eBay

jettshutt · ‎11-16-2023

I've been on & off eBay with my online storefront/brand for over 14 yrs. In my industry, which includes vintage Star Wars, best offers worked for many years. Lately however, the offers average less than it would cost me to ship an item. And the time sink with customers questions, wow. Here the best one yet...

Customer messages me 6 times, each time a full day apart. A $99 vintage Star Wars item I had listed with a best offer. Item had an average sold history of $75 to $125.

Customer: "Is this legit vintage?"
Me: Sure is, I ordered it myself via Mail-Order back in 1983, I was 18 yrs old.
Customer: "That's cool, is this considered rare?"
Me: Seeing it was a mail-in out of Bantha Tracks a the time, I think that's fair to say"
Customer: "This would be a super addition to my collection"

Me: "Great, make your best offer and I'll ship it out free via USPS priority"

Customer: "And you will pack it up safe and secure"
Me: Sure will, I have custom boxes made just for this stuff and 14+ yrs experience
Customer: "OK, thanks for the the information"

So, I get the best offer.... $9.75

reallynicestamps · ‎11-16-2023

Counter offer at$97.50.

Either that was what he meant to Offer, or you are politely telling him .... that he is embarrassing himself.

reallynicestamps · ‎11-16-2023

Meanwhile.

You know you can set parameters on Offers, right?
You could set your automatic Accept at $95.99 and reject under $79.99 for example.

You would only see the Offers between$80 and$95.98. then haggle from there.

An offer over the Accept would only show up as a sale.

sin-n-dex · ‎11-16-2023

I had a banknote up for 39.99 from the Dominican, and it was older, so probably worth the 39.99 if someone was interested. Someone contacted me and offered me $35, but I couldn't send him an offer (I probably already did and he let it expire). So I put best offer so he can offer me the $35, and it was to auto accept at that price. I didn't put in an auto reject price since I wasn't anticipating having to reject an offer.

Anyway this customer goes away and doesn't proceed with the sale, and I forget about the item being up with best offer on it.

So one day I come home and I have an offer for it. Remembering I did that item for someone (which is not common, only a handful of items have best offer on them at a customer request), I thought "oh great I'll get the $35 we discussed now". I look at the offer, it's $5. I didn't even counter, I just declined it, then I removed best offer from the listing which is my polite way of saying "no offers".

Had it been a reasonable offer, like $25 or $30. I might have countered or negotiated or something, or possibly accepted it if I was in the mood to make that sale. But offering me $5 on a $39.99 item when my cost was $15 is just pure insulting if that, and I wasn't going to engage in any response with some lowballer. I never heard from that person again, and they weren't the same person that initially contacted me about the banknote.

C.

jettshutt · ‎11-16-2023

I don't do parameters as it gives me the ability to weed-out (ban) bad customers. Even if an offer it good, I always look at feedback left as you can tell if a customer attempts of game returns (seller was very understanding...), customers that negs every other order and lastly, the $1.00 offer customer. This is the greatest tool of Best offers and I really hate to loose it.

However, the # of offers under $5.00 I've received in the past few months has been astounding and I have other storefronts, including my own .www of 14 yrs to maintain.

reallynicestamps · ‎11-16-2023

You don't have to use both parameters.

Add the Reject level and those will get a polite note from eBay.

Then you only have to look at the reasonable offers and can still see their FB before you reject or Block or counteroffer.

We recently started using a hobby-specific site that has performed well, but one quirk is that the buyer there don't want to bargain. About half of the counter-offers we make are rejected or more precisely ignored.

gb58 · ‎11-16-2023

I think many times the people who really send low ball offers, a $5 offer on a $100 item for example, do it in the hope that we will accidentally click accept rather than decline.

They probably spend their entire day doing it, it's a sort of game to them.

I love the ones who send a really low ball offer, you decline, they come back with another low offer, maybe a $1 more. Again you decline. They come back a third time, still no where close to anything you would even consider, but this time they have enclosed a message with their ridiculous offer saying, "this is my final offer".

toomuchstuffagain35 · ‎11-16-2023

Do you reply "good" lol

"If a product doesn't sell, raise the price" - Reese Palley
"If it sold FAST, it was priced too low" - also Reese Palley

rugerskick · ‎11-16-2023

Don't give up for certain items you know have value.

Just set a minimum offer amount.

pickapaper · ‎11-16-2023

A man told us that he buys a lot of stuff on eBay by putting in a ton of low-ball offers. He said it's actually surprising how many of them get accepted. A lot of the time it is stuff that is misspelled or titled wrong or some other reason that the item hasn't sold and the seller doesn't know and is probably just glad to get rid of it.

ajs_coins_and_alchemy · ‎11-16-2023

@gb58 wrote:

I love the ones who send a really low ball offer, you decline, they come back with another low offer, maybe a $1 more. Again you decline. They come back a third time, still no where close to anything you would even consider, but this time they have enclosed a message with their ridiculous offer saying, "this is my final offer".

So sad, but so true.

I had a pretty high grade coin with some damage (a nice dent) right near the middle of the coin. Had it priced a bit high to field offers, honestly beauty is in the eye of the beholder and there is no way to accurately price that coin with any reliability. I was priced somewhere in the $200 range? Idk. It's one of those where Idk if it'll sell for $120 or $170 or $200...

Guy offers $10 and leaves a long message explaining "omg this coin is beautiful and would easily grade (insert ridiculous high grade here), but it has some damage right in the middle of the coin and that makes it almost worthless".

I laughed when I sold the coin either same day or couple days later for $130 to an experienced buyer/collector.

greatmidwestcoin · ‎11-16-2023

Yes, I have had a few people over the decades here who try to insult me into selling an item for their low offer. I just block them as I don't need the money that bad. I must have a couple hundred blocked users now. I actually block buyers who return certified coins claiming buyer's remorse. They returned stating they didn't know what they were buying. Yeah, that's not my problem. I only charge $4-$5 shipping and usually mail Priority so I end up eating at least $10 on a return. I just have no patience for "stupid".

dbfolks166mt · ‎11-16-2023

I quit using OBO a long time ago for some of the same reasons you listed. The biggest reason was the time I was spending on answering questions and rejecting low ball offers. I realize you can use the auto reject but I prefer to simply start my pricing at the lowest I am willing to accept for the item. I still get the occasional unsolicited offer but those I simply ignore.

retro_entertainment_collectibles · ‎11-16-2023

I must be odd, I dont mind offers are all, takes me all of two seconds. In as far as messages go well I type pretty fast, I have found communicating a pleasure whether people buy or not.

albertabrightalberta · ‎11-16-2023

@retro_entertainment_collectibles wrote:
I must be odd, I dont mind offers are all, takes me all of two seconds. In as far as messages go well I type pretty fast, I have found communicating a pleasure whether people buy or not.

I don't mind b.o. at all and offer it on all my items.

For lowballs, I decline and don't respond. I don't consider tham to be serious.

If an offer is reasonable but a bit low, I counter but just once. I don't like the back and forth up to 5 times and I wish ebay would go back to just 3 offers per buyer.

But my favorite reason for having a b.o. option is the benefit of being able to weed out bad buyers. I can't count the number of bullets I've dodged because so many offerers love to neg! This is just one buyer whose feedback earned them a "decline" on the offer and a place on my BBL.