Best Offer system makes even less sense now

[potrokh]

Anyone else feel the system is fundamentally flawed when both buyer and seller are essentially denied a good faith transaction in favor of the lowest bidder who may  not end up being the winner or even bid again? You really should keep the offer open as long as the current bid is lower.

[mudshark61369]

@potrokh,

The way you have written your topic is hard to follow.  I am going to guess you made an offer on an auction item that had a Best Offer option. Someone bid on the auction while your offer was still active which if they were the only bidder it would show their bid as being the minimum bid price. The offer was then automatically declined. 

Below is a quote from ebay's best offer policy on auction listings, that may explain what happened.

"If you have an auction-style listing with Best Offer, bear in mind that:

• If you receive a bid
  • Current offers and counteroffers will be declined automatically, and buyers won't be able to make any additional offers on your item
  • If you had received an offer that was higher than the current bid, the buyer who made the offer will need to place a bid, as their offer was declined when the first bid was placed
  • If a bidder retracts their bid, the Best Offer feature will be re-enabled
• This option isn't available in these categories: Cell Phones, Motors, Real Estate, Tablets, and Tickets"

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/listings/selling-buy-now/adding-best-offer-listing?id=4144

The portion in blue explains what you should do. Place a bid at your Offer price. Your bid is good as long until the auction ends.  You may even win the item for less.

[the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth]

The system is auction based. I think it was stupid to add best offers in the first place. Offers should not override the original intent of the format. Why would anyone trust auctions if bids didn't work the way they do?

if you want durable best offers look for fixed price listings. Don’t try to further degrade the auction format that brings so many buyers to the site.

[7606dennis]

It appears that you are speaking of eBay's relatively recent decision to include the BO option on auction listings instead of keeping it restricted to fixed price listings.  I have to agree with dog that it should be there at all.

The biggest issue requiring any offer that isn't already accepted when a bid is placed to become void is that once a bid is placed transaction becomes an auction and, under many state's auction laws, for a seller to accept an offer outside of the bidding process would open the seller to potential legal issues for not conducting the auction in good faith as required by those state's laws.