Don't get me wrong, we do offers, lots of offers, love offers. However, I became suspicious when all of a sudden almost every single offer started coming in at the exact price we have the auto decline set to. Typically that lower price is meant to get the conversation started for us, and as most of you know, most buyers don't counter back or accept after a counter. Most noticeably is that almost every buyer had 4 offers remaining, meaning that they "guessed" the lowest price the first time, almost every time.
Soooo, started looking around and sure enough there is apps, extensions, pages, scripts, etc., all designed to "help you get the best price you can on eBay!". Looks like they can pull the minimum offer price right out of the code on the page and even see what the previous offers have been accepted at. And these are offers that are coming in from buyers that have been longstanding members using this ability, not just new members with minimal feedback. My favorite one was an extension that had a search that only showed sellers that would take offers (there's a button for that now!) and showed the minimum price the seller would take. No other items or sellers were displayed that didn't fit that criteria.
My wife didn't believe me, so to prove myself wrong (she's never wrong), I set an auto decline at $80.78. Sure enough, a couple days later an $