Low Ball Offers | True Value of Sellers

[lidi.lili.pili]

Friendly Note for Buyers & Sellers alike. From the perspective of a little old hobby seller. Sorry if I waffle on, I tend to do this a bit.

NOW... eBay does try to educate us on being fair. I like it. It fosters fantastic interactions between people, specifically on how we feel about our selves & one another. 

SO Before you decide to make any low-ball offers, here is a bit of information to consider on seller costs (& much more importantly, the VALUE of a small scale seller in particular) relating to eBay fees.

Just how much eBay may be charging???... Is based on a few areas to consider.

Firstly, did you know that eBay charges final sales fees for postage amounts too?

The nitty-gritty.

Let's make our example calculation a nice easy one. 

Item A is $10 + Postage for item A is $10 = Total $20.

Also, for our easy calc. let us state that the ebay fees are 15% (they actually vary according to category and seller performance etc. but for my activity & items they usually hover around the 15% mark, generally).

There is also a non-negotiable 0.30cent eBay charge for their processing/transaction fee.

So... our calculation looks like this...

Item A = $10

Item A Postage = $10

Total is $20

minus our 15% final sales fee on item and postage amounts & don't forget the 30c transaction fee.

Total $20 - 15% = $17 minus 0.30c = $16.70.

Seller still needs to pay $10 to post so they get $6.70 for Item A

Is this okay?

Well maybe, maybe not??? FREE trade market, so yeah... But what could happen if we were to opt for FAIR trade market principles also?

Lets look at this to explain my point further.

Now, if a buyer low-balls at half of the 'already reasonable' amount of $10 for this imaginary Item A. This is what it looks like now.

Buyer makes a low ball offer of $5 instead of reasonable ask of $10

$5 + $10 for post + $15

$15 - 15% + $12.75 - the .30cents processing/trans fee + $12.45 Seller still needs to post at $10 so seller receives $2.45 

More nitty gritty.

Each listing takes me about 20-30mins to list... possible cleaning, setting up for photography, uploading pics and sorting for optimum photos to help aptly describe the item. Quite often there is a large amount of research needed if the item is unusual or relevant information is unknown. The time it takes to list alone is worth more than $2.45... let alone the actual value of the item.

My basic plea to any potential buyers is this. (& it really is only because in the last month this is happening with such regular occurrence, it's really beginning to get mega ridiculous for me personally. I thought, if I write this piece, it may be able to relieve even just a little bit of this trend by explaining the real deal better)

Please just think about what this means in a bigger sense. When you undervalue others then you inevitably undervalue everything including yourself.

To pay an amount that is respectful of someone's effort as well as the items worth also gives YOU a sense of worth. It promotes a lovely feeling self respect.

Before you make that 'knowingly' low-ball offer, just take a minute to re-think what the knock-on effect is & I know there are people out there who really couldn't care less, but I care.

This is why I 'try' to value other ebay hobby sellers in particular, because I know just how hard it is.

It's fun getting a bargain but at what cost?

[padi*0409 · Accepted solution]

Firstly it's estimated that only around 4% of members even visit the boards, so it's unlikely that your post will have much impact on buyer's offers.

However eBay gives you the tools so that you can set "auto-decline" on low offers - too easy hey......

https://www.ebay.com.au/help/selling/listings/selling-buy-now/adding-best-offer-listing?id=4144

Here's the relevant part :-

[jellybirddesigns · Accepted solution]

Buyers are not looking to make YOU happy or to pay what is "fair" - they're looking to make themselves happy and pay the lowest possible price.

Buyers who are not sellers are completely unaware of the fees that a seller incurs, and those that are aware will assume that the seller has built those fees into the overall price of the listing. Buyers do not care either way what it costs you to sell.

I hand make the majority of my items and have spent several hundred hours doing (and re-doing) photography over the years. I don't expect my buyers to care about my selling processes - I only expect them to look at my listings and find them attractive enough to purchase BECAUSE I put in all the hard work behind the scenes.

