Low best offer bidders

[expanded_perceptions]

Hi all,

Just wondering what you guys consider to be either a fair or insulting bid on best offer prices?

I have recently had a couple of offers at 50% of the buy it now price, which frankly i fend insulting, maybe I should toughen up, but frankly I cannot help feeling very peaved at such low offers. I have read people saying 10% off is a fair price, I would say 20% is a decent starting point, but half price is just horrific. I just blocked a couple of buyers because of the offers, as I would rather not deal with them, but what do all you seasoned veterans think?

[curraone]

I use best offer because  of the combined postage - if someone buys my item, they might look around and say well I could get that for only $1 extra postage, I will make an offer.     It encourages buyers to combine purchases.  

[thecatspjs]

Lower than you would like best offers can come in handy when sales are thin and assist with maintaining some cash flow I have accepted a few in my time when dosh was needed

[black*poppy]

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@pennyforum14 wrote:

I have a bit of a theory about that.  I think some buyers see MAO as the new preferred option to auctions, it can be quicker, they can put forward their own "opening bid" and the BN price doesn't disappear while they are negotiating.  I get quite  a few offers that are below what I can afford to accept, I usually counter and about 60% of the time the counter offer is accepted.  However, about 20% of the time, the buyer ends up buying at the BN price anyway.  I have quite a few MAO items and approx half of them sell at the BN price without offers being made.

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I think Penny is right here.

IMO buyers often put in a low offer as a starting point for negotiations.  So in reality they don't expect a seller to take the first offer, but are simply following the golden rule of haggling  - always start low.

[cq_tech]

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@i-love-my-sheep wrote:

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@springyzone wrote:

I don't know I would ever block a buyer just because they put in a low offer, after all, it is up to you whether you accept it or not.

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CQ had a buyer make an offer on a BIN item a couple of weeks ago (no best offer option). He rejected said offer, so the buyer bought it anyway and then trashed his stars. I find that reason enough to block someone. Sadly, due to the amount of irrational buyers on here these days and seeing how easily sellers get shafted, someone only has to look at me sideways and they're added to my special party list.

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She (yes, it was a woman) bought 2 items at the same time and didn't just trash all my DSRs, but marked the item description so low that I was defected on both items. It was clearly malicious as I'd rejected her ridiculous offers the night before. To make matters worse, I complained to eBay but they couldn't give a stuff, so since then I have removed best offer from all items that had it enabled in their listings, lowered their BIN prices slightly, and from now on any buyer who makes an unsolicited offer on any of my items will immediately be blocked.

It's obvious that we can't count on ebay to protect our interests, in spite of the disgustingly high fees we pay so it's up to all sellers to look out for themselves because eBay certainly doesn't have our backs any more. They're too busy kow-towing to buyers and bending over backwards trying to keep them happy, even though the buyers don't pay them a red cent. We sellers are the ones who pay their salaries yet they continue to treat us like sh!te and show us nothing but contempt. Well right back at you eBay, because you're the most contemptuous group of back-stabbing individuals I've ever had the misfortune to deal with and I look forward to the day that you're all out of a job, just like all the sellers who were forced to leave eBay because of the appalling way you treated them.

[aps1080]

cq

It's because you have that bloody Navy logo in your name !

I bet they are an ex recruit that couldn't hack the hazing and quit the course and this is payback !!! LOL

You and I are competing, both selling DVD's !

Hell yours are cheap, Apocolypse now for $8 !!!

I love the smell of Napalm in the morning !

[mbselections00]

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@twyngwyn wrote:
I don't understand why anyone would use 'best offer' unless it's for a car/house etc

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I actually have it on most of my listings.  I haven't found how to apply it to Variation listings though.   When I first started selling seriously about 12 months ago,  I used it to test the waters so to speak.  Now I mainly use it (in my mind at least) to enable Buyers who wish to purchase more than one of a certain item to get a bit of a discount (but because a lot of my items are low value, I won't accept ridiculous offers - can't afford to with all the fees !)  I often get offers below 50% - in which case I have a laugh and use that button someone aptly re-named !

I do always Counter Offer, with a polite explanation.  The ones who have made a ridiculous offer cop an equally ridiculous CO, about 5cents off & they usually disappear & those that are reasonable to begin with, get a reasonable CO which they usually accept.  I've even had a few newbies who didn't understand how to accept the Counter Offer & ended up paying BIN price anyway, so I send them an extra besides their thank you gift (Call me crazy, I know)

And as someone else suggested, sometimes it's a case of 'Do I want a sale ?', so I'll take my costs into consideration and if I'm in a good mood, the Buyer may be lucky, even if it's just a one off item, I figure, if they are interested & their offer is reasonable, why not - they just may become a regular customer or maybe it will just make someone's day .

Touch wood, surprisingly, most Buyers don't even use it - hope not too many Buyers read this !! Hahaha

[cq_tech]

There could be a lot more truth in what you're saying than you think. It has just occurred to me that while I've simply been calling my buyer Asian, they are in fact Vietnamese, and it's possible that they did take offence at my Avatar, as well as the fact that I have listed at least a dozen or more DVD movies based on the Vietnam War. Wouldn't it be funny if that's why they defected me, and not because I wouldn't accept their ridiculously low offers on my DVDs?

I guess we are competing in a round about sort of a way, although you're selling the more expensive boxed sets and series, while I'm trying to get by making next to nothing on $8-$10 DVDs and pretty much wasting my time if the truth be known. I have a few much higher-priced items which are the cream, so to speak, although while there are shiploads of watchers, not too many turn into sales.

As I've said on numerous occasion previously, it's a bloody good thing I don't need to be here, otherwise I'd have gone broke ages ago. I'm only selling here because it gives me something to do since I retired, otherwise I'd be wasting my time watching TV or sitting in front of the computer complaining on the discussion boards about how appallingly eBay treats its hard-working sellers.

[glenbankloel]

I agree penny, I always take a deep breath and walk away for half an hour to calm down and then return to the keyboard. Personally I believe that the cheeky offers ($10.00 on a $35.00) are really teasers to draw/suss out the amount that we are prepared to accept.

Regardless I always reply politely and thank them for their offer, then give them a counter-offer of the lowest $ figure we will accept. Probably 75-80% of the time they accept our counter offer. So I don't write these offers off, just treat them like potential customers and who knows we could have a sale.

One caveat here is that sometimes they return with a counter to my counter offer, but i don't move. I reitereate the original offer, and reply again politely that this is the price. Very few go this far, mostly they either disappear into the ether, or they accept my original  offer. Works for us!

[expanded_perceptions]

Some good answers and insights here, so thanks! I did start of being very polite in my responses to offers, but that was until a buyer was very rude for me declining her best offer! But I think the people that take a break and come back to the offer later perhaps is a good way to go!

I have most of my items on Best Offer listings partly because it saves listing fees, and as others state it allows for some flexibility on margins and how recent sales have been going! if it has been a slow week or so, I am perhaps more willing to take less, if I have had some good sales then I am in no hurry to take offers. Also a lot of my items cost $20-30 to ship due to weight and insurance, so Best offers allow me to take the delivery suburb in to account as well as my margins etc..Best offers basically allow for greater flexibility  because you don't rule out those who want to pay a bit less and you can adjust for many factors, including as others mention those buying more than one item, at least that is how it works for me!