don't hate the playa....

[thunsicker]

22 minutes ago, Transplant said:

My takeaway from this thread is to set the price at the top of GPA or at least 10% above what I would really take.  Then, buyers who want to lowball me will be happy when I send back an offer 10% off my BIN price. 

I call BS.  I just looked at all the comics that everyone is selling on Ebåy and there are no comics there listed at less than 20% over the top GPA price ever paid.

[CKinTO]

24 minutes ago, 1Cool said:

Current buyers are knowledgeable and really, really like to feel like they are getting a deal even though they really are paying your true asking price.  I don't like playing the game but when I price books at my price the books sit and sit.  Give people a 15% discount on a book bumped up 10% and they grab for their wallet.

Buyer psychology 101 - classic "Predictably Irrational"-type stuff. We are all mindless sheep!

Edited August 20, 2018 by CKinTO
typo

[evilskip]

The Best Offer has it advantages and disadvantages. Usually I'll offer 10% less than the stated price. If I make an offer that is more than 15% lower than stated price, I usually explain why my offer is what it is. I'm trying to let the seller know that I'm not out to fleece them. If they accept, great. If not, then further negotiation (if I really, really want the item) or I send a polite pass on the item.

I do get pissed with the sellers who have a Best Offer option, but won't take anything less than the stated price. Why bother? I've had that happen twice in the past month. I  kicked one offer up to a dollar less than asking price and still got a thumbs down.

[1Cool]

3 minutes ago, evilskip said:

The Best Offer has it advantages and disadvantages. Usually I'll offer 10% less than the stated price. If I make an offer that is more than 15% lower than stated price, I usually explain why my offer is what it is. I'm trying to let the seller know that I'm not out to fleece them. If they accept, great. If not, then further negotiation (if I really, really want the item) or I send a polite pass on the item.

I do get pissed with the sellers who have a Best Offer option, but won't take anything less than the stated price. Why bother? I've had that happen twice in the past month. I  kicked one offer up to a dollar less than asking price and still got a thumbs down.

Definitely a weird response from the seller but equally as weird from you.  Why not just take the book at asking price rather then offer $1 under the asking price.  Is $1 a make a break for the book?  The seller probably just sent the rejection out of spite since he thought you were offering $1 under to mess with him (assuming it was $20 item or more).

[MadGenius]

4 hours ago, Transplant said:

No.  What you're saying is that the flexibility has to be at least 10% to be worthy of make an offer. 

I think a line has to be drawn somewhere, and 10% seems to be reasonable. If a seller is only willing to discount a couple percentage points below the BIN, then they aren't really looking for offers IMO. If they aren't looking for offers then they should not include the Best Offer option in the listing.

Edited August 20, 2018 by MadGenius

[Pete Marino]

I know i sell a lot less than many people here, but I got rid of all BIN's except stuff i'm unsure how to price.

The reason being that i found more than half the time that i sold something at OBO on eBay the buyer was a huge pain in the rear.  Buyers willing to pay my price seem to cause a lot less issues.

[Broke as a Joke]

They really should change the name from "best offer" to something else.  A best offer sounds like a one time take it or leave it price.  

[Kevin76]

I wish I could tell every buyer, best offer does not mean 50-60%off.  Had this happen multiple times. Even if I do set the BO price, I still get messages saying "Hi, would you be willing to do $40? (book is priced at $100)  I can pay right now"!  

Edited August 20, 2018 by Kevin76