Why do Sellers use Best Offer, but then not accept any best offers?
Summary: stepstonellc shared frustration about eBay sellers who list items with a 'Best Offer' option but set auto-decline rules that effectively refuse any price below the listed amount. shire123 and others offered insights, suggesting that some sellers may not understand how eBay features work, or have auto-settings that decline offers unintentionally. A discussion emerged around eBay practices and third-party listing services possibly causing confusion. stepstonellc ultimately found another seller who accepted a reasonable offer. Several participants noted that eBay sometimes applies 'Best Offer' to listings without seller consent. Others shared experiences with sellers' pricing strategies, often highlighting inconsistency in seller knowledge and practices.
I've noticed sellers listing with best offer, but then setting E-Bay to not really accept any best offers.
Example, I just made an offer on an item that a seller had listed for $112 + $12 shipping.
I offered $100 + ship, so basically just asking for free shipping. It was auto declined immediately.
Then I made an offer of $106 + ship, so basically just asking for half priced shipping and it was auto declined. It was at this point, I wondered what the seller even meant by best offer.
So I went ahead and submitted an offer of $111 + ship, just to see what would happen, and that was also auto declined!
So they listed the item with best offer, and set a limit so it would auto decline, but they won't even accept $1 off the price. If I had to guess, I bet they set their limit at $111.99 + ship and the best offer is just a penny off!
At this point, I've decided not to pay their price, just on general principle. Another seller has the same item for $130 with free shipping and best offers turned on, so I think I am moving on to them to make an offer.
I have noticed this recently though. Sellers auto declining offers that are just 5% off the listed price. If you aren't even going to take 5% off, why bother with setting up best offer? I know when you send offers as a seller, you have to give a minimum 5% discount. I wish E-Bay would apply this to listing with a best offer. E-Bay will auto accept any best offer of 5% or less if you turn best offer on. And the setting in the listing is for setting auto accepts and min bids above the 5% offer.
stepstonellc
OP1 month agoI guess I had another thought today on the cause.... could a 3rd party listing management service be causing this? I have never used any of t he 3rd party services, but I could imagine a scenario that causes this.
Say in the 3rd party service, you can select if a listing will have best offer or not, and you set it to best offer on (or that is the default). This means any listing you make would have best offer on.
Then assume this 3rd party lister has a feature where you pick a percentage discount to accept/decline. Instead of going through and entering a specific value on 100's or 1000's of items, you simply tell the software 10%, and it calculates the auto accept/deny points for you based on a percentage you select.
But then also assume that 0% is an allowed choice, and perhaps the default choice.
So the 3rd party lister software defaults to offers being on (because you get more sales with offers), but then so it isn't setting any discounts, it defaults to a 0% discount being the auto accept/decline point.
Then the 3rd party lister service ends up cranking out listings with best offers that won't accept any discount. And the listings all seem valid to the seller, so they don't think anything of it.
In this case t he seller had a 19,000+ feedback score and had sold over 25,000 items. That is someone who does it enough and has enough inventory that they may possibly be using a 3rd party listing service.
So maybe this is just a symptom of protective default settings in an automation tool.... Hmmm.
kensgiftshop
·1 month agoJust because a listing has Best Offer doesn't mean the seller added it.
Ebay is good about adding Best Offer to listings.
christworks
·1 month agoThey definitely do. I found several listings that had best offer turned on over the weekend after I started getting offers. After the 2nd one I looked and over 100 of my listings had offered turned on.
kensgiftshop
·1 month agoYep, they've tried to sneak it in on some of mine.
stepstonellc
OP1 month agoBut not with auto accept and auto decline values populated. E-Bay just turns on best offer, with blank fields for the settings. Which would then mean the offer goes to the seller for review.
These offers were auto declined immediately (and e-bay says auto declined). This means populated set points, which is not something E-Bay adds.
kensgiftshop
·1 month agoSellers might get tired of having to turn off Best Offer, just to have Ebay put it back on, so they set it to auto decline a little below original price.
simba6
·1 month agoSome do accept them but others want almost the full price. Still it does not hurt to make offers as some do accept them.
robot-hands
·1 month agoBecause most ya'll send "worst offers"
msha3839
·1 month agoInteresting, but in many cases sellers have no idea what they sell, at least in collectibles section, and price their items as unique and priceless..on the other hand, some sellers too lazy or incompetent to do research about what they have in their possession, and lose in the process.. I like this type of sellers…🤧
roccotacodad54
·1 month ago · Edited"some sellers too lazy or incompetent to do research about what they have in their possession, and lose in the process.. I like this type of sellers"
Me too. They will list it for what they think it's probably worth when a two or three minute google search would show them it's worth much more.
