Why can buyers harass you with offers when listing did not state make offer?

[kdb55082011]

 New to selling on eBay, but already getting frustrated. I take care to make things clear in my listing. If my listing has a set buy it now price or a starting bid and it does not say make offer, how can buyers message me with an offer? Usually under 50% of listed price? They’ll cut your item down, want free combined shipping etc and take up much of your time needlessly. With 900 listings I just can’t wheel and deal with anyone that asks. Shouldn’t eBay have a policy against that? I see eBay is all about the buyer, but the buyer doesn’t pay their fees. Weekend warriors are the worst! I do my best to make my customers happy, but I do not want offers! I will send offer when I want to! Pffft!

[privacy60]

yes the buyer does pay ebay it's fees. the buyer is the only entity bringing actual money to the sight. as far as people making unsolicited offers.

1 ignore them

2 counter offer 

3 reply telling them there is no best offer on the listing. I'd like to let the auction run.

I hope unsolicited offers are the absolute worse thing that happens to you here, but I know it wont be.

[jscar59]

I am a collector of old toy trains, I have been collecting and restoring them for over 30 years. I have seen some people on eBay posting items for sale for 10x what the actual value is. Maybe some (I say maybe) of your items offered were over priced and offers of close to actual value were made....(?) . I notice this most by people who sell items that are either estate sale buyers and sell a multitude of items and have no knowledge of toy trains or someone hoping to hit a home run. I have made offers as you described, I restore items and if someone looks up the recently sold items and list an item based on the previous sale of an item similar but does not take into consideration the condition of the piece (what needs replaced or repaired) it can make a big difference  in the selling value. I don't know what items you were talking about but if anything like described is the case don't be offended. There were/are a couple cases of items that said "make offer" and I made offers only to be denied and 6 months later those items are still sitting there for sale, and in one case a lot was reduced to my offer price that was denied a month ago and is still sitting there for sale. So....... if the item doesn't sell within the first listing maybe the offer wasn't out of line. By the way, did you ever have a yard sale and people offer you less for an item? Don't be offended..........

[johnrj1226 · Accepted solution]

---

@kdb55082011 wrote:

 New to selling on eBay, but already getting frustrated. I take care to make things clear in my listing. If my listing has a set buy it now price or a starting bid and it does not say make offer, how can buyers message me with an offer? Usually under 50% of listed price? They’ll cut your item down, want free combined shipping etc and take up much of your time needlessly. With 900 listings I just can’t wheel and deal with anyone that asks. Shouldn’t eBay have a policy against that? I see eBay is all about the buyer, but the buyer doesn’t pay their fees. Weekend warriors are the worst! I do my best to make my customers happy, but I do not want offers! I will send offer when I want to! Pffft!

---

Any time a shopper expresses interest in your listing should be viewed as a good thing.  How you  handle it totally up to you.  Another poster  gave you 3 ways  to  handle it - I agree with all three.

Over the years I have  offered  a lower  price for an item than was  published at Sears, Home Depot & Carson Pirie Scott = guess what I bought it for my lower offer.

[nowandthenfabrics]

I agree with you 100%. I'm in the same boat. It's very frustrating.

[onlinecentral]

Some buyers are confused about the different listing formats regardless of their experience.
If buyers place a auction bid and win, then they can buy the item for a significant discount.
If buyers send a Best Offer by using the Best Offer button, then they have some chance of the offer being accepted.
There are no Bids or Best Offers on Fixed-Price Buy-It-Now listings without the Make-Best-Offer button.
Searching Sold Items to determine the price is easy because my items almost always have a Brand, Manufacturer Part Number and UPC Code.
For every 200+ packages, I get an unwanted Best Offer in the range of a 30% to 70% percent discount.
Imagine walking into a car dealership or fast food restaurant and asking for a unreasonable discount on a car or a value meal.
These businesses would decline.

This the canned reply I send.
Here is a portion of the eBay A-Z help guide entitled Making A Best Offer. http://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/best-offer.html
If the Make Offer button doesn't appear in the listing, the seller isn't interested in receiving offers and you shouldn't try to contact this seller to negotiate price or terms.

Here is an alternate.
Our store policy is to decline all Best Offers and add the user ID's to our Blocked Bidder List.

[johnrj1226]

Could  be missing  an opportunity.  In many countries  of the  world "haggling"  over price, terms etc is very much expected & accepted - for example - Japan, Mexico, Venezuela, France - these  are just the ones I've  visited and enjoyed a good "haggle".

Lots of  folks from those countries live here permanently or temporarily.

Of course, the extreme low ballers are a PITA.  I always counter with a price 10% higher than my original price -they  say  "wassup" I say should  have bought before my price increase.

[shop4animals]

I agree although I always answer with a "thank you for your question".  Most times it is a total time waster especially  if the same person has sent many messages.  I just tell them to follow the item.  If I don't receive a bid on it I usually relist at a lower price.  If they wait long enough it will hit their price.  I do welcome legitimate questions about the item.  Those questions will usually prompt me to add the information to the listing.  I think it is OK to just ignore unsolicited offers if you don't have time.  I don't have more than 100 items at a time so I can usually get to them eventually.  

[dirk12955]

One sellers harassment, is another sellers opportunity.

[misfitfun]

Ebay encourages users to make an offer even when there is no best offer showing I would guess to up  more listings into sold listings

[twk]

People low ball you with unsolicited offers because you are new to selling.

Certainly people love getting a deal, but when they offer more than, say 20% off, even if you have a best offer, why bother.  They get a prime spot on my blocked bidders list.

My recent favorite unsolicited offer was from someone who asked if I would donate the item to their fall charity auction - never provided any information about what kind of charity it was, etc.  BUT did say they would pay the shipping!  For the heck of it, being bored, I inquired as to the tax number and official name of the organization, so I would have a record for my taxes, etc., and even said I would ship it free but I had to check out the charitable organization.

SURPRISE! (Not) never heard back from them.

[twk]

Ah yes, haggling.  When I retired, years back, I went to work part-time at Marshall Fields, an upscale department store in Chicago.

I was shocked at the number of people who would approach and start haggling with me about the price.  Hey, I was just a sales clerk.  The price marked is the price, plain and simple.

One time, when the customer was being very, very persistent, annoyingly so.   I, very politely, offered to call the department manager and the customer could make his "pitch" to her.  The customer was no longer interested in doing that, or the item.

I remember that item clearly.  It was an expensive piece of Swarovski crystal and the customer was telling me that the Swarovski sales rep has told him that we (Marshall Fields) would sell it to him for 1/2 price!

I saw the rep a few days later and asked her and she said Swarovski does no such thing.  It was amazing what people would do to get something cheaper.

[iowa_east_coast]

If you go to contact seller this is what you find.

Details about item (1)

Shipping (5)

Combined shipping (0)

Make an offer (1)

Pay for item (2)

Returns (1)

Other (0)

Make an offer: We found 1 answer(s)

• How do I make an offer?
  The seller hasn't enabled offers for this item. See if they'll consider — send a message with your best price.
• Thanks ebay.

[1louvermover]

I just received an insultingly low offer on all of the items in one of my multiple item listings. Even though my store is on vacation, I still responded and even made a counter offer! I even crunched numbers and calculated shipping! I guess I just need to ignore these nonsense offers when they occur. What a total waste of time!

[kjm0527]

I used to respond with an offer but I stopped because it almost never results in a sale but takes a lot of time.