Forced Best Offer

[maseratiofpittsburgh]

Can someone please explain to me why Ebay randomly changes unselling listings from Buy Now to Best Offer, there's a specific reason why the prices are set like that are. Is anyone else having this problem? It has happened to a couple ads recently and today I received an offer on a $55 item for $5 (talk about slap in the face). Is there a hidden feature that changes listings? 

[annasunicorns]

Because its someones dream to lead a commune with hippies who pay the leader to run it but give everything away.
Said someone is instead on ebay upper management, stuck with sellers who own thier own product and want to sell it for money.

My theory anyway.

[horta2]

They also sometimes add "Good til canceled for 8 times". Then when your listing ends, it may not be when you have any promos or free listings left, so you get charged listing fees every time it's relisted, and they make money on the item. You may want too wait a few days for the free items at the beginning of the month or wait to relist if the item is seasonal. I had to remove that from 6 or 7 of my listings yesterday.

[old_republic_sales]

This is annoying AF. Since when is it okay for ebay to change my listing without my consent or knowledge? I have been selling since 1999, and now I have to manually go in to all my items and change it back to avoid annoying low-ball offers. I know how price my stuff, stop doing this!

I called support and they acted like they didn't know what I was talking about. They said listings don't do that.

The Internet is ripe for a replacement for ebay with more appropriate seller fees and a better interface. Not to mention the obvious bias toward customers. I had a customer buy a video game redemption code, use it, then claim it was purchased by their child without consent. I wouldn't refund them, so ebay did for me, forcefully. I couldn't believe it. Why do they do this? Because they know other options are very limited.

If there were another business with good public exposure, I would leave ebay in a second. I have listings on Amazon, but they aren't much better.

[div_style]

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@bopperbobh wrote:

I will probably take all mine down too.  I have been selling on Ebay since 2007 or so and this is just not right.   Forcing people to accept offers.  

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eBay is not forcing anyone to accept offers.  I agree getting offers on items for which one does not wish to receive them is annoying, but no one need accept an offer.   One can decline or just ignore it.  I prefer to simply reply, "Sorry I am not accepting offers on this item."  Actually, I have received only one offer in recent months, despite having 1000s of items listed, so I think it has a lot to do if one's listings have a decent probability of selling..

[fairdeal*lb]

The same thing happened to me and this is how I fixed it:

The following message was what we submit with most all of our declined offers:
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
I'm so sorry this it's totally ebay's fault.. The (Best Offer) feature is there against my will. We can thank ebay for this. We had to block your account for (seller self- preservation), lashing out etc.. Again I'm sorry really for both of us. Good luck
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That message was cut and pasted (5-10 times a day) to my potential buyers.

Customers started complaining and rightfully lashing out at ebay for what they did. So no one ever officially admitted to the problem but ebay quietly fixed it in the dead of night without any type of notice. We found out on our own they stopped hijacking our listings. No one from ebay had the decency to contact us in that they took my company off the hook. The hypocrisy is crazy!

0 Helpful
Kudo

[beakersbooks]

Same here -- item was already lowest priced listing but Ebay changed listing to Best Offer then sent along a cheerful email informing me of the enhanced selling "opportunity" they've preemptively chosen for me.  Ethically questionable behaviour in my opinion; hope they read this thread and reconsider.

[bktime]

Not. I just opened a brand new account and they’re doing it. My other account is 100% positive feedback. I opened a second account and it is filled with all kinds of auto stuff that I’m not being given a chance to choose or opt out of. Awful. Forced best offers. Forced auto relist. Feels like eBay thinks we’re they’re employees or contractors. eBay is our vendor.

[bktime]

What’s worse is that there are scammers who, once you respond, they access and hack your account. They almost got me on my other account.

[escuintla]

So, let me understand this. Ebay is changing prices as they please?

Fine, just change the prices higher, no complaint from me. But I will tell them that if they don't sell, they are going to pay for their relisting next time. 

Oh, why not telling them to come to my place of business and print the shipping label, wrap the item, and wait for the mail carrier to pick it up? On their way, why not buy me some shipping supplies? 

I knew of robotics, you know, technology, but it seems Ebay thinks we are them. Jesus! 

[gcvsa]

Chiming in to add my aggravation over this. In the past two days, eBay has changed all three of my currently listed items to "Accept Offers". I don't need eBay to tell me how to sell, thanks. I know what my products are worth and I am prepared to wait for the right buyer. 

I agree that eBay over the years has done everything they possibly can to bias their site in favor of buyers and large commercial sellers. They are intentionally driving away the very people that made the company what it is, but unfortunately, there are few other options for sales of certain types of items, especially for people like me, who live in a rural area and rely on being able to access a wider market for specialty goods for which our local markets lack sufficient demand.

I'm not on here because I want to compete with Amazon, I'm on here because I need to pay my rent and my electric bill, and I'm reduced to selling my personal possessions in order to do so.

[emplehod-sales]

It's a terrible idea, as is the "Best Offer" option. If I set a price for an item, it's the lowest I want to accept. It seems a bit dishonest to post a higher price when you would sell it for far less. Why not just list it at the lower price to begin with?

There is also no way for Ebay to know what is a proper price because they can't know the condition of a used product. Just because a hundred banged up stereo receivers sold for $50 average doesn't mean that a near mint condition one should.

Now if Ebay wanted to offer this "Best Offer" option and set the price themselves, I think they should pay the seller the additional amount they would have lost. Then I'd be all in 🙂

This is sort of how I feel about auctions. I don't sell with auctions because it makes little sense to me, mainly the "Reserve" thing. If I put a $100 reserve on an item, that means I won't sell it for less than $100, right? So why are bids starting at like $1? They should start at the reserve price. 

[equid0x]

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@emplehod-sales wrote:

It's a terrible idea, as is the "Best Offer" option. If I set a price for an item, it's the lowest I want to accept. It seems a bit dishonest to post a higher price when you would sell it for far less. Why not just list it at the lower price to begin with?

There is also no way for Ebay to know what is a proper price because they can't know the condition of a used product. Just because a hundred banged up stereo receivers sold for $50 average doesn't mean that a near mint condition one should.

Now if Ebay wanted to offer this "Best Offer" option and set the price themselves, I think they should pay the seller the additional amount they would have lost. Then I'd be all in 🙂

This is sort of how I feel about auctions. I don't sell with auctions because it makes little sense to me, mainly the "Reserve" thing. If I put a $100 reserve on an item, that means I won't sell it for less than $100, right? So why are bids starting at like $1? They should start at the reserve price. 

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An auction with a "reserve" that is the same as the starting price is a standard auction. Reserve auctions are typically for high value items where the seller wants the option to back out of a sale if a minimum bid is not met. Once a reserve has been met, the seller is obligated to sell, which may make further bidding for the item more aggressive. 

A high starting bid may scare off potential bidders on a high dollar item. A reserve price on a low dollar item may also scare off bidders. 

[ms.rodriguez*]

When I get a truly ridiculous offer, I will not even respond. Let the cheapskate keep looking at his/her emails to see if you respond. If I truly hate that particular item, I will give them a counter-offer. Don’t go crazy. You are not forced to respond.