"Offers" useful to sellers or not?
Under Seller Listings, eBay always encourages me to extend "Offers"
for products that have several watchers, one watcher, or even no watchers.
I am aware of 1 person buying because of an offer.
It seems very possible eBay could keep encouraging these "Offers"
until the price is well beneath my expenses in selling.
What do seasoned sellers recommend?
Thank you.
16 comments
stainlessenginecovers
·4 months agoBlanket 'send an offer' will ONLY go to
a.) potential buyers that are watching ONLY- if they are NOT watching, they will NOT get this offer
b.) potential buyers MAY get the offer even if they just 'viewed/clicked' your item and did NOT put it in their 'watch list'
c.) Only go to potential buyers that did NOT get a previous 'offer' from you, in a ?? amount of time
Then, there is adding 'make an offer' to all listings. That is another ball of wax and you can set up 'auto declines' and 'auto except' amounts when doing those as well.
sfau
·4 months agoYes - they are worth it especially since they last longer now.
fern*wood
·4 months agoThe pricing is entirely within your control since you set the price you want to offer. If I am prompted to send offers on the same item at different times, I usually always send the same discount. I rarely keep going lower. Plus, each watcher can only receive one offer from you.
chapeau-noir
·4 months agoI don't send offers on so-called 'eligible' 0 watcher items because the item was simply looked at. I'd rather not pester people.
On anything else with watchers, I'll send offers if I'm ready to move the item along. As said upthread, it's a way to clear merchandise without having a sale for everyone.
meme6253
·4 months agoThere is no harm in sending offers because they can generate some sales, I usually expect to send offers so My prices are slightly higher than what I am willing to except that way I have wiggle room to negotiate,Some watchers will watch forever in hopes that you will reduce the price,They want it they just don't want to pay your price for it.
tobaccocardyahoo
·4 months agoOnce upon a time, I got reasonable responses to offers I sent to buyers. Has not been the case in years.
Once upon a time, I enabled make an offer with automatic acceptance and rejection. I got some sales. Not enough sales to bother with enabling it any more.
I get a fair number of offers in messages from buyers. I accept perhaps one per year, the rest are from idiots who think that sellers should sell for any profit, or even at a loss. Many of us make our sales by maintaining some depth of inventory in a specialty and that specialty is hard to acquire items in. A new collector who finds our listings may buy many items which have been listed a long time because they have few other choices.
If I was selling product I could easily reorder from a supplier, I might be more inclined to take any offer which yielded a profit, but I probably still would not. I do not wish to devalue any products. I do not wish to expend my time for less than the outrageous amount I think it is worth. I do not wish to do tasks like packing, and shipping unless I feel good about the sale.
nyr134
·4 months agoTo add to your collection of (similar) responses: like others here, over the past few years I've extended offers on some of my items and I've gotten about a quarter to a third of them resulting in sales. I don't offer dramatic reductions (maybe 10% or a dollar on low-priced items). And I won't send offers until the item has been sitting on eBay for months. So I am glad when someone accepts - we both benefit.
l5vw
·4 months agoOver 40% of our sales are from either seller or buyer initiated offers. So it`s a feature we like !
monroe67
·4 months agoMy selling ID's last two sales happened because of Offers I sent to watchers.
The most recent sale resulted in a payout to me of Nine Cents. And I am happy.
Because my buyer got a fabulous deal, free shipping, and the Item is no longer in my home.
The sale just before that was sold on an Offer, with a few words I added to eBay's standardized message to buyers:
"Buy now before the US Postal Service surcharge takes effect !!"
ten_o_nine
·4 months agoOffers are a low conversion volume play. Many watchers are just window shoppers or competitors, so you can't expect many sales from offers alone.
kibble-net
·4 months agoOffers are a great way to strike a deal with an interested buyer, without having to lower the regular price for everyone else.
I generally wait until an item hasn't moved for awhile before I begin sending offers. Some items I don't use offers on at all, and simply drop the price for all potential buyers. But the offer works great as a call to action as it is only available to the buyer for 4 days.
As with all ebay features, your mileage may vary, and different tools will be of different levels of usefulness for different sellers who are in different niches.
asset_liquidators
·4 months agoLimited success but I have had buyers accept offers. We also have to realize that some watchers are other sellers trying to see what you sell for, and other watchers are just that... watchers.
Ironically, I just bought something myself that I was sent an offer on which was my first time I believe in doing so. I was just browsing and a seller had something for sale at a good price. I didn't need the item, but I can always use extras of said item. I thought about buying it because it was such a fair price, but again I didn't NEED it (at least not right now because I have several spares).
A few hours after looking at it I get a small discount offer sent my way and now it was too good to pass up so I grabbed it.
tarotfindsandmore
·4 months agoBetween a quarter and a third of all my sales are the result of offers I've sent. So, yes, useful for me.
albertabrightalberta
·4 months agoOf SIOs (seller initiated offers) I've sent, about 10% result in a sale. I have a b.o. option in my listings and allow enough of a cushion that I have flexibility in sending, receiving and accepting offers.
It's a win-win for both the buyer and me!
tarotfindsandmore
·4 months agoI find I have much better acceptance rate with Best Offers and counteroffers disabled. I don't want to haggle, I just want to clear my dashboard and ebay won't let us dismiss the offer eligible notifications until we finally send something (I know lots of folks just say to ignore them, but I just can't). The offers I send out are not offers I would accept as a buyer, but my base prices are generally reasonable enough that buyers are happy to get that little bit extra (5%-10%) off. In the last month, 26.2% of all of my sales came from offers.
It can be a tricky balance. If your offer discount is too big, buyers get suspicious. They wonder why your price was so high in the first place or they think the offer is being made out of desperation because there's either something wrong with the item or the seller is broke. Best Offer seems to have a similar effect.
bonanza125
·4 months agoYes Ebay encourages offers cause they want items to sell to get paid. Yes offers are fine if you are willing to negotiate. If you are firm on your price then don't click offers. Also it is wise if you have issues with lowball offers to type in a minimum amount someone can offer. You will get lowball offers however eventually someone will come in with a fair offer.