I have a technical question, but am also interested in people’s thoughts about the strategy in general. [I always post items for a price or Best Offer.]

First of all, if I set a lower limit beyond which I will not accept offers, and a bidder makes three ‘bids’ without reaching that limit, are they then precluded from further bidding? Someone in response to another post of mine indicated just that.

I was under the impression that it wasn’t actually construed as a bid or counter-bid and they could continue on their merry way until they reached the limit, at which time the bid would be referred to me, the seller. And this would be accepted as their first bid.

For this reason I’ve not employed this as a strategy because I thought it let the bidder know exactly what the bottom line is. And it’s never a good idea when negotiating to let the other party know what your bottom-line is.

But if the situation is as the other person described (ie bids which aren’t even referred to the seller are still accepted as being a bid), I still don’t think I’m comfortable. First of all it assumes a lot of knowledge on the part of the buyer. [Knowledge I didn’t have, so why would they?] Secondly without any sort of contact I’m losing an opportunity to negotiate & hear about their reasoning.

Thank you once again to all the people who have responded so thoughtfully to my questions in the past.