topic Best offer in Selling

Best offer

drouin4 — Sun, 25 Feb 2018 22:31:52 GMT

Hi, just wondering if there is a rough percentage I should be take off when accepting offers.

I had a couple of offers on the weekend where the buyer offered $30 for items selling for $45 so I accepted them.

They then went on to offer me $20 and less for items selling for $45 which I did not accept.

Am I right in feeling a little offended that they would offer such low offers and expect me to sell to them.

They came across as offended that I didn not accept such low offers, more than 50% off my asking price.

Thankyou

Re: Best offer

springyzone — Sun, 25 Feb 2018 22:52:34 GMT

You had every right to feel offended at offensively low offers. I would have too & I've always rejected offers like that in the past (on other selling sites).

As a guide, I have usually found on ebay (as a buyer) that my "best offer' has been accepted when it is around 5% off.

Or maybe 5-10% with some sellers.

But I have never struck one that sold with a bigger discount. I'm sure there must be some out there who do, but just saying, I haven't struck any. Even one who had best offer didn't accept 5% off. I think maybe their discount only applied if someone bought multiples.

Did you know you can set up best offer to have an auto accept $ amount and an auto reject level? Anything in between would go to you for you to decide. That might be the way to go, so people who make ridiculously low offers see immediately that it is declined.

If there is a time lag & they know it has gone into you to decide manually, they might think they are close to your expectation when they aren't, and so their second offer is more likely to be insulting too.

An auto decline on low offers will soon train them & if it doesn't, at least you don't have to deal with it.

Re: Best offer

springyzone — Sun, 25 Feb 2018 22:59:09 GMT

Oh and a PS. Don't worry in the least if they seem offended by you not accepting a low offer.

If they accuse you of being lousy or greedy for not accepting it, you go right back at them and say they are being greedy for not offering a bit more.

Re: Best offer

kopenhagen5 — Sun, 25 Feb 2018 23:28:24 GMT

I assume these offers were not formal offers in the eBay listings as the purchases would have been made without the possibility of offering lower again.

If I received an offer outside of a listing, I make sure that listing has Make an Offer and just message back explaining they need to make the offer in the listing. If I want, I then accept it and the item is purchased at that price.

I don't even respond to lowball offers just messaged and especially if I don't have Make an Offer in the listing.

Re: Best offer

drouin4 — Mon, 26 Feb 2018 02:44:34 GMT

Thankyou everyone for your help, no all the offers were via ebay.

Re: Best offer

wide-world-of-stamps — Mon, 26 Feb 2018 02:53:41 GMT

Whatever you're comfortable with. If an offer makes you feel insulted or upset, don't accept it.

Re: Best offer

davidc4430 — Mon, 26 Feb 2018 04:14:12 GMT

you have to be a little tough selling, only sell at your price not theirs.

only accept an offer thats good for you, not just them.

never feel obliged to sell, its your stuff, you decide what you will accept.

i have recently been getting what i class as silly offers from so called 'experts' for some of my items.

well i give them a listing in my blocked buyers list.

my motto, there are millions of ebay buyers and each of my items only needs 1, i can live without the idiots.

Re: Best offer

purplemon18 — Tue, 27 Feb 2018 10:00:06 GMT

I recently turned on make an offer on all my listings, and a great number of them make low ball offers. I get at least one every day who offers half price. At first I did get offended, and made snarky replies until I got this message:

When you make a offer it clearly says "does not include shipping" didnt even see it had free shipping and thats not a "unreasonable" offer at all! Good luck selling it! Ive bought 3 dresses this week at $10. Btw postage for a 500gr tracked satchel bag is $8.50 so my offer would of covered postage just so you know!

It was on a $25 dress. Maybe I exagerated a little on it costing ten bucks just to send it, but still, that's not profitable and she's a vulture...Although I still have not sold that dress a month later...

Anyway, since then I have been a bit more diplomatic in my responses, and every now and again it results in a sale. Just 2 days ago, I had someone low ball me and then accept my counter offer (although she could have continued to negotiate because I usually leave a little room in my counter offer for more discounting).

I have this standard response saved for copy-paste:

Hi, sorry but the postage alone will cost me $5. once i include eBay fees, packing materials, and my purchase cost, I can offer $15.

Obviously I just change the 2 numbers after I paste it to suit the purpose.

Amusingly, I recently had someone offer $5 on a $15 item, so I made a counter offer of something like $12.50, and they came back with $5.50! I counter offered with my regular price (and no comment), and didn't hear from them again.

I'd say that I never even hear from people again after I make a counter offer 80-90% of the time, like they don't even decline the offer. So they have not even come back to ebay in the 2 days they have to respond, and are probably just as reliable at paying.

I still make some of those sales, but the question is whether they would have still bought if make an offer wasn't an option.

