5% minimum for sending an offer to a buyer is a rip off.

[comics_from_mars]

Why should eBay get to decide a 5% minimum for sending an offer? There should be no minimum, and I should get to decide, not eBay. Anyone else agree?

[redmodelt]

Sorry but your post is not clear what the 5% is? In any case, it is eBays site and eBays rules to follow if you want to buy and sell.

[theteamsetguy]

There is no fee to send a potential buyer an offer. There is a minimum discount of 5% you have to moffer before sending an offer.

As far as I'm concerned any discount of less than 10% isn't going to sway most buyers including myself.

[hkfever456]

yes. you should have the choice on how much of a discount you offer. but it only works to offer higher discounts. if you just want to offer a buyer a  2 percent discount then most buyers will tell you to keep it unless you are talking about a million dollar item.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@redmodelt  I think the OP is referring to Seller Initiated Offers....I believe a seller must offer a minimum of a 5% discount or ebay won't send the offer, I'd guess because ebay believes buyers would quickly tire of offers of less than 5%.

As you note, ebay's marketplace, ebay's rules. We can question their wisdom for hours if we wish, but the minimum will still be the same minimum at the end of the day....

[heckofagame]

So, you're pretty confident that a buyer would jump all over a 4% discount?

[buyselljack2016]

On your own website you would be allowed to make an offer for any amount off.

This is not your/my website.

We play by the host's rules, or we take our toys, and exit the sandbox.

Lowball offer sellers is  an echo of lowball offer buyers.

If you will take less, just lower the asking price. Problem solved, and the IPR option remains intact.

[chapeau-noir]

---

@heckofagame wrote:

So, you're pretty confident that a buyer would jump all over a 4% discount?

---

Or even better, that 1% discount that gets people busting down the doors. 

[divwido]

For 'most' items anything less is insult and a gross waste of time.

Consider I'm watching your Marvel Tin Poster at $ 13.  you send me an offer for what?   $ 12?   I'm going to be insulted and never ever buy it. 

Five percent is .only 65 freaking cents.  If that's too much, don't make offers.

[evry1nositswindy]

After reading some threads about sellers sending offers to people who turn out to have nightmare FB left for others, I no longer send offers of any kind.

[slippinjimmy]

---

@comics_from_mars wrote:

Why should eBay get to decide a 5% minimum for sending an offer? There should be no minimum, and I should get to decide, not eBay. Anyone else agree?

---

Because most buyers would consider anything less than 5% an insult.

Similar to sellers that use Best Offer on their listings and in the end they won't accept anything that isn't within pennies of the original listing price.

[onlinecentral]

eBay has sent out a series weekly messages for as long as 18 months. They often times don't fit in my business model or make sense to me.

One was, "Click here and we will send your watchers a discount for 5% off."
Problem #1: I would expect few sales and close to a 100% annoyance rate.
Problem #2: For the year I made 36% profit, that 5% would be a 13.9% reduction in my take home pay. How about eBay truly being a partner and offering to pay half or 2.5% of the 5% discount?

I don't engage in anything where the customer or myself has to jump through hoops.
Phony markdowns.
Offers and counteroffers.
Promoted listings.
If I spent an hour a day, seven days a week managing that nonsense, I would need a $100.00 of compensation.

[heckofagame]

I like to use the offers to reduce inventory that may have been around longer than it should. 

[glasser]

I don't think a 5% threshold is a problem. Buyers don't want to be spammed with minimal offers that don't lead to a purchase.  Making or accepting offers is not an eBay requirement so it's up to a seller to decide how to handle.

 Most offers I get are not significant enough because it is usually on items that I have deemed well overpriced to start with.  5%, 10% or even 20% in most cases on those items wouldn't get me to pay attention.

Recently I was offered a $65 discount (roughly 15%). This let me know the seller was serious about selling. I was able to negotiate for a total of a 30% discount.  Not saying how great a negotiator I am here. Saying when a buyer sends a large discount, they are signaling let's do business!

This is in realm of antiques where haggling was, pre-internet, the expected way of doing business. 

at less than 5% why bother.

[asset_liquidators]

I would have to disagree. If an offer isn't at least 5% off then what is the point of sending one? If there was no minimum then people would be flooded with offers such as $799.00 on an $800 item.

Some items that are eligible to send an offer I will send offers on and others I won't because I don't want to take 5% (or sometimes anything) off the price. Some items I will offer more off of the price. Not that big of a deal really considering they only occasionally result in a sale.  More often they result in someone responding with something along the lines of "hey, thanks for the offer but would you take (insert insultingly low price here) for this?"