Best Offer on auctions: how are your customers using it?

[keziak]

Best Offers are kind of a wild card with auctions, at least in my experience. I've had people offer less than the opening bid, more than the bid, and today, exactly the bid.  I decided to take it because based on condition my opening bid is a pretty good price for me.  Plus....outta here. 

[fern*wood]

All of mine had been a lower offer until this week and I finally received one that was higher.  That buyer was buying two other things I had listed at fixed price, and so wanted to get all three at the same time.  yay me

[moo*cow*corner]

Just a couple of days ago, I made an offer in a message for an auction item. The seller sent me a counter-offer for $1 under his opening bid price. I told him I'd take it, and he added BO to his auction for me, and I used it to make the agreed offer. He accepted, I paid immediately. Done deal.

[monster-deals]

pffft. Just had an offer on some saws...offer in was 66% off list.

I think, sure, it's been up for about six months, why not, let's dump it and I take the offer.

Buyer immediately cancels.

%$##(*!

[keziak]

Recently I had a similar experience.  I had an auction without Best Offer for some reason and heard from a customer asking about changing the price (I forget the specifics). I canceled and relisted as Fixed Price and they bought it. Only then did I remember all I had to do was add Best Offer to the listing! 

Sometimes there are too many changes to keep up with.

[c.b.]

great thread -- very informative.  🙂

[kyal]

Been selling on eBay for years and years and I've never offered the best offer option. Maybe I should consider it.

[castlemagicmemories]

I think the term, Best Offer, has become synonymous with discounts, so many just don't look at a Best Offer attached to an auction listing as something that they might offer more for, as there may be other bids coming in since it is an auction, as if there were a BIN attached.

Congrats on your higher offer!

[juststuffisell]

My one store, I run best offer on all the items. All of the offers I get, which is quite a number given the items I am selling, are 50 to 70% of fixed price with few exceptions. Negotiating, I can get some of them back up to 30% off list. I am blowing out items in this store so I don't care anymore on the inventory. Way lower than what you would hope for, but the target audience are college kids and professors so they either have no money or have no money...lol

I try not to run best offers, but I just had 3 come in on items I am selling with a best offer from when I was asking 10 bucks. Never took the best offer off when I cut the price to five bucks to just try and get rid of them. Fixed price is 5 bucks each. Best offer I got was 2 dollars for each one...lol.. I think I am going to ignore them and just take the items down tomorrow and give them to my wife. 

Cheers

[disneyshopper]

I price my items about 20% below retail price.

On items that I have had for years, I put Best Offer on them.  Recently, someone offered $5 less than my asking price.  I took it, because I've had the item on a shelf for years.  Lo and behold another offer came in at $5 less for my remaining item, and I took it as well.

Right now I am doing the volume pricing, and just had someone purchase all 3 of the pin bags I had.  These shipped to zone 8.  My original pricing was for a 2# package, as I use the regional rate A box, and they would have shipped at the 3# rate if using regular priority.  As it turns out, buyer paid $25.75 and I paid $24.07.

[keziak]

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@castlemagicmemories wrote:
I think the term, Best Offer, has become synonymous with discounts, so many just don't look at a Best Offer attached to an auction listing as something that they might offer more for, as there may be other bids coming in since it is an auction, as if there were a BIN attached.

Congrats on your higher offer!

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I'm liking the Best Offer getting people off the sidelines and buying, even though I possibly miss out on bidding up.  I leave it off items I think might get bid up.

[the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth]

Auctions are supposed to start for the least a seller will accept and go up. BO should be like a BIN but from the buyers side.

ebay has **bleep**ized so many things now i have no idea what anything means any more. I used to be a huge eBay supporter and powerbuyer (20 year supporter) but they have destroyed nearly everything that made them awesome