If a seller uses Make an Offer, buyers will almost ALWAYS lowball the seller to see what they can get away with, especially if they sense a seller is really keen to sell.

Auctions are not like they used to be in the earlier days on this platform. There are millions and millions more sellers all competing for the same buyer dollar and in my opinion, prices don't go nearly as high as they used to, especially with so many other platforms to look at and the surge in online shopping in general. So many sellers just get one bid on their item and then they are crying because they thought there would be higher demand. We see it often in the forums when a seller comes here asking what to do because they put an opening bid of $100 on an item worth $1000+ (for example) and they only got the one bid.

I used to do auctions until I just set my items to BIN at the price I wanted, with immediate payment required. Makes things so much simpler, including not having to chase buyers to pay. Maybe change to BIN, or at least remove the Make an Offer option if you continue with auctions.

[lidi.lili.pili]

Thanks you,

Your reply, is very much appreciated and of what you say, it is so true.

I'm often such an idealist, and just as often find the reality of how things are depressing. It renders me just a little sad.

I had a look at your items, they're lovely, I can see the care you take.

My Mum worked in a factory sewing & still sews, knits & does other crafty things for fun, or something useful to do. We've often found it a bit sad that the hourly rate translates to a pittance financially and it does actually break my heart just a little to think of this for my dear Mum. I am just glad the motivation is now fun & not income.

I know I am most likely wasting my time trying to find ways that spark some kind of fairness from everyone, for everybody. I guess I am of the dream that if just one person changed one behaviour, my own effort involved feels worth it for me.

I'm also certain that there are better ways to do this, when I give it some thought.

In the mean time, I shall re-do my listings as advised by you and the other member that has replied so far. Thanks again for taking the time to do so. 

🙂

[lidi.lili.pili]

Thank you for your reply.

WOW 4%. That's pretty sad, though I don't really know what I was imagining. Perhaps, out of that 4% maybe one person might think twice... lol. I don't know.

I am an optimist and an idealist at best/worst, but do value cold hard facts just as much so thank you for pointing that one out & of course reminding me about setting an automatic response. I had totally forgotten I could do that.

I shall indeed set my lower priced listings to auto decline these low ball offers.

🙂

Thank you so much for taking the time & making the effort to reply.

[jellybirddesigns]

I think the main thing to take away is that online transactions are really just "business".

For me the "fun" side is that I enjoy the creative aspects such finding great fabrics and the fact that I get lovely repeat buyers, but at the same time, this is a part of my income and I take it very seriously, which means setting realistic non-auction prices for my business model.

You have some interesting items. In the early days of Ebay I used to deal with a lot of vintage and antique collectibles, especially toys, which were fun to unearth and sell 🙂

[katistrophik]

deleted

[sugar249]

Just don't give the make an offer option to buyers.  Simple no low ballers allowed.

Or if you really want to allow offers set an auto reject value on the offer,  what is the minimum you want to let Item A sell for,  if it's $8 auto reject all offers below this.

Or if you don't set an auto reject, don't accept the offer, the power is in your hands, not the buyers.

Personally I think if you are allowing offers, you are admitting that you have over priced the item.

Why wouldnt buyers offer a lower amount if you allow the option.

[*sons_and_daughters*]

My items sell equally as well with auction or BIN. Therefore, I do both. I do not, and have never, had make an offer on any of my items. My BIN items are set at the price I want for them. The auction items have a starting bid of the lowest I will accept. Most of my auctions will have multiple bidders. Some only have one, which is why I start at the minimum I want.

As others have said, remove the option to make an offer and you won't have these issues. Having the offer option turned on doesn't encourage buyers. It just encourages people who want something for next to nothing. Ultimately, it's you that will lose out and the buyer will be cheering.

You could also increase your prices. I make a minimum 500% profit on my items and have no issues with sales. If sales stopped, then I'd reconsider my pricing, but a lot of the time, I struggle to get everything sent in time because I have a regular non ebay job.