I notice that when I check their other listings alot of the time, the item is an outlier, unlike anything else they have for sale........................
msha3839
·1 month agoYou’ll be surprised, but I got amazing deals from so called experts in their field with , based on their opinion, decades of experience…🤷
robot-hands
·1 month ago · EditedThis is probably the rarest of occasions but not too long ago I had a fairly rare item listed for real money. Comped it here and worthpoint. Had BO on it, got an offer in less than a minute for 90% the list...went and looked had 3 watchers. Declined, I got lucky because if the offer was $1 more it would have been auto accepted and I would have lost out on another $500 when I upped the price. So even if a seller knows what they have and know how to research...sometimes that just isn't enough to know what an item can sell for
kibble-net
·1 month agoY'all*
It's "you all" not "yaoull"
robot-hands
·1 month agoYeah, you try editing on this tiny phone. If I spend about 20 seconds and can't get that cursor to match up I leave it...almost no one here is getting that confused
bonanza125
·1 month agoI am assuming you are questioning offers with a fixed priced and not auctions. Auctions with best offer expect to pay more than starting price. For fixed price sellers have the right to ask and commit to whatever offer they please. If the seller isn't willing to work with you on the price you want then purchase from someone else. I usually just move on. When you ask about why seller bother it's because they can.
msha3839
·1 month agoIf I like something and seller offers fixed price, I still message and ask seller if he/she interested in my offer..works in 50% of the cases ..but I’m also make it clear that this is a one time offer and for a limited time .. no week later …seller need to make a profit and move inventory, I buy for fun…🥂
msha3839
·1 month agoDon’t waste your time on amateur sellers…life is too short…🥃
kathiec
·1 month agoWhat you fail to factor in is the fact that eBay quite often adds Best Offer to listings without the seller requesting it be there. So those sellers, who never had any intention of entertaining best offers, set everything to auto decline.
stepstonellc
OP1 month agoI've been selling on E-Bay since 1998 and have never experiences this. Maybe if I do a seller similar on one of my own items, but even then, I don't think best offer is on automatically.
And the default for best offer is no auto deny price and no auto accept price. So default behavior, if it was turned on automatically, would be for offers to just be submitted for manual review. An auto deny would require you entering that value, and if you were editing the feature to enter that value, why wouldn't you just turn it off.
I can't find any complaints where sellers are saying best offer is being populated for them.
kathiec
·1 month agoWell then you haven't been around the forums for the past few years. There are plenty of complaints of Best Offer being added to listings, usually when creating a listing with the app or the quick listing tool. Just because you haven't experienced something doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
stepstonellc
OP1 month agoNo, what I am saying is that I am not aware of best offer being added, where E-Bay populates an auto-decline amount.
Yes. E-Bay will create listings with Best Offer on by default, but when it does so, the auto accept and auto decline fields are left blank. This means the offer should go to the seller to review.
What you are suggesting is that E-Bay is putting the set point in automatically for what offers you will and won't except, and I don't believe that happens on any widespread basis, if it has ever happened at all.
So assuming Best Offer was automatically turned on for this seller's listings (and all their items have Best Offer turned on), it means they noticed it was on and went back and edited the item to add an auto-decline amount equal to the asking price. But if so, why not just click the check box and turn off best offer? It's fewer keystrokes.
I believe this was done intentionally by the seller.
airsheep
·1 month agoCan a seller remove an ebay applied Best offer?
dryophelia
·1 month ago@airsheep
Yes, it can be removed by the seller.
Some sellers may not even realize eBay put it there.
eBay may put the BO back even after the seller removes it.
stepstonellc
OP1 month agoAnd to just finish out this saga... bought the other item that was $130 + free ship with best offer for $120.00.
Yes, just $4 cheaper than the other seller with no offer, but $4 is $4, and I bought from someone who has best offer on, and was actually willing to take a little bit off the price (I pointed out the other listing for $124 with best offer on), ... ie, a reasonable seller who isn't playing games.
stepstonellc
OP1 month agoThe only advantage that I might possibly fathom to only taking $.01 less as your best offer limit, is if you have a bunch of people watching the item. Then someone makes an offer that is auto declined. Doesn't E-Bay send out a notice to the other watchers that someone has made an offer on the item?
I guess maybe you think a declined offer for one potential buyer will make these hypothetical watchers rush to the item and click BIN before the item is negoitated away?
That is the only remotely valid business strategy I might see in doing this. But this item had two watchers, and I was one of them, so it wouldn't really be sending lots of automated e-mails unless you had lots of watchers normally.
gurlcat
·1 month agoInteresting theory, but even if true I doubt there would be as many sellers savvy enough to think of it as there are sellers declining nearly-full-price offers (I've seen posts like this SO many times, and experienced it as a buyer too).
stepstonellc
OP1 month agoYes. In researching this, I found a post where someone was entering a best offer, and instead of being declined, the seller would counter offer with a $1 discount. The OP says they tried on multiple items ranging from $30 to several hundred dollars, and every time, the seller responded to their offer with a $1 discount on the asking price.
