Seller Has "Make Offer" In Ad, But Takes 24 Hours To Reply. BAD FOR BUYER

[garyozboy]

Why don't sellers us the automated reply to, "Make Offer".

They must know their bottom line before listing the sale with the make an offer in the listing

These sellers are just time wasting numpties.

50 OF THE ITEM FOR SALE, AND SELLER HAS BARELY SOLD ANY OF THEM, THEN THE SELLER WANTS TO WASTE 24 HOURS OF MY TIME.

Useless seller!!!

[imastawka]

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@garyozboy wrote:

I wanted the modem ASAP for work, not to be delayed for 24 hours.

I would NOT have made the offer if I knew the seller was going to take almost 24 hours to get off his **bleep** and reply.

Tha's why auto reply should be in force.

Then pay the full asking price.

Simples.

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[sugar249]

Thats what I was thinking if it was that important you would pay for it.

[davewil1964]

I made a reasonable off, within 5% of the asking price.

That wasn't information you provided initially. We are not mindreaders.

I note it has taken NINE DAYS to respond to questions asked here. Do you consider that timely? If so, why do you expect sellers to jump through hoops?

[springyzone]

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@garyozboy wrote:

I wanted the modem ASAP for work, not to be delayed for 24 hours.

I would NOT have made the offer if I knew the seller was going to take almost 24 hours to get off his **bleep** and reply.

Tha's why auto reply should be in force.

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At the moment, there is no way, when you make an offer, to know if it will fall into the automated reply category or if the selelr will use the allocated time to make a decision.

That's how it is on ebay at present. It may change in the future. It already has changed a little in that originally I think all offers were valid for 48 hours. Perhaps from surveys, I don't know, ebay obviously discovered this wasn't pleasing customers and so they introduced the range of times available. Whether they will eventually make it completely automated, who knows, but at the moment all you can do is work within the system as it is (and give your opinion on surveys if ever ebay asks you. They do sometimes).

You hit a seller who was a bit on the late side of the 24 hours in replying. I'd say that isn't typical, but again, the ebay site is full of all different sellers so you'll never know exactly what you'll strike.

If their feedback is good, you could chance a 12 hour offer if you have a mind to but if you really want something asap, maybe pay the full price but also check first if express postage is available and what state it is being sold from. Buying quickly is only half the equation, you've then got to receive it.

[katistrophik]

The seller is also under no obligation to respond at all

The seller has until your offer expires to decide whether to accept or reject your offer. They can also suggest another price. If they don't respond to you in that time, or if the listing ends before they respond, then your offer expires.

On behalf of all sellers thanks for posting

[springyzone]

They are under no obligation as such, but if a seller has 'make an offer' on a listing, it would be good business practice to give a verdict one way or another if there was a 24/48 hour offer. No reply at all makes a seller look disorganised or unprofessional or a bit rude (in my opinion), although I understand how a 12 hour offer could be missed.

This is not to say I believe sellers should have to waste time responding to really silly, low ball offers, but that is what the automatic filter would be for. Such offers would be rejected immediately without the seller having to attend to them.

[katistrophik]

Especially over the weekend, people seem to think sellers are on duty 24/7.

Also, as pointed out up thread, eBay has a nasty little habit of adding BO to a listing and the seller doesn't always know about it - our OP is under the impression that all sellers should check all listings incase this happens - which in the case of HV sellers would be a night mare.

IMO eBay need to stop trying to run a sellers business for them.

[springyzone]

I totally agree with you there. Ebay has no right to go adding best offer or anything else to any ad, that's a disgrace. They have one job and one job only and that is to host the ad as the seller wishes it to be displayed (within legal guidelines).

But where a seller deliberately pops it on an ad, then it would make sense to get a reply through to a buyer asap.

I think the weekend question is an interesting one and believe me, I have felt the pain of this one myself (being inundated on facebook marketplace, where not only are you expected to get back same day but within 15 minutes or some get stroppy, yes I obviously underpriced the items).

Generally speaking, I'd say most buyers would realise an item probably won't get posted till a business day but I think (where there is make an offer in an ad) most would expect a reply within 24/48 hours. That's over the weekend too.

Which would probably make the auto settings an easier option for a lot of sellers.