EBAY Changing best offer Rules , and not in a good way !

[emorysurplus]

i been buying and selling on ebay for years now and often used best offer to catch some good deals , a few days ago i tried to place a best offer and ebay asked for me to set a default payment method that would be charged if the seller accepts the offer , this has never been the case so it appears that ebay silently is toying around with the rules and in the process shafting buyers !

In case you wonder why this is bad for buyers i will give you a few examples :

- if you place best offers on multiple items from the same seller but the seller has no combined shipping rule 

  set up ebay will just add up the shipping charges for the individual listings and you end up paying more 

  than what you would have paid with combined shipping , of course you can contact the seller and ask him    to refund the excess in shipping but this is a hassle for both !

- another case is that you place best offer on multiple items , the seller accepts some and counters others , you now pay for the ones he accepted and shipping and then you pay again once you accept the counter or you counter and the seller accepts 

[emorysurplus]

We all know that there is no such thing as a free lunch or free shipping for that matter , packing materials , labels and postage have to be paid by somebody so in the case of "free shipping"  the seller pays the bill.

What this means however is that sellers have to start factoring all of this in the sales price , in the case of auctions this means higher starting bids for the item and in the case of fixed price items it means that the sale price is going to be higher 

[ajs_coins_and_alchemy]

I think everyone that offers free shipping has done that already. If they haven't they're late to the party but auctions are a different beast.

Example ... i had an item for 39.95 + 5 S/H. Of course my new price is $44.95 free shipping minimum... but honestly, it's probably now 45.95 or 46.95 or more because now I can sneak a few extra bucks in. That's just how you do it.

Also...i dont run auctions, and upping a starting bid does nothing unless your starting bid is effectively a BIN price and you expect 1 bid only. If starting bid is low to begin with (say 99 cents on a $100 item) upping it $5 or $10 or $20 to compensate for shipping does nothing to the final bid if it's a $100 range item... When I bid, I'm bidding based on item price + shipping price. 

I dont know about othee people but I will bid $20 more on an auction with free shipping compared to an auction with $20 shipping...but again, that's me.

Buyers...well ... honestly.... i don't know what the heck they think. They think free shipping is free (that's so laughable...but profitable) ... 

Capitalism is all a game and like democracy is all one big experiment.

[westchestervillage]

Yea same thing happening here. I hate it. Buying less because of it, when I see that pop up I just move on and purchase at Amazon or another site if they have the same price.

[myangelandmyprincess]

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@emorysurplus wrote:

ebay already has a rule that requires for buyers to pay within 4 days regardless of auction or best offer so there already was a safeguard in place .

i have a lot of buyers that are in europe , paying shipping on a few items doesnt make sense for them so they usually shop for 2-3 weeks until they have enough to fill a box and then i send them a combined shipping invoice and get the stuff out .  ok now that i know you can opt out i can do this to accomodate them but the problem is that if they encounter this at other sellers that have not noticed this yet than it will drive them off ebay 

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I wouldn't call that a safeguard. Since there is not way to make them pay sellers often have four days wasted on something that isn't paid for.  Especially with new sellers or high end items that get the scam offers trying to send fake payment emails.  

[emorysurplus]

i disagree , ebay makes people specify a PAYMENT METHOD that however does NOT mean that the item actually is getting paid !

For example if the seller specifies a credit card that has $200 available and places a $500 best offer or uses a stolen credit card than no payment is actually processed 

[eburtonlab]

ebay makes people specify a PAYMENT METHOD that however does NOT mean that the item actually is getting paid !

eBay requires some users to provide a payment method, but not all users. Obviously if the user is not required to provide a payment method at the time the offer is made, the offer payment might not be made at a later time.

But for those users that are required to provide a payment method at the time of the offer, eBay puts a hold on the card for the offer amount even if the offer is not accepted, at least according to users that have run into that situation.

[worldcoinauctions]

My BIN sales are mostly set to require immediate payment. I think this is the setting you are referring to. Ebay doesn't allow that on auctions. If someone were to (it has happened) overpay because of this I generally give them a refund. I have even packed cash in the package and shipped it with the items. Naturally I make sure all my fees were covered and refund less than the combined postage and any fees I can't get back. Still a better deal for the buyer. My auctions have a set shipping price up to a certain number and I encourage people to take a week to buy additional items. If they get at least 5 they save a bit on shipping.

BTW, all my best offers are automated. I don't want to see your offers, just accept the ones at or above my bottom line. Once in a while I'll look at the history and laugh at those offering ridiculous amounts!

[sandman4598]

I'm not a seller on ebay, just a buyer. I'm not a big fan of the change to "best offer". That is due to how I pay for big price items. I use quadpay and with the change it seems like I cannot do that anymore if I send an offer to a seller. It will try to take out everything all at once when that is not what I want to do. Maybe I should just send offer directly to seller through email and see if they will send me offer instead. 

[maccnc11]

Yeap you are correct Sir, is especially bad for sellers because eBay doesn't refund fees on partial refunds, only on Full Refunds does a seller get every penny of the fees back. I've just stopped any best offers, because they shouldn't be worrying  about any payment until a deal is Struck.

[maccnc11]

We got some real Genius's at eBay, lol

[myangelandmyprincess]

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@maccnc11 wrote:

Yeap you are correct Sir, is especially bad for sellers because eBay doesn't refund fees on partial refunds, only on Full Refunds does a seller get every penny of the fees back. I've just stopped any best offers, because they shouldn't be worrying  about any payment until a deal is Struck.

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eBay does do fee credits for partial refunds now. 

[maccnc11]

Not to worry eBay will continue till they bugger the platform to the point it is unusable, I guess that's their goal, everyone in store, with a whirling list of items that aren't going to sell and will never Sale.  

[costnu]

eBay is full of it. And, they have been for years!

IF, hypothetical-user-JOE refuses to pay, eBay can apply the lock-in-your-payment-method-beforehand policy to JOE! And, not to everyone else!

They have computers and systems that, guess what? Never forget. A flag is set for JOE's account and it's done. You, me, we, us aren't affected.

So, tell me again why they are applying this GLOBALLY?

[gallopinggreyhound]

I agree this is not good.

This is not only an issue with combined shipping, relying on sellers to show goodwill if they can respond in time or as a refund. Will they be forced into ultimately offering free shipping to compensate. Doesn’t that result in the cheapest and most unreliable shipping methods?

If Paypal payment details are linked to best offers this is also worrying for buyers.

Ebay has been hacked before and if the payment details are permanently linked without any purchase ( on the off chance that the seller will accept the offer) then doesn’t it mean that a security measure is compromised. It is like going into a shop and having to give your credit card details just to enquire the price with no assurance that the item is what you will buy. 

I find this cheeky and controlling and will stop asking about “best offers” and ultimately think twice about shopping on Ebay as the buyer has been sidelined in preference to the seller and the seller is being sidelined in preference of Ebay. Not my idea of auction/ offer fun.

Is  the next move to link your payment account when you submit a bid with no guarantee of winning the auction. No thank you, it will be goodbye Ebay.

[ami_tech]

It's annoying as it means there is no way to use PayPal pay in 3 or PayPal credit to pay. Also sometimes you need to move money around to pay and would rather do that after the fact for various reasons. It's so ill thought out, I don't understand the reasoning behind it.