"Best Offer" showing up on auctions??

[saintcharlesplaceantiques]

Hey everyone.

Has anyone else had the "best offer" option start showing up on auctions?

I typically use the "best offer" option on my BIN fixed price listings, but I've never heard of it showing up at auction before. I didn't even think it was possible to have an offer feature on an auction, but it's showing up on everything I list today. Obviously, when I list an item at auction, the minimum bid is the lowest I'll accept, so I don't even see why eBay would consider making this an option. I already get plenty of lowball offers & the last thing I need is offers below my minimum bid, and there's not even a BIN price on these listings.

I list several items a week for auction, and I didn't do anything different this time, so I'm wondering why it's showing up, or if there's something in my default settings that was somehow changed?

Is it visible on a page that's not my account?

I called eBay CS, but all they could really tell me was that it SHOULDN'T be an option, and ask me to decline any offers I recieve while the auction is running.

Anybody else running into this??

[2buyonly1999]

Can you post more information today? Thanks.

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hey everbody - we are looking to get more details on this topic and will post as soon as we can!

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[threshold.sales.group]

So, why wouldn't a greater emphasis by eBay on the "Buy it Now"  feature accomplish the same thing, while allowing the seller the choice to opt in?  

As for the price suggestions - if folks have taken the time to review the "Growth" tab on seller hub, you'll know the data is mostly junk.   

[lookng2015]

Personally I think if they brought back the BIN only needing to be 10% (or even 20%) higher than the sp they'd see a jump in auction sales.

[dhbookds]

Just did a search on auction jewelry .........about 700,000 listings........added b/o as filter......497 returned in search. 

That tells me it's a test or glitch.........  Rolling it out "slowly" would surely include more listings.....

[stoneledge]

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@thatsallfolks wrote:

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@stoneledge wrote:
The main flaw is that their price suggestions are dead wrong more than 90% of the time.


We don't have the data for the 90% claim you make.

I have seen both useful and "dead wrong" pricing suggestions on my "Underperforming" listings. Fortunately we are mostly human sellers who can read these things and we make the call on whether to accept or reject the suggestions.

eBay touts that 90% (or whatever high %) of the items that sell are brand new. Brand New In Box items are probably pretty easy to do analysis on. Most of those probably have high volumes of data with small standard deviations of pricing. Other products (many millions of them) are not so easy to analyze.

As I said, even if eBay gets it RIGHT 90% of the time, the 10% of remaining BILLIONS of listings is going to be a lot of wrong just in sheer numbers. We know that.

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Does eBay flag auctions as “underperforming”? 

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I don't think so.  I'm speaking of eBay AI's ability to analyze market pricing which is corollary .

[stoneledge]

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@dhbookds wrote:

Just did a search on auction jewelry .........about 700,000 listings........added b/o as filter......497 returned in search. 

That tells me it's a test or glitch.........  Rolling it out "slowly" would surely include more listings.....

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Thank you.  Good thinking to use some data.  Thanks for sharing.

[thatsallfolks]

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@stoneledge wrote:

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@thatsallfolks wrote:

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@stoneledge wrote:
The main flaw is that their price suggestions are dead wrong more than 90% of the time.


We don't have the data for the 90% claim you make.

I have seen both useful and "dead wrong" pricing suggestions on my "Underperforming" listings. Fortunately we are mostly human sellers who can read these things and we make the call on whether to accept or reject the suggestions.

eBay touts that 90% (or whatever high %) of the items that sell are brand new. Brand New In Box items are probably pretty easy to do analysis on. Most of those probably have high volumes of data with small standard deviations of pricing. Other products (many millions of them) are not so easy to analyze.

As I said, even if eBay gets it RIGHT 90% of the time, the 10% of remaining BILLIONS of listings is going to be a lot of wrong just in sheer numbers. We know that.

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Does eBay flag auctions as “underperforming”? 

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I don't think so.  I'm speaking of eBay AI's ability to analyze market pricing which is corollary .

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But you’re using evidence from their price suggestions on FP listings. I’ve heard nothing but horror stories about their suggestions for starting prices on auctions.

[gymbo_limbo]

General reply on the thread...the auctions I listed today do NOT have best offer. It's to throw us off balance maybe, keep us guessing, like a game!

