Accepted Best Offers Nowhere To Be Found?

[wilsonharborsales]

Hello,

There is a glitch/issue with best offers.  The buyer submitted best offers on three separate items.  I accepted all three offers.  The buyer contacted me that the items are nowhere to be found on her end so she can’t pay for them.  The offers show ‘accepted’ in my email, but the items are not showing up in the ‘waiting for payment tab’.  No email confirming items were sold.  If you click on the items, it shows that they have sold.

tl;dr offers accepted, buyer can’t pay,  listing vanished

[sumsum70]

You must not be paying enough Promoted Ransom to your overlord. Now your sales are being held hostage.

[kensgiftshop]

Accepted offers, the listings stay active until the item is paid for.

Something new they are trying.

Even though you accepted their offer, someone else can still buy the item.

[ittybitnot]

@wilsonharborsales 

This is not a glitch.  It is a new "feature, enhancement, test, intended change that looks like a glitch" rolling out.   

You can read about it here:  

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Received-offers-turning-into-sent-offers/m-p/34183295#M2328738

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Offers-being-accepted-then-not-showing-up-as-sold-creating-hav...

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/I-don-t-think-eBay-really-wants-us-to-make-sales/m-p/34216592#...

There are more discussions as well, but these should give you an idea.  Basically, when you accept a buyer's offer, it is changed into YOU MADE AN OFFER.  The buyer is not notified that you accepted their offer, it shows up as YOU HAVE AN OFFER.  There are two types of these "You have an offer" screens the buyer can receive, and it is eBay that decides which one they get, and it is NOT a function of the Buyer Requirements associated with the 'auto pay' scheme as originally thought.   One will have an "accept" button, the other will not.  

Unfortunately, eBay has been silent on this topic, so the information we have is still from members sharing experiences and screen shots.  

[wilsonharborsales]

The buyer has 1 feedback, and unfortunately after 30 messages back-and-forth, neither of us could figure out the issue.  They requested to cancel.

It says that, ‘you made the buyer the winner’ … but the buyer can’t find the item or where to pay for it.

[wilsonharborsales]

The confused buyer has requested that the sale is canceled, but there seems to be no way to do this.  Has anyone figured out how to cancel the accepted best offers?

[ittybitnot]

@wilsonharborsales 

In these instances, you don't have to cancel and probably can't unless they paid.  They don't have to pay either for both of the two different screens mentioned above have a "decline offer" button.   

But if your 'acceptance' notice is missing for the buyer due to you being included in the new rollout,  they can look here: 

My eBay>Bids & Offers>Offers

You are lucky you could communicate with the buyer, some have said that they cannot unless they use some sort of "contact member>this is not about an item" flow. 

[fern*wood]

I've requested an ebay rep to please chime in to offer some clarification on this new process or give information as to where ebay describes the new process, but so far I've not seen any response.  This may be just a limited beta test, but no one seems to know.  

Why is information so difficult to find about this?

devon@ebay

[wilsonharborsales]

Well, it is important that we are all brand ambassadors for eBay, but after 30 messages and a lot of confusion over a couple of $12 dollar items … I do not believe that this buyer will return to the platform 

[wilsonharborsales]

@valueaddedresource is there any information available on how to navigate this?  I am very confused by this.

[fern*wood]

All I've been able to deduce from posts is this is some new way for sellers to avoid unpaid items on offers by changing the process.  It is unfortunate that this new process has received no clarification, and apparently, isn't intuitive.   I guess it's a case of be careful what you ask for, since the fix can be worse than the problem.

[valueaddedresource]

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@wilsonharborsales wrote:

@valueaddedresource is there any information available on how to navigate this?  I am very confused by this.

---

Thanks for the tag @wilsonharborsales . Unfortunately, I don't have any other information at this time beyond what others here have already shared - it is something eBay has been testing for a few months but the only available info is what has been gleaned by users sharing their experiences.

I definitely agree with @ittybitnot @fern*wood and others and I'll just add - eBay's silence on this is frustrating, counterproductive to any "seller engagement" efforts the company claims to be undertaking, and incredibly harmful to both buyers and sellers as everyone involved is groping around in the dark with no answers in the face of a significant change to "the way things work" on this platform.

devon@ebay  kyle@ebay  elizabeth@ebay  selling_team@ebay 

[krazzykats]

I did a best offer this morning.  Everything went smoothly as always.  Am I not seeing what you are?  What changed?

User name was purposely removed.

Next screen:

And my orders page:

I accepted the offer, and it was paid almost immediately after.  Are you saying some best offers are auto-pay and some are not?  I'm not clear on the issue being asked.  🤔

[ittybitnot]

this is some new way for sellers to avoid unpaid items on offers by changing the process.

@fern*wood 

Sellers have no control over this.  When it first started it was thought to be influenced by  the  (auto-pay) Buyer Requirements set to the Default of YES. 

https://www.ebay.com/bmgt/buyerrequirements

Buyer Payment Requirements

*Require buyers to provide a payment method before they place a bid.

*Require buyers to provide a payment method before they make an offer.

Click submit.

It took a while to figure out that was not the case,  but as you know what information we do have took quite a while to obtain since it was garnered only by shared experiences and screen shots by many people who never have visited the boards previously.   Some even had issues accusing members of "being eBay employees" LOL  This wasted a lot of time trying to explain, though even if it was 'not the same as it worked last week, does not mean it is a glitch".   EBAY IS NOT TALKING, and know it is just not YOUR tags that have been ignored.  

This new thing with "offers" does nothing to get rid of buyers that make offers and don't pay.  It does take away any penalty for doing that but only "SOMETIMES"  depending on what screen eBay sends them when the seller accepts an offer, or generates an offer.  

In the following thread which I quoted previously, the screen in post #1 shows ONE of the two kinds a buyer cant receive from the seller.  Notice there is no accept button, either Check Out or decline on this one.  

The screen shot in post #17 is an example of the other kind.  (the make counter offer is a seller preference).  This one has an accept button and decline button.   If a buyer should accept this, it will go to the seller's awaiting payment folder.  They will not be auto-billed regardless of the preferences that I posted in bold above, and nobody has to pay.  The listing may or may not remain live until somebody pays for it. 

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/I-don-t-think-eBay-really-wants-us-to-make-sales/m-p/34216592#...

I do hope @valueaddedresource will respond here as well.  At one time she posted a great "think outside the box" idea of why eBay is changing things up while still apparently clinging to the Buyer Requirements that force a buyer to put up a payment source in order to proceed.  It was very enlightening, and I have been looking for it for over two weeks...I am search impaired...LOL. and hoping she knows where it is! 

My personal thought is eBay did not count on so many buyers simply 'refusing to comply',  that resulted in lost revenue, and eBay decided to try something else. The "New Improved (FORCED) Checkout" (for the buyer's convenience) was quickly debunked by the actual results.    In some speech or other published statement, eBay officials including the CEO stated the success of this program was hampered by having to change "20 years of buyer behavior/expectations"  or some such, but had confidence it could be accomplished.  

Overall, this whole thing is a mess, and not fair to buyers nor sellers at this point. 

[wilsonharborsales]

Apparently this is being beta tested and it only impacts some sellers.  I don’t even know what question to ask because I don’t understand what is happening.

The tl;dr is: seller accepts offer, items disappear and buyer can’t pay