So called "best offer"

[chiccaloca]

I don't understand when sellers put the "best offer" option on their listing when they are only willing to accept an offer of $1 or less of their asking price.  What is the point?  Hardly a best offer option.

[letscleanupmycupboards]

It's funny though because I've put in some best offers on items that are less than half the listed price (because that's what the item has been worth to me) and had them accepted. So it's not always doom and gloom. Sometimes can have a win.

[lane-ends]

Best offer may be in their standard listing template for all their items, some they will accept offers others they wont, or maybe they may later when its been listed a while. It just gives them flexibility.

Some sellers may just use it as an option to get buyers interest

I used to use it, but now scrapped it as buyers contact you direct anyway and you can resposnd to messages with offers. Otherwise buyers will make an offer and you may accept it when they were quite happy to pay asking price anyway. You may even loose buyers because their offer was rejected whereas they would just have bought without hesitation if the offer option was not there

Its all just marketing psychology anyway.

To me as a buyer its just another inconvenience delay between clicking buy now and having it in the post, as you dont know if seller has set up auto acceptance. All for the sake of often only a couple of dollars.

[lyndal1838]

Actually you do know if the seller has set up auto accept/reject.

You are notified immediately if the seller has accepted or rejected your offer.

If the auto function is not set up the system will tell you that your offer has been forwarded to the seller for consideration and they have 48 hours to respond.

In my experience my offers are never under consideration for more than a few hours.

[glenbankloel]

That is a great idea, "make an offer" make much more sense. The buyer would definitely understand that they might not win the item using this terminology.

[rocket2retro]

I don't think many buyers understand the real cost of selling on eBay.

For example if I was to buy something for $5.00 and list it on eBay it for $10.00 (with $10.00 postage) my profit would be less than $2.00 after eBay/PayPal fees.

Thus a best offer at $9.00 would effectively halve my profit and I've sourced.cleaned, photographed, listed, packed and posted the item for less than a $1.00 profit.

[englishrosegardens]

A lot of buyers couldn't care what it costs sellers anyway.  It doesn't help that so many sellers are making a loss on what they sell because they haven't got a clue what fees they're charged.  Because they don't ask enough it makes a lot of the other sellers look like they're ripping buyers off.

I'm sure some sellers never read their credit card bills to see that they're still paying ebay long after they stop selling, and many obviously never look at their ebay invoices.  I don't always check the items on mine but I do always have a pretty good idea of what my fees should be each month because I keep a sales tally.

[*tippy*toes*]

You're right. It's amazing how many people have stores but haven't listed anything for months. EBay must love them! $20 a month (at least) for a little red door next to their username on an account that's not being used. Crazy!

[englishrosegardens]

I know of someone who's had a store without any listings for over 2 years. She used the same ID to buy and sell so I know what sort of profit she made, which was absolutely zilch on a lot of items. I've bought a lot of the same sort of items so I know what she would have paid for postage. A friend and I always used to say she must have had rocks in her head. She did both of our sales a lot of damage at one stage, but thankfully they picked up again when she stopped selling.

[heihachi_73]

I have actually had people put in best offers of more than my Buy It Now price before, despite me having auto-accept turned on with best offers e.g. $7 for a $10 item; buyer "bids" $12 instead. eBay doesn't check for stupidity like that.

I honestly don't know whether I should accept those offers or let them slide, as I really don't want the buyer to waste my listings by telling me to cancel or simply not pay at all and make me wait 8 days to give them a non-payment strike so I can finally relist it again. Maybe I should decline the best offers and see if they "bid" $15 instead, on something that they could have had for $7! The fact it's happened multiple times is a joke in itself.

[4946marks]

Not  all sellers i just got offered $180 on something i want $390 so yo tell me whos benig fair dinkum you want me to give it away for free