[*madison]

So, I've racked my brain and can not recall any threads here where Buyers asked why eBay does not have BO for Auctions ... can anyone else think of any or remember any? 

-----------------------------

I haven't seen any threads, but I have thought about it myself.

I don't like auctions, and sometimes I've seen an item on auction I really want and I've thought I wish I could make the seller an offer via this listing instead of waiting several days and placing a nuke bid in the last seconds. 

I didn't think for a moment that this make offer on an auction might actually happen though.

[dhbookds]

lol, there are no solds using auction w b/o filter..........

But question is (if a test) what genius gave CS that verbiage that it was a "done deal".........   That may be the reason Trinton/et al are having trouble pinning something down to say..........there's an incorrect memo running around headquarters and no one knows what's going on.........  Purely speculation, of course, but I'm mad enough about no info, even if it was a test.....  Sellers, on this one, need to know what happens IF they do a counter offer......

[d-k_treasures]

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@stoneledge wrote:

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@thatsallfolks wrote:

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@stoneledge wrote:
The main flaw is that their price suggestions are dead wrong more than 90% of the time.


We don't have the data for the 90% claim you make.

I have seen both useful and "dead wrong" pricing suggestions on my "Underperforming" listings. Fortunately we are mostly human sellers who can read these things and we make the call on whether to accept or reject the suggestions.

eBay touts that 90% (or whatever high %) of the items that sell are brand new. Brand New In Box items are probably pretty easy to do analysis on. Most of those probably have high volumes of data with small standard deviations of pricing. Other products (many millions of them) are not so easy to analyze.

As I said, even if eBay gets it RIGHT 90% of the time, the 10% of remaining BILLIONS of listings is going to be a lot of wrong just in sheer numbers. We know that.

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Does eBay flag auctions as “underperforming”? 

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I don't think so.  I'm speaking of eBay AI's ability to analyze market pricing which is corollary .

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'Ebay AI' and 'ability' is a contradiction in terms.

[stoneledge]

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@thatsallfolks wrote:

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@stoneledge wrote:

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@thatsallfolks wrote:

---

@stoneledge wrote:
The main flaw is that their price suggestions are dead wrong more than 90% of the time.


We don't have the data for the 90% claim you make.

I have seen both useful and "dead wrong" pricing suggestions on my "Underperforming" listings. Fortunately we are mostly human sellers who can read these things and we make the call on whether to accept or reject the suggestions.

eBay touts that 90% (or whatever high %) of the items that sell are brand new. Brand New In Box items are probably pretty easy to do analysis on. Most of those probably have high volumes of data with small standard deviations of pricing. Other products (many millions of them) are not so easy to analyze.

As I said, even if eBay gets it RIGHT 90% of the time, the 10% of remaining BILLIONS of listings is going to be a lot of wrong just in sheer numbers. We know that.

---

Does eBay flag auctions as “underperforming”? 

---

I don't think so.  I'm speaking of eBay AI's ability to analyze market pricing which is corollary .

---

But you’re using evidence from their price suggestions on FP listings. I’ve heard nothing but horror stories about their suggestions for starting prices on auctions.

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Stories abound.  I agree.  

And I don't doubt that ebay will continue to make errors in many cases. 

That does not invalidate the entire concept.    A very large % of the products sold on eBay are now New In Box.  And computers can figure out what the going price range is for a well-defined item New in Box is.    

If a seller sets a starting price that's well above that going price range, the computers can predict with high accuracy (not perfection, but high % confidence levels) that the Auction is likely to not get bids.   I'm sure they have trillions of data points to demonstrate this.  

That leaves millons of other products that computers aren't going to do a good job on.    

And we can trust eBay to botch the rollout and explanation of this to all parties, including eBay staff.  They've done that already. 

It still doesn't invalidate the concept that they are testing.   

[castlemagicmemories]

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@thatsallfolks wrote:

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@stoneledge wrote:

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@thatsallfolks wrote:

---

@stoneledge wrote:
The main flaw is that their price suggestions are dead wrong more than 90% of the time.


We don't have the data for the 90% claim you make.

