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Offers Sent to Possible Buyers
Happy New Year! I like the program when as a seller on your selling page, you are notified by eBay when someone is "watching" your item and you, the seller can send them an offer. I find this is often affective. What I don't understand is why if the possible buyer is just a Looky Lou, the seller must wait about four days before you can send out an offer to other watchers.
It might show 5 more people are watching after this first offer has been sent out, and the four days must go by before other offers can be sent out. As all sellers know, or should know, the early bird catches the worm. This program needs to be changed so offers can be sent out to all watchers right when they start watching it. Would one of you, volunteers, who answer people, pass this information on to someone that might be able to do something about it? There would be no reason for eBay to say no, it will not cost them any money, that is their number one priority, and could be done quite easily. Something that is less important to eBay. Thank you.
golfingaddict
Mentor9 months agoOffers will be sent to the 30 most recent interested buyers (for example, people watching your items or who have added your items to their cart). Each offer is valid for 96 hours or until the listing is sold, whichever comes first. With a single item listing, the first buyer to accept and successfully complete payment gets the deal. With a multiple quantity listing, buyers can continue to use the offer until all items in the listing are sold or the offer expires.
When you get NEW watchers or people adding the item to the cart, you can send the offer again. The offer will not go out to someone who has already received the offer.
inceptions
Mentor9 months agoHi @collectintime
You can send an offer to one watcher or all of them. Read how in this Help topic:
https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/listings/selling-buy-now/adding-best-offer-listing?id=4144&st=3&pos=1&query=Adding%20Best%20Offer%20to%20your%20listing%20and%20sending%20offers%20to%20buyers&intent=send%20offers%20to%20buyers&lucenceai=lucenceai&docId=HELP1043
Remember that many buyers are annoyed by all the spam sent by eBay (including offers) and set their preferences so they don't receive them. If you can only send one offer, that may mean the other watchers don't want them. Also consider that your watchers are not necessarily lookie lous but may be your competitors who are curious about whether your item will sell and at what price. There are all kinds of reasons buyers watch items and only one of them is that they are interested in coming back to buy it.
collectintime
OP9 months agothe link that you sent deals with "or best offer" on your auction that you are running for an item you are selling. That is not what I am talking about. Take a look at my text and you should understand. This is for possible buyers who are "watching" your item.
You don't think a competitor is a Looky Lou? When I get an offer after looking at an item a couple of times, I decline it so the seller can offer right away to buyers that might truly be interested.
Problem solved with receiving offers from eBay, stop watching items that you have no intention of buying. So, I believe you are saying, the annoyed people are the ones that have no intention of buying. Right?
If you have an item with one watcher, you can send an offer and then you have to wait for four days while you see the number grow of watchers, 4, 5, 6. Once the deadline has passed then and only then can you send out offers to the other eBayers.
inceptions
Mentor9 months ago@collectintime
If you scroll down the page at the link I provided, you'll see the information about sending offers to buyers.
I don't think of a competitor as a looky lou, but if you do, that's fine. I have some items on my Watchlist that have been there over a year because they remind me of items I occasionally want to search for. As I said, there are all sorts of reasons why buyers add items to their watch lists and eBay has no problem with using the it as it best suits them.
To address your comment about annoyed buyers, I wrote that buyers can and do set their preferences to not receive offers. But many buyers don't know how to do that, and they shouldn't have to give up the use of functionality just because they don't want to be flooded with offers.
I'm sorry that you took offense to my reply. I was trying to give you some perspectives that were different from your own. After volunteering on this board for over 21 years, I have seen hundreds of posts from buyers who don't want to buy from sellers who make or take offers and come here to ask how to stop the emails. On the other hand, there are many buyers who like offers. Everyone is different.
collectintime
OP9 months agoI appreciate your attempt to answer, but I don't think you quite understand what I was saying, but that's OK. It's nice that you replied anyway. Maybe someone will read it carefully and understand.
inceptions
Mentor9 months ago@collectintime
I understand exactly what you're saying. I read and understood your post. I don't agree with it, but I understand your point of view. Did you read the reply from @golfingaddict ? Did you go back and read the information on the Help page that you missed the first time you looked?
collectintime
OP9 months agoI think I just didn't explain this well. Let me try again, and if there is some way around this that I am missing, please let me know.
Example: I put a Lladro on eBay and the next time I looked at my selling page, there was a note there. Send offer. I push it. It shows there is one watcher. (Sellers do not know who these offers are going to.) I send a 5% offer and check off, Do Not Allow Counter Offers. Then a few days go by, the buyer chooses not to purchase it for whatever reason. That matters not.
That auction now shows it has 7 watchers, but I can't send the offer to others until four days go by from the time the offer was made to the first watcher. Then after the 96 hour have passed, I get another message on my selling page about sending offers to possible buyers. Then there are 6 people to send the offers to, so I do so. What I am asking is, why make the other "watchers" wait four days? I know if they send me an email asking something about the item then I CAN send them an offer, but not the others. If there is a way to send the others offers without waiting the four days, please let me know. Thank you.