A seller sending out offers on listings

[mint_house]

I have just sold a book that I have had listed for 6 months.  I noticed that the price was a few dollars less than I had it listed for.  I realised I must have sent an offer for this book, but that was weeks, possible a couple of months ago.  I didn't think offers lasted THAT long!  How does this work? How long does an offer sit in the system for?  I mean it's only a couple of bucks but I want to know how this works. 
Thank you ebay community!

[*casey* · Accepted solution]

You definitely have automatic offers enabled.

When you posted this thread, I put a couple of your items on my watch list and have received offers from you with 15% off each item.

If you scroll down to  "Automatically send offers " in this link, it will show you how to disable them.

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

[mint_house · Accepted solution]

Wow Casey, thank you for looking for me! I had no idea. I will be disabling that. I appreciate your help.

[lezned-toycollector · Accepted solution]

Every offer I've ever sent has been valid for 48 hours... and every offer I've ever received has been valid for either 24 or 48 hours. Some have counteroffers enabled and some do not.

If you didn't manually send an offer within 48 hours of making the sale, and didn't use "Best Offer", you would have sent an automatic offer.

[mint_house · Accepted solution]

Thank you for this answer as it makes sense. It had been weeks after I initially sent the offer, that it was sold. I don't understand about automatic offers though. I'll have to google it. It must have been a mistake on my end, enabling it.

[*casey*]

The problem with automatic offers  is that  originally, they were only sent to buyers who had items on their Watchlist.

Now buyers are  often bombarded with offers for items they've only  "looked" at.

But turning them off in buying preferences usually means not receiving offers at all, even for items a buyer may be interested in buying.

[mytreechange]

Earlier today we sent an offer (on our store account), and the was a box pre-ticked to allow eBay to send offers to interested buyers until the listing sold.

If you missed that box when you sent the original offer, and didn't untick it, that might explain the delay.

[mint_house]

Yes! I have noticed that box too.... and didn't really understand what it was in terms of how often and when. I don't recall unticking it but will be watching that from now on. :))

[sandypebbles]

The majority of your current listings show 'or best offer' on them

And several of your completed listings show 'best offer accepted' 

[mint_house]

Hello! thank you for checking for me. I understand that part. It was just that the offer was made weeks before... so I wondered why it was still an active offer. They normally only last 48 hours.

[gutterpunkz05]

Could it be that the buyer made an offer, at a price you had set to be automatically accepted by ebay on your behalf.