I have seen both useful and "dead wrong" pricing suggestions on my "Underperforming" listings. Fortunately we are mostly human sellers who can read these things and we make the call on whether to accept or reject the suggestions.

eBay touts that 90% (or whatever high %) of the items that sell are brand new. Brand New In Box items are probably pretty easy to do analysis on. Most of those probably have high volumes of data with small standard deviations of pricing. Other products (many millions of them) are not so easy to analyze.

As I said, even if eBay gets it RIGHT 90% of the time, the 10% of remaining BILLIONS of listings is going to be a lot of wrong just in sheer numbers. We know that.

---

Does eBay flag auctions as “underperforming”? 

---

I don't think so.  I'm speaking of eBay AI's ability to analyze market pricing which is corollary .

---

But you’re using evidence from their price suggestions on FP listings. I’ve heard nothing but horror stories about their suggestions for starting prices on auctions.

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That is a scary thought.  Ebay's suggestion is to start auctions at 99 cents, but with limited visibility and many listings, that item may then go off with one bid at 99 cents, seller cancels, gets a defect, buyer is angry.  

But follow that thought.  If you don't start that listing at 99 cents, and Ebay decides your price is too high, which given the pricing suggestions is very likely, possibly the majority of auctions will now have the Best Offer, whether or not the seller wants it there.  

The Best Offer on fixed price having to be 30% more being adjusted downward would possibly help sales.

[castlemagicmemories]

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@stoneledge wrote:

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@thatsallfolks wrote:

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@stoneledge wrote:

---

@thatsallfolks wrote:

---

@stoneledge wrote:
The main flaw is that their price suggestions are dead wrong more than 90% of the time.


We don't have the data for the 90% claim you make.

I have seen both useful and "dead wrong" pricing suggestions on my "Underperforming" listings. Fortunately we are mostly human sellers who can read these things and we make the call on whether to accept or reject the suggestions.

eBay touts that 90% (or whatever high %) of the items that sell are brand new. Brand New In Box items are probably pretty easy to do analysis on. Most of those probably have high volumes of data with small standard deviations of pricing. Other products (many millions of them) are not so easy to analyze.

As I said, even if eBay gets it RIGHT 90% of the time, the 10% of remaining BILLIONS of listings is going to be a lot of wrong just in sheer numbers. We know that.

---

Does eBay flag auctions as “underperforming”? 

---

I don't think so.  I'm speaking of eBay AI's ability to analyze market pricing which is corollary .

---

But you’re using evidence from their price suggestions on FP listings. I’ve heard nothing but horror stories about their suggestions for starting prices on auctions.

---

Stories abound.  I agree.  

And I don't doubt that ebay will continue to make errors in many cases. 

That does not invalidate the entire concept.    A very large % of the products sold on eBay are now New In Box.  And computers can figure out what the going price range is for a well-defined item New in Box is.    

If a seller sets a starting price that's well above that going price range, the computers can predict with high accuracy (not perfection, but high % confidence levels) that the Auction is likely to not get bids.   I'm sure they have trillions of data points to demonstrate this.  

That leaves millons of other products that computers aren't going to do a good job on.    

And we can trust eBay to botch the rollout and explanation of this to all parties, including eBay staff.  They've done that already. 

It still doesn't invalidate the concept that they are testing.   

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What I can see is that seller could raise the price of their item, if their regularly chosen price is too high for Ebay, and it throws the Best Offer on the listing, to compensate.  Then the regular price the seller chose to start the bidding might be the acceptable Best Offer, or something slightly higher.  

Buyers love to get a discount so it would give the appearance of a discount.  

I don't think sellers will lower their prices because Ebay thinks the price is too high.  

But this seems to be any sale at any price, what with the increased numbers of Best Offers allowed from 3 to 5 or 10 in some categories, the already usually lower than realistic price suggestions, and the advice to start an auction at 99 cents.

[brooksideglen19520]

eBay got me on one of mine too 😞

Out of multiple auctions listed last two days only got put on one. Got an offer this morning and was stunned. Whole reason of switching to auction was to avoid offers especially on an item where I am unsure of its worth.

Is there way to stop this from being added at their will??

What about fixed price? Is it still our option to add Make an Offer or is that being decided too??