Best Offer Help

Question

When "Best Offer" first came on the scene, there was a starting auction amount, but you could offer slightly under that and see if the seller would except. This still holds true with several sellers I have purchased from.

However, I have seen a recent trend of a very low starting bid, with the Best Offer option and they want a much higher offer than the starting bid. They will not tell you what range they are looking for, but get offended if you don't offer high enough.

Ebay folks, what is Best Offer supposed to be? And how do we get everyone on the same page?

Thanks

woodland_gnome · Answer

Different sellers use Best Offer on auction listings differently. Some sellers overprice the Starting Price on their auctions and might accept a lower offer. The ones who know what they are doing set it at their true minimum and would not accept a lower offer but might one somewhat higher. The ones who absolutely don't know what they are doing set it lower than they are willing to sell for (and come here moaning that they shouldn't have to sell it that low when it only gets one bidder) and would require substantially more to accept an offer. And then of course are the ones that eBay forces Best Offer option onto their listings.

"When 'Best Offer' first came on the scene" it was not applicable to auction listings. That didn't come about for a couple of years after that. And it was not well thought out when it was (and still isn't) and was announced in terms of lower offers, though any seller who knew what s/he was doing knew better.