Re: Best offer

curraone — Tue, 27 Feb 2018 22:31:38 GMT

I have a lot of items listed as make an offer, but have the automatic decline set at $1 below a figure I would be happy with

So I don't even see the silly offers

However, when I have nothing to do I occasionally check to see what has been offered, for example just recently I can see I got an offer for a $150 item - the offer made was $20 and then they upped it to $30!!! (no this is not a typo, they only offered thirty dollars!)

Re: Best offer

springyzone — Wed, 28 Feb 2018 06:45:40 GMT

@curraonewrote:
I have a lot of items listed as make an offer, but have the automatic decline set at $1 below a figure I would be happy with

So I don't even see the silly offers

However, when I have nothing to do I occasionally check to see what has been offered, for example just recently I can see I got an offer for a $150 item - the offer made was $20 and then they upped it to $30!!! (no this is not a typo, they only offered thirty dollars!)

Lucky you didn't have to see that!

It would not have done your blood pressure any good.

Since buyers only get a chance to make 3 offers, you have to wonder at them making their second offer so low.

They really weren't that keen to have it, not if they didn't offer a bit more.

Re: Best offer

ivak245 — Wed, 28 Feb 2018 12:07:15 GMT

I sell through other methods as well as on Ebay, & I constantly get offers at 25% of the selling price. These are always via email, but i don't waste my 2 seconds to give them a reply, I just delete them as they are professional time-wasters. Or they say "what's your best price?" , so , if I am selling something for say, $100, I will tell them that MY best price would be around $800, but if I got $100 for it I would be happy. Leaves them confused, and they go away, especially after not even seeing the item, or asking the right questions about it.

Re: Best offer

digital*ghost — Thu, 01 Mar 2018 07:55:51 GMT

@drouin4wrote:
Hi, just wondering if there is a rough percentage I should be take off when accepting offers.

I had a couple of offers on the weekend where the buyer offered $30 for items selling for $45 so I accepted them.

They then went on to offer me $20 and less for items selling for $45 which I did not accept.

I know this post is a few days old now, but just thought I'd mention that often, if an initial low offer is accepted without any negotiation, the person making the offer will often wonder how much lower they could have gone and still have their offer accepted (and just in my personal opinion, a 33% discount is quite high, even if it equates to a low amount on its own).

If you get an offer that's in the realm of acceptable to you but it's still a big discount, it may pay to counter-offer even $1 or so higher just to avoid the first response being "what if I'd offered $20?". Even though it means the buyer pays slightly more than their initial offer, 9 times out of 10 they will be content that they got the best discount so don't regret not asking for a bigger one.

The actual percentage you're prepared to accept is entirely up to you, though. I haven't used best offer in a long time, but when I did I usually accepted offers between 10 and 20% off the asking price, sometimes with a little bit of haggling (they were all second hand items and I wasn't too sure about the market value, so I'd put them up at an optimum price and see how buyers responded). Other sellers will only knock off about 5%, or even less, as while 5% on the total price can seem low to a buyer, the seller is losing that from the profit which can itself be a very small percentage of the total.

Re: Best offer

davidc4430 — Thu, 01 Mar 2018 08:31:07 GMT

i had a message about an item i have listed asking if i would entertain an offer ( idont have offers ticked in the selling setup)

i messaged back i will allways consider a reasonable offer.

never heard back, i guess he knew his offer was going to be unreasonable lol

Re: Best offer

aussie-picker — Sat, 03 Mar 2018 01:01:46 GMT

I never use the Best Offer Option.

Makes it look like you are desperate.

People still ask via Ebay message for a better price on some of the dearer items .

When you reply , the Ebay has a Reply with Offer button , so that way the price offered ( if you feel like it ) is always in the Sellers control , not the Buyers.

Re: Best offer

midnight1fantasy — Sat, 29 Sep 2018 23:37:51 GMT

I hate the fact that Ebay decides to 'accept offers' on my behalf. Most of the offers are less than half of my selling price. I actually find this so insulting, it has put me off from selling on Ebay. If i want to sell items cheaper, i will lower the price myself.

Re: Best offer

springyzone — Sun, 30 Sep 2018 00:01:22 GMT

@midnight1fantasy wrote:
I hate the fact that Ebay decides to 'accept offers' on my behalf. Most of the offers are less than half of my selling price. I actually find this so insulting, it has put me off from selling on Ebay. If i want to sell items cheaper, i will lower the price myself.

It is insulting and I haven't read of anyone yet who likes this new innovation.

They may be able to take it on themselves to 'accept offers' but they can't actually force you to sell your item at that price and if you don't want to, I wouldn't. I'd ring ebay to get them to look at the transaction and what you listed the item for and to check out that you didn't in fact tick any box that agreed to make an offer (double check you actually haven't before you ring).

Even if they still insist it is a sale, you don't have to go through with it.

There are other selling platforms like marketplace/FB that get quick results if your items are everyday things.