If that is the game you want to play, I don't know why you even bother spending your time to do it. a $1 off counter offer is probably insulting to most potential buyers. Maybe if it is a $10-$20 item, that is reasonable, but a $200 item? Counter offering $199 on a $200 item is probably as insulting to the buyer as a 70% off lowball offer is insulting to a seller.
Which the obvious thing is not everyone with an E-Bay store has business sense or customer relation skills. So you will find sellers all over the spectrum I guess.
gurlcat
·1 month ago"... not everyone with an E-Bay store has business sense or customer relation skills. So you will find sellers all over the spectrum I guess."
Man, that's the understatement of the year. 🤣 Do enough buying (or even just reading posts in the Seller forums) and you'll see sellers stranger than fiction, and crazier'n a pet raccoon.
stainlessenginecovers
·1 month agoSome sellers expect 'Best Offer' to be MORE than what is already asked; so they 'auto set' 'accept or deny' at those prices.
OR- some sellers have NO IDEA that ebay 'added' that' (as ebay sometimes adds that without sellers consent/knowledge) and that seller is NOT interested in selling for less.
stepstonellc
OP1 month ago · EditedThat makes no sense. If it is a BIN with a $112 price, why would anyone offer MORE. They could just click the BIN button and buy it at asking price.
This seller also had a feedback score of over 19,000, so at least in this case, I don't think the issue would be seller ignorance.
paleadhead
·1 month agoHi, and thank you for pointing this issue out. I'm a seller and either AL or Ebay will not automatically accept offers that I have my offer accept price settings set at. I wondered why I didn't have any sales for ten days, so I checked my offer page on a few items I have listed and noticed there are offers, but they are not being accepted, just denied. This has happen more than a few times on different or even on the same item of late. I noticed this happens when the so called glitch issues are happening especially on the weekends. I have reached out to a few buyers when this has happened and explained to them what is happening, but no more. Just happen the other day and I'm no longer going to do Ebays job. I'm just hoping that my buyers are not getting frustrated like you. No sales or fees for the last ten days. Just and observation to why you may be having some issues with offer acceptance. Not all the dealers here aren't accepting offers, it's this platform. We as sellers are not being informed of sent offers and the offers are also not being accepted. I'm at a loss why they want to lose revenue.
stepstonellc
OP1 month agoI have a starter store and do sell a little, and most of my items are BIN with Best Offer. I will admit there have been times when a seller submitted an offer that should have been auto accepted, but it isn't. It's not denied, and I am notified of the offer, but I have to manually accept it. But its pretty random; maybe happens on 3-4 items a year.
gurlcat
·1 month agoThe next time that happens, check the eBay message telling you that you have an offer to consider. -Almost without a doubt there will be a written 'note' from the buyer. Usually it's just something like "Thanks for considering" but occasionally it's the more irritating "and free shipping" -trying to trip you up and accept that in addition to their discount request. 😆
Anyway, 'offer with note' is the only thing I'm aware of that negates your auto reject/accept settings, forcing you to manually decide.
stainlessenginecovers
·1 month ago@stepstonellc It makes sense because you did NOT say it was a BIN. But, we'll do it your way, ok- then it was my OTHER reason: and it doesn't matter if they have 500,000 by their name; still doesn't stop ebay from putting that on, or that seller looking at their listings all the time to see if it was put on.
In fact, that IS the reason. Seller is not interested in 'offers'.
shire123
·1 month agoI don't think you can set your auto decline/accept prices higher than your BIN.
shire123
·1 month agoAs a seller I always turn down offers where the buyer wants the shipping included with their offer. It is possible that when you do that on your offers that counts as an auto decline.?
stepstonellc
OP1 month ago · EditedI didn't include shipping in the offer. Asking price was $112 +$12 shipping.
I submitted an offer of $100 + $12 shipping. So total would be $112 and the net effect is free shipping (in my mind). But I did not ask for free shipping with the offer. Offer was ~ a 10% discount off asking price, so not a low ball offer by any means.
And again, auto declined a $111 + $12 shipping offer. Not even willing to take $1 less.
monroe67
·1 month ago"I didn't include shipping in the offer. Asking price was $112 +$12 shipping."
On eBay, the shipping/delivery price shown in the listing is a constant.
It cannot be bargained up or down or away in what a potential buyer offers.
Best Offers are intended to be a buyer's Best Offer on only the price of the item.
When a seller adds the Best Offer feature to his/her listings, that means the Best Offer received by that seller.
The Best Offer decision is In The Mind of the seller.
albertabrightalberta
·1 month ago@monroe67 I think you've misunderstood the OP's description of what he/she did.
They weren't violating ebay policy by asking for free shipping when the listing didn't offer it.
Instead was offering a lesser amount + shipping, the total of which would be as if there was free shipping.
@stepstonellc 's offer $100 which would have cost him a total of $112 if the seller accepted it.
What the OP was saying was that (had the seller accepted) the total amount of sale would have been the same amount as the BIN price.
monroe67
·1 month agoThank you, alberta.