Automatic decline of Best Offer pointless part 2

[number6ebf]

I recently ran into some frustration with ebay and I searched for automatic rejection of best offers on ebay to see if I was not alone in my frustration. Sure enough I found a thread, but is was locked due to the age of the discussion (2016-2017)

Here is the archived discussion: https://community.ebay.com/t5/Archive-Bidding-Buying/Automatic-decline-of-best-offer-pointless/td-p/...

Here is my problem. I tend to watch several  items over time for things I am interested in, but not willing to pay top dollar that a lot of listings I follow are set to.  Ebay will email me the seller is accepting offers and I will then offer slightly below  what I feel is a fair price. If the seller gets back to and makes a counter offer I normally accept that since they will go halfway between my initial offer and the BIN price which I feel is a good way of negotiating a fair price. 

Lately I have an item I was watching a week or so ago and it was priced 19.99. I offered 14.00. I got a message back fairly quickly that the seller rejected my offer. I figured that is the end of that. Well the seller relisted the item that did not sell and I get another email from ebay saying the seller is accepting offers. So this time I make n offer of $16. Again immediate rejection. At this point I am more than a little annoyed. Why does ebay inform me the seller is accepting offers and when I make an offer it is immediately rejected? That is a waste of my time. I would prefer to get a counter offer back so I know what the seller feels is a reasonable price. If they don't want less than the BIN price please don't tell me you are accepting offers.

I am done with this seller for sure. I may be done with ebay if I continue to get spammed about best offers and there is no negotiation process.

[woodland_gnome]

An automatic rejection frees you up to make another offer or move on, as opposed to having to wait up to 48 hours for a response.

eBay doesn't really care what the seller is willing to do.  It adds Best Offer to listings where the seller doesn't want it (either as a default that requires extraordinary effort to overwrite or even if the seller has gone to that effort they just add it after the listing is up).  And even if the seller is willing to entertain them they may not want to engage in "negotiations", simply take or leave the offers (automatically leaving the ones that they deem too low to give individual consideration to.)

[redmodelt]

Seller is not obligated to reply if the price is too low or to counter offer. If you don't hear back, then the price was too low or the item sold at the new price it was listed at. Also , with best offer they can set a low amount that you will get and auto reply of try again and or high amount that if you go over they will accept.

[buyselljack2016]

@number6ebf 

Often not the seller that is taunting you. It is eBay.

eBay is likely adding that "best offer" when the seller does not want it.  Seller removes it. eBay adds it again. Seller removes it. eBay adds it again. Seller then sets the auto decline to reject the offers, and you are notified immediately. 

[mudshark61369]

@number6ebf,

  "I would prefer to get a counter offer back so I know what the seller feels is a reasonable price. If they don't want less than the BIN price please don't tell me you are accepting offers... "I may be done with ebay if I continue to get spammed about best offers and there is no negotiation process."

Just because your initial offer was rejected doesn't mean that you cannot enter another offer. It just means that your rejected offer was lower than what the seller is willing to accept. 

It would be better if ebay gave sellers who use the quick listing tool the option not to use best offer, but it is automatically added, when that tool is used. But it doesn't mean that you should stop after one rejection, unless the offer was the most you were willing to pay.

  "I have an item I was watching a week or so ago and it was priced 19.99. I offered 14.00."

So your offer was basically for 30% off the asking price.  Maybe you do not realize that is not how much the seller would have received after eBay and PayPal's fees.  Those amount to another 12.9% of the total price paid, including the shipping cost.  So if that item had free shipping the seller would have received $12.20 and still would have had to pay for the shipping out of that amount. 

[soh.maryl]

Unless the rules have changed recently, there are 4 response options for a seller when he receives an offer.

He can accept, reject, counter or simply ignore and let the offer die after its time frame.

Not sure how it's worded in the listing, but it should not say the seller is accepting offers.  It should state that you can Make An Offer.  Nowhere does it say that the seller is required to accept an offer, nor does it state that the seller even has to respond.  

Since eBay can, and does, add the "Make An Offer" option to listings without the seller's knowledge or consent, that is sometimes a complete surprise to the seller who has quite possibly carefully considered how low he can price his item in order to make minimum profit.

Yes, it would be good if sellers would respond promptly and would accept any offer.  But eBay does not require them to do either.  

[buyselljack2016]

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@mudshark61369 wrote:

@number6ebf,

 

  "I have an item I was watching a week or so ago and it was priced 19.99. I offered 14.00."

So your offer was basically for 30% off the asking price.  Maybe you do not realize that is not how much the seller would have received after eBay and PayPal's fees.  Those amount to another 12.9% of the total price paid, including the shipping cost.  So if that item had free shipping the seller would have received $12.20 and still would have had to pay for the shipping out of that amount. 

