topic Problem with sending an offer to a buyer in Selling

Problem with sending an offer to a buyer

klatu_verada_nicto — Thu, 27 Dec 2018 22:40:35 GMT

I'm trying to dsend an offer to someone who is watching my item, but the site will not let me proceed.

I get the "Amount must be at least 5% less than your Buy It Now price" warning, even though the price I have entered is much lower than 5% off.

Any thoughs or solutions to this problem?

...and yes, I have tried entering it as 1699, 1,699, 1699.00 & 1,699.00

Re: Problem with sending an offer to a buyer

davewil1964 — Fri, 28 Dec 2018 01:19:24 GMT

Watchers are anonymous. I don't believe you can send anything to a watcher, offers or messages, unless they send you a message. Then you can make an offer in your reply.

Re: Problem with sending an offer to a buyer

digital*ghost — Fri, 28 Dec 2018 01:51:13 GMT

This is still a fairly new feature, so I'm guessing a lot of the kinks haven't been ironed out, yet. I'm also not 100% sure if the feature has been fully or properly rolled out in Australia. It's possible that there is a minimum number of watchers required on a listing, too, as apparently the message buyers receive advise them that the offer has been made available to others (eBay using FOMO to tempt buyers even more - source: https://www.ecommercebytes.com/C/blog/blog.pl?/pl/2018/8/1535312833.html).

I have added the item in your image to my watch list - obviously I have no actual interest in purchasing it, but if it is a watcher-count issue, maybe it'll actually help the feature to work.

This thread on eBay.com clarifies a few things about the feature, it does say that it will work with only one watcher, but it also lists a couple of other requirements:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Send-a-watcher-an-offer-Clarification/m-p/28891787/highlight/true#M1274492

Edited to add: buyers can also opt out of receiving offers, by the way, I haven't explored if I have that option in my account settings, and presumably it should show a more appropriate error message if the buyer has elected not to receive offers, but if the buyer is in a location where this feature isn't available or something (and therefore can't opt out), that might also cause some weird errors.

Re: Problem with sending an offer to a buyer

klatu_verada_nicto — Fri, 28 Dec 2018 02:34:48 GMT

Thanks, having the extra watcher seemed to work.

Re: Problem with sending an offer to a buyer

digital*ghost — Fri, 28 Dec 2018 02:43:36 GMT

Indeed it did 🙂

Just in case you don't get to preview what the buyer receives and are curious:

Re: Problem with sending an offer to a buyer

imastawka — Fri, 28 Dec 2018 02:51:37 GMT

There's also a 10% coupon attached to that item now, bringing it down to $1709

Re: Problem with sending an offer to a buyer

jane-de-cluttering — Fri, 08 Feb 2019 00:48:11 GMT

do you know what sort of notification that the seller receives? Becasue I thought I'd try this feature out last month & I don't know whether it worked or not. I had no notification one way or the other. There were three watchers & i don't know whether it went to one or all of them

Re: Problem with sending an offer to a buyer

digital*ghost — Fri, 08 Feb 2019 03:24:08 GMT

Sorry, no - I've never sent one, and the offer in the screenshot above is the only one I've ever received as a buyer.

They might appear under "your offers", though. That's the only place I can find the offers I sent through eBay messages (the one where you can just hit "reply with offer" when a buyer sends you a message, which I've used to provide bulk quantity discounts a few times - I don't get any notifications for those, and from memory it was a little difficult to find where I can view them, but they are there somewhere, so these promo ones might be there too. Sorry if it's a bit vague).

Re: Problem with sending an offer to a buyer

jane-de-cluttering — Fri, 08 Feb 2019 04:10:02 GMT

thanks. No I can't see anything there. And if I could that would mean I would know who the Watchers were. And perhaps Ebay doesn't want that to happen.

Re: Problem with sending an offer to a buyer

digital*ghost — Fri, 08 Feb 2019 04:28:27 GMT

@jane-de-cluttering wrote:
And if I could that would mean I would know who the Watchers were. And perhaps Ebay doesn't want that to happen.

Possibly, but they don't necessarily have to display IDs for these type of offers, they could also disguise them like the do in bidding histories and feedback. Though it's a bit of a moot point though, if they don't give you anywhere to check on them at all, anyway. Maybe because there's just a time limit and no accept or decline (or counter offer function) on these ones, ebay figured a seller didn't need to check on the status

Re: Problem with sending an offer to a buyer

jane-de-cluttering — Fri, 22 Feb 2019 22:58:22 GMT

After further experimentation:

1. yes the seller does receive a brief notification that the offer has been sent (to two sellers).

2. NB: two sellers only, even if there many more Watchers.

3. The Buyer actually gets repeated notifications, not just the one offer. Which might be a bit spam-like

Re: Problem with sending an offer to a buyer

curraone — Fri, 22 Feb 2019 23:44:00 GMT

@jane-de-cluttering wrote:
do you know what sort of notification that the seller receives? Becasue I thought I'd try this feature out last month & I don't know whether it worked or not. I had no notification one way or the other. There were three watchers & i don't know whether it went to one or all of them

In your selling page - next to the item - it will have changed the drop down menu on the right to "review all offers" - the offers being the ones you made of course - with anonymous ids showing.

Re: Problem with sending an offer to a buyer

archisalvage — Tue, 19 Nov 2019 06:00:06 GMT

I literally have two listing with a prompt from eBay to send offers, i.e. with the blue "Send Offer" radio button. One has a single watcher, the other has 3 watchers. The pop up from eBay on sending the offer is a red box with the words "Offer cannot be submitted."

Re: Problem with sending an offer to a buyer

davewil1964 — Tue, 19 Nov 2019 06:35:33 GMT

A lot of things have changed in the last ELEVEN months, so what I posted then doesn't necessarily apply now.

I don't do offers, so I cannot help you.

Re: Problem with sending an offer to a buyer

the_video_rescuers — Mon, 25 Nov 2019 05:52:06 GMT

I'm having the same problem with some items "Offer Cannot be Submitted".

Only ever encountered "Cannot send offers to blocked buyers" previously.

So this is a bit confusing. I think there may an option to turn off receiving offers? Could be why. Otherwise I have no idea. Frustrating though.