eBay

jerseydevildonna · ‎10-26-2021

Made an offer on an auction item with a starting bid of $25. There was a blue make an offer button. So I figured cut out all the auction stuff and make an offer of $35. A reasonable suggestion of what they may get to at auction. Never heard from the seller and the next day I saw the starting bid was now $35. In my offers I had no record of my offer. It definitely was not a bid because it still says 0 bids. What the hell happened? Did I just help the seller out by basically making an invisible "bid" to boost the starting bid to a new level. What is the point of the make offer button?

klhmdg · ‎10-26-2021

No you did not make an invisible bid.

Make offers on auctions should be more than starting price but some sellers are concerned when a buyer offers more.. There is a scam going on where "buyers" offer a lot more than try to get the new seller to ship with a fake "you have been paid" invoice.

I dont know the reason for this seller to increase to $35.

klhmdg • Volunteer Community Mentor

downunder-61 · ‎10-26-2021

If you want the item, bid for it and see how you go.

A lot of sellers do ignore offers on auctions simply because they want the auction to keep running.

When I started selling years ago I would put up an auction to see the best price I could get for a particular product line - then I simply listed the rest of my product line as fixed price on that indication (I was very new LOL) but it worked a treat.

You offering $35 may have prompted them to up the start bid, who knows? It is within their rights to do so.

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albertabrightalberta · ‎10-26-2021

I suspect the seller ignored your $35 offer because he is optimistic that the item will go for more money if allowed to run to term. It looks like it worked in this case.

I've seen instances where offers were made, sellers declined and the listing ended without any bids. I bet those sellers were kicking themselves.

The thinking behind the "make offer" on auctions is that some buyers and sellers don't want to wait out an auction so if an offer is made that's agreeable to both parties, the waiting period ends and both sides are happy.

albertabrightalberta
Volunteer Community Mentor

I can explain it to you but I can’t understand it for you.

wrong66 · ‎10-26-2021

MANY of the "Best Offers" you see in auction listings were added by eBay without the knowledge of the seller. Consequently, they are ignored by the seller in many cases. There's been many threads on this in the past.

iart · ‎10-26-2021

The 'Make Offer' may have been a mistake. It doesn't make much sense for an auction to have it.

We usually use 'Sell Similar" to list items. We might take a store item, BIN, with the 'Make Offer' option and sell similar, turn it into an auction, but then forget to remove the 'Make Offer' option. We've done this a few times.

As for the inflated price, the seller might have seen you as a scammer. They might also have put you on their block list.

releasethekraken_1 · ‎10-26-2021

@jerseydevildonna wrote:
Made an offer on an auction item with a starting bid of $25. There was a blue make an offer button. So I figured cut out all the auction stuff and make an offer of $35. A reasonable suggestion of what they may get to at auction. Never heard from the seller and the next day I saw the starting bid was now $35. In my offers I had no record of my offer. It definitely was not a bid because it still says 0 bids. What the hell happened? Did I just help the seller out by basically making an invisible "bid" to boost the starting bid to a new level. What is the point of the make offer button?

Are you sure the auction had no bids?

postingid7659 · ‎10-26-2021

You're not supposed to be able to list auctions with Best Offer enabled, although sometimes it gets through.

nobody*s_perfect · ‎10-26-2021

@postingid7659 wrote:
You're not supposed to be able to list auctions with Best Offer enabled, although sometimes it gets through.

@postingid7659

Best Offer has been an option for auction-format listings for several years. It's right there as an option on the listing form. As mentioned in one of the earlier posts, eBay sometimes adds it to a seller's auctions even though the seller doesn't want it.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Announcements/UPDATED-eBay-is-Helping-Boost-Conversion-with-Best-Offer...

jerseydevildonna · ‎10-26-2021

Yeah I am sure. It still has no bids... with 7 hours to go. I understand the irritation of eBay adding best offer to fixed price items, when I don't want any offers on my own listings. I guess they are now infecting auction listings with this annoying thing. Either way a response from the seller would have been nice instead of boosting the starting price. They make be kicking themselves when they get no bids.

jerseydevildonna · ‎10-26-2021

Isn't best offer different than make an offer? BEST offer on an auction listing makes no sense because there is no fixed price listed. There is just a starting bid price... usually the seller is hoping that the bid will go much higher.

a_c_green · ‎10-26-2021

@jerseydevildonna wrote:
Yeah I am sure. It still has no bids... with 7 hours to go.

I'd go ahead and make the $35 bid, then. It was what you were offering, after all, and you should see the Make Offer button disappear after that since a bid was received. Then your only worry will be a last-second sniper outbidding you. Good luck...

jerseydevildonna · ‎10-26-2021

Interesting that I have gotten 3 emails from eBay already telling me that bidding on my watched item is up to $35 ...."make my bid now!" There are no bids, so how can bidding be UP to anything? There IS my $35 offer seeming to count as a bid... that is not listed as a bid. I don't think I want to give this seller the satisfaction of me placing an actual bid on this now.😡