Send Offer to Buyers - Any Success

[whoisbiggles]

Is anyone willing to share their levels of success with using the "send offers to buyers" feature?

I'm currently at 0 sales from 22 offers sent.

I usually knock 10 - 15% off the BIN price. Still no interest from the watchers.

Funny thing is 6 of the items I sent offers to, have since sold at full price.

[justcruising49]

I have found it a waste of time. It needs to be at least 5% off the price, but if someone is just watching and not buying, any offer is not going to do anything. Reply with offer seems to work a lot of times if someone asks a question as they are at least a bit interested anyway.

[porcelain_dolls_by_me]

Recently received an offer of $100.00 for an item we had listed at $225.00.

Countered with $224.99 and needless to say that got our message accross and never heard back

[springyzone]

No one has ever sent me an offer. I'm a buyer and I'd say that 90% of the items on my watched list are things I'd consider buying but like lyndal, I think 50c off wouldn't sway me, 5-10% off might.

There's not one doubt in my mind that sales work. There's a company I know of (and that you have probably heard of too) that sells cooking machines at $2089. That price never varies (except upwards). But recently they announced a new model was coming out in about June-July so the present stock is being sold at the equivalent of $650 off. The consultants are currently being swept off their feet. People who were seriously considering one but were put off by the cost are all jumping in now. The sales levels have gone through the roof since the sale started.

I think the key things are that the customer has to be seriously interested in the first place, the discount has to be enough to tempt them and they have to know there is a time limit on the offer. It also helps a lot when they know that the sales price is a genuine discount and not like some shops where there is always some sale or other going on.

With watchers on ebay, you can't know that they are seriously interested. Maybe they once were but haven't cleaned out their watch list, maybe they are just watching to see how an item does (as i am in a couple of cases).

But I have no doubt a sales offer would tempt me on some things, push me over the line.

A seller though needs to think of their own needs and what they need to get for an item. No use practically giving it away just to please buyers. If they have a glut of something or want to clear the line, by all means a mark down might work. Otherwise, stick to your price.

[purplemon18]

I have had a few sales recently after increasing my price. Although they are usually new listings that have had a lot of views, so they are likely to sell.

[brerrabbit585]

I've sometimes wondered whether people buy in case you put it up a second time. Maybe it's time I put some prices up again.

[*tippy*toes*]

A lot of sellers keep reducing their prices until something sells. I do the opposite. If it hasn't sold after X amount of time, I increase the price. Sometimes it's by a few dollars, other times it's only by 50c. Seems to work. My stuff is more likely to sell after I increase the price rather than reduce it.

[justcruising49]

Can I change my mind. Got reinterested after this thread, too much was not selling, so sent off some offers. Well it worked for 2 items, tho must admit it was a repeat customer. I was lucky for this time anyway

[chameleon54]

With rare collectable items, I quite often give them a run as a 3 day auction and price them up pretty well. Occasionally I jag some-one who is willing to pay. If that doesnt work I relist several days later as a BIN at the same price. This often draws out some-one who saw the auction, didnt buy, thought they missed out and they then snap it up whern it comes back onto the matket a few days later. The other effect of this stratedgy is that it picks up potential buyers who only search auctions. 

If all of that fails I leave the item at the high BIN price for perhaps a month. Once I get perhaps 8-10 watchers but no sale, I then reduce the price by around a third to a more realistic price, relying on ebays notification to watchers of the price reduction. This regularly draws buyers out within hours of reducing the price. It all works very well and quite often jags the higher price.

.

[matm_au_9nh1m9]

Yes. I actually lost a watcher on an item after sending out offers. Like you said it can annoy buyers. I ended up selling it for full price a couple of weeks later. The few times I've tried offers I've had no takers. The best approach is just to be patient and not price it way over the current market rate.

[springyzone]

I'll put my hand up and say I have occasionally bought after a seller has sent an offer on an item I am watching.

I don't know why it would annoy anyone. All I can think of is maybe they thought that you, the seller, could see their ID because you had sent a personal message to them.

My understanding is you're sending out the messages to anonymous watchers but many buyers may not realise that and it may give them a jolt and they may remove the item from the watched list so you can't 'see' them.

The other reason is it may focus their attention back on the item and they may decide that after all, they really don't want it any more so may as well remove it from the list. I've often got stuff in my watched item list that I haven't othered deleting and it is still there monthys later till I get around to it.

Or it could be like me. I got an offer on an item and was almost going to click and buy but an ad underneath my watched list showed same item cheaper with another seller, whose feedback I looked up and found they were drop shipping from Amazon so I looked at Amazon and wowee, the item was there at $20 cheaper than anything on ebay. So that offer sent to me could well have resulted in a sale, just not to the seller who originally made the offer. As it was, I won't be buying that item at all, the amazon reviews were very detailed and turned me off.

Bottom line-keep making occasional offers, some people will buy eventually. It won't work on everyone but on some of us it will.