Best Offer

[jrh0]

Can a Best Offer be made above the auction starting price? 

[coastaltechsolution]

If you did get a offer above starting price be very careful

Could be legit, could be scam 

Care to explain what was starting price and what you were offered?

[mtgraves7984]

---

@jrh0 wrote:

Can a Best Offer be made above the auction starting price? 

---

@jrh0 

It can be, but it might be a scam. Proceed with caution.

This is usually done on an item someone wants before the bid gets high. I mean... of course an offer can be made above the starting bid, which was your question. Good luck to you.

[donsdetour]

yes and a lot will be made: though such offers are usually low for what the item is worth in auction format. They try and get it cheaper..

: you should let an auction go to the end.. Make offer on auctions is usually a waist of time...

If any one ask you to email or phone them it is a scam.

If any one asks you to include gift cards its a scam

If anyone ask you to change addys its a scam...

Be careful these days on eBay..

[nobody*s_perfect]

---

@jrh0 wrote:

Can a Best Offer be made above the auction starting price? 

---

Yes, of course.  The member who made the offer probably expects to get the item cheaper that way versus bidding and letting the auction go to its full original duration.

[jrh0]

Hasn't happened. Just working through my mind all the nefarious ways someone might try to game the system.

[coastaltechsolution]

@jrh0 

Nothing wrong with being proactive 

[jrh0]

I still think Best Offer is not done well.  I understand if you get an actual bid lower than an Offer, you're obliged to sell to the winning bidder. Offeror took a chance to win with a "silent bid" and lost.  But I don't understand why an Offer cannot be accepted after the end of an auction with no bids. in my experience, the bidding doesn't start in earnest until the last few minutes.  Why should I accept a Best Offer if I have no clue what the bidding will yield?  So it's not really a "Best Offer,"  it's just an Offer.  "Best" implies in comparison to another.

[coolections]

It could be perfectly legit. It depends on the actual value of the item. If you are holding "true" auction with a low starting price then it would be very common to get an offer higher than the starting price. An example would be if you started an auction at $5 but the item is typically going for $80 then someone would make an offer for say around $70.

[coolections]

---

@jrh0 wrote:

I don't understand why an Offer cannot be accepted after the end of an auction with no bids. 

---

You obviously have no clue how auctions work. When the hammer strikes it is OVER.

[coastaltechsolution]

If I run an auction then I let it ride out until the end and let the highest bidder win

To me that is the only fair way to run an auction 

[downunder-61]

You have started your auction at $80.00 and have a BIN set at $150.00

Any offer you receive BEFORE any bid is made, you can accept if you want to.

Once a bid is made the BIN disappears and you can no longer accept offers, infact AFAIK the system will not allow you to accept at that point. 

If your winning bidder does not pay, or requests to cancel, you can then offer it to the 2nd highest bidder.

[downunder-61]

Sorry, did not answer the original question -

Yes an offer can be and should be higher than the starting price, but if it went over the BIN price that would be the start of a scam because why would the buyer not just BIN.

[nobody*s_perfect]

With an auction-format listing, BIN and Best Offer are separate options. An auction could have either, both, or neither.  When a bid is placed, both options disappear (except when there's an unmet Reserve, or in the 4 categories where the BIN will remain available until bidding reaches 50% of the BIN price).

[nobody*s_perfect]

" an offer can be and should be higher than the starting price"

When eBay introduced BO for auctions, they (erroneously) anticipated that offers would be for LESS than the opening bid price: "we found this feature drives higher sales conversion, especially in cases when the starting bid or fixed price is set higher than the recommended price".  Apparently eBay was focused on auctions with excessively optimistic opening bid prices.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Announcements/UPDATED-eBay-is-Helping-Boost-Conversion-with-Best-Offer...