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@x321654 wrote:

Sorry for the whine, but more than once I've made a seller an offer and they've come back with a counter offer that's 50 cents (or less) of their original asking price.  So why do they have the make an offer button?  Do they get some kind of bonus by having it?


I've voted with my money (I don't buy from them), but its such a waist of time.

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While this may, or may not, apply to the sellers and items you've been making offers with / on, different sellers use the make an offer feature for different reasons - some sellers have used it to provide discounts on bulk quantities, and can't provide that (or any) discount on purchases of just one or two, so it is not uncommon for little to no discount on best offer items (sellers tended not to mention this in listings, as certain keywords - like offer - could be picked up and cause listings to be ended automatically, and policy violations issued, despite the actual sentences not actually trying to breach eBay policy). New discounting features store sellers have access to may help curb the instances where sellers used best offer for this purpose, though. 

Some newer sellers seem to misunderstand the feature completely, and are under the impression using best offer means their Buy It Now price is the minimum they'll accept, and people can offer higher amounts (a bit like an auction, but the seller sees all offers, then picks and chooses which one to accept).

Obviously, some sellers do use it seemingly as a way to gain interest, with no intention of discounting the price by any amount etc, but voting with your wallet is pretty much the only thing you can do in those cases.