I put in a best offer on three different items yesterday. No responses. Never had this happen.

[salegall]

I’ve been on eBay for 20 years. I hear that best offers are now enforced? Do sellers know it’s on their listings? 

[mudshark61369]

@salegall,

Making offers on a weekend, depending on the time of day in the seller's time zone, They may have been away, or just busy for the day.  Seller's have 48 hours to respond to offers, and depending on how long a listing has been active and how much of a discount you asked for, they may want to use most of the time to consider the offer(s).  Maybe you'll hear from the sellers today.

Without knowing it you may have made offers on items from newer sellers who used  one of eBay's quick listing tools, that adds Best Offer to listings even if the seller dosen't want to accept offers. 

[juststuffisell]

I can't tell you why they are not responding. Did you put any conditions in the offer box? About the only possible reasons are; he didn't put best offer on his listing, He is not readily available to respond to your offer, he doesn't know there is a pending offer to review (can happen when you sell out of multiple accounts and you've not checked your messages), or your offers were so low, that the seller is insulted enough to simply ignore you.

I have one item with a best off I forget to edit so that it auto declines. I got an offer from a low feedback account that was what I considered insulting. I ignored the offer. I ignored the offer to send the prospective buyer a message. Appraised retail is 4800, listed for 3000, offer 1200 and comparable items sell at auction houses for 1700 on up...seen a number of them.

So.... your offers might be well below what they consider reasonable or any of the other possible reasons. IDK, just speculating that.

Cheers

[salegall]

Can’t speculate why they haven’t responded. These are items under $100. One just timed out. One I actually wrote to the seller to notify him he had a best offer pending.

im offering 10%-15% off their listing price?

well..off to poshmark which has been a much much better experience than eBay 

[7606dennis]

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@salegall wrote:

Can’t speculate why they haven’t responded. These are items under $100. One just timed out. One I actually wrote to the seller to notify him he had a best offer pending.

im offering 10%-15% off their listing price?

well..off to poshmark which has been a much much better experience than eBay 

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I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean by "enforced?"  It appears that eBay, in its dubious wisdom, has decided that it needed to add the BO option to seller's listings without their knowledge or consent so, in that sense they can be considered as being forced.  As to being enforced, I believe that eBay has enforced their policy regarding the making and acceptance of such offers since they established the feature years ago.

The seller has the following options for responding to a BO received: 1- They can accept it.

2- They can reject it.

3- They can make a counter offer.

4- They can ignore it and let it expire, which it does after 48 hours or when the listing ends.  I think of this as something like a pocket veto. 

So actually, sellers may not know that there is a Best Offer attached to their listing.  However, they are not required to respond to it directly.  If they wish they can choose the last option.

[soh.maryl]

Sellers have 4 options about best offers:

Accept.

Decline.

Counter.

Just let it expire in 48 hours without making contact with the buyer.

You have heard that best offers are now "enforced"? What does that mean?  I really doubt that eBay is forcing sellers to accept best offers, no matter how low they are.  Do you see the ridiculousness of that?  You have a diamond bracelet listed for $1,000 or best offer.  I offer you twenty bucks.  Do you really want eBay to force you to accept that?

[juststuffisell]

That's a reasonable ask at 10 to 15%.

Yep, I have heard good things about the "mark".

Good luck my friend!

[dofred_8]

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@salegall wrote:

Can’t speculate why they haven’t responded. These are items under $100. One just timed out. One I actually wrote to the seller to notify him he had a best offer pending.

im offering 10%-15% off their listing price?

well..off to poshmark which has been a much much better experience than eBay 

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20-15% can be a huge deal, especially when shipping to the farthest shipping zones, especially when you toss in fvf and PayPal fees.

[mg152]

• PM is awful. I made about 10 sales there with no problems but you have to “socialize” (shivers)  to make any sales. I really don’t like people much that’s one reason I do this online. And boy oh boy! Don’t get me started on their parties, liking and sellers bugging the you know what out of people. I bought 1 item on there cause I felt like I had to. It was trash. Went straight into the round filing cabinet. I left there altogether. The good part is you get your money in 3 days with no cases hanging over your head.

[mudshark61369]

@salegall,

  "These are items under $100... im offering 10%-15% off their listing price".

Just so you understand something lets say you make an offer of 15% off, on an item that is listed for 100 dollars and Free Shipping.

  That would mean you offered $85.  After ebay and PayPal fees the seller receives $75.38 and they still have to pay the shipping cost, since there is no such thing as Free shipping to a seller. 

And yes, in their attempt to "help" sellers make sales, ebay has "forced" Best Offer on listings.  That is why many do not respond, they don't want to accept offers.  The quick listing tool has some options but for inexperienced sellers finding them isn't made easy. If one of them tries the advanced / Business selling tool where the options are on the listing form itself they receive this notice.

 We recommend that you don't switch listing tools.

"The business tool is best for high-volume sellers.

If you are a new seller or don't list many items, we recommend that you stay here".

Since many do not consider themselves to be Businesses, just someone trying to clean out closets, they stick with the quick tool and are stuck with Best Offer. 

[castlemagicmemories]

Saturday and Sunday are not considered business days on ebay, and the sellers may observe this practice so they can have a weekend, too.

When you send an offer, you may hear from the seller in 24-48 hrs.  Being the weekend, you may not hear until Monday.

Ebay does add Best Offer to listings, often independent of seller choice.  Some may not know that Best Offer is on their listing, or may be unable to remove it.

[salegall]

No....sorry . By “enforced” I have meant added to their listings when they have not wanted a best offer on their listings. 

Did not mean they are forced to take a specific offer at all. 

It does seem there are sellers that are unaware of the best offer being on their listings or just choosing to ignore

[salegall]

Yes...this is what I meant...forced to use best offer. So two offers timed out today with no responses from sellers. But here’s the logic that I don’t quite understand. Neither seller responded at all. They could have countered. At no point did I say that my $85 (hypothetical) was my final offer. 

I guess they feel they will get full price 🤷🏻‍♀️

[salegall]

They’ve timed out and at least one of them also had a message from  me that they additionally did not respond to. Perhaps they took the weekend off. 

[castlemagicmemories]

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@salegall wrote:

No....sorry . By “enforced” I have meant added to their listings when they have not wanted a best offer on their listings. 

Did not mean they are forced to take a specific offer at all. 

It does seem there are sellers that are unaware of the best offer being on their listings or just choosing to ignore

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While sometimes no answer is an answer, no answer does not necessarily mean the seller is ignoring you.  It may just mean they have not seen your Best Offer yet, or they have other obligations, family, religious, etc. that they are attending to.  They may even be taking a well earned rest and break.  All work and no play makes...