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As per his post, this buyer wants to haggle.  Start a little low, and see if the counter is acceptable.

I recently had an offer on a "no best offer on the listing" item. Offer amounted to me eating $34 of the shipping cost as the buyer  potential buyer was offering $5 more than the BIN, but wanted "free shipping". Would still be some profit, but with shipping, fees, and initial cost of item I could just throw it in the woods, and feel better. 

Step 1 was to increase my BBL.  Next was to politely decline, citing the increase in the dim-weight shipping costs as the reason that I was unable to accept. I did counter with an offer that would have saved him 25% of the shipping costs.

This was a large trim panel for a vehicle hatch lift. Got a reply back that for a few dollars more he could he the whole hatch lift.  I did not respond, but thought.....   then why are you bothering me.   Someone was going to have to pickup/deliver that whole gate. I doubt that shipping was included with the price that he said he could get it for.   Mine was on the lower end of the price range, and the part is color specific.

[dirk12955]

Whether the system works or not,    Is aggravating or not,   Time wasted or not.      It got your attention.   It got you focused on that listing and that seller for a minute or two.

Mission accomplished.     

[plymouthsales4165]

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@number6ebf wrote:

I recently ran into some frustration with ebay and I searched for automatic rejection of best offers on ebay to see if I was not alone in my frustration. Sure enough I found a thread, but is was locked due to the age of the discussion (2016-2017)

Here is the archived discussion: https://community.ebay.com/t5/Archive-Bidding-Buying/Automatic-decline-of-best-offer-pointless/td-p/...

Here is my problem. I tend to watch several  items over time for things I am interested in, but not willing to pay top dollar that a lot of listings I follow are set to.  Ebay will email me the seller is accepting offers and I will then offer slightly below  what I feel is a fair price. If the seller gets back to and makes a counter offer I normally accept that since they will go halfway between my initial offer and the BIN price which I feel is a good way of negotiating a fair price. 

Lately I have an item I was watching a week or so ago and it was priced 19.99. I offered 14.00. I got a message back fairly quickly that the seller rejected my offer. I figured that is the end of that. Well the seller relisted the item that did not sell and I get another email from ebay saying the seller is accepting offers. So this time I make n offer of $16. Again immediate rejection. At this point I am more than a little annoyed. Why does ebay inform me the seller is accepting offers and when I make an offer it is immediately rejected? That is a waste of my time. I would prefer to get a counter offer back so I know what the seller feels is a reasonable price. If they don't want less than the BIN price please don't tell me you are accepting offers.

I am done with this seller for sure. I may be done with ebay if I continue to get spammed about best offers and there is no negotiation process.

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As a seller that sells with best offer here are my thoughts. When using Best Offer a seller needs to use auto decline. The reason for this is that you get a lot of ridiculous offers that are frankly a waste of the sellers time. Example, we will list an item for sale for $5000.00 and don't have the Auto Decline (A-D) set we will get offers under $100. I normally use 50% of starting price as the  A-D as I figure that it is a ligit starting point and I might be able to reach a deal with the buyer. Under 50% tells me that we are too far apart  to even try. In your example your 2nd offer was 20% off. In my opinion if the seller is not willing to negotiate with a 20% off starting point that they might be better off not accepting offers

[soh.maryl]

And may I respectfully point out again that there are occasions when eBay has randomly added "Make An Offer" to a listing and the seller is unaware of this until he receives an offer? 

[7606dennis]

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@soh.maryl wrote:

And may I respectfully point out again that there are occasions when eBay has randomly added "Make An Offer" to a listing and the seller is unaware of this until he receives an offer? 

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While never having been a fan of haggling myself, I do not care for the automatic decline feature either.  If one is willing to enter into negotiations one should, in my opinion, do it personally on a case by case basis.  However, in the case of eBay adding the option without the knowledge or consent of the seller, I agree that using the auto-decline is justified.

Personally, I usually opt to let the offer expire rather than decline it.  However, that is merely a personal matter.

[flatrocktradingco]

Yes and not only does ebay sometimes add the "accept offers" option on its own, when listing using the mobile app, half the time the fields aren't accessible for editing, or don't allow changes without an error. I will often allow offers, but then ebay decides on its own what my auto-decline value will be, without me even knowing what they put until I log onto a computer, and check that field and edit it. Very frustrating. 

[soh.maryl]

Rather than "Accept Offers", doesn't it state "Make An Offer"?

Am asking because the former applies that the seller will accept any offer, when the latter states that an offer can be made, but there is no guarantee of acceptance.  Probably a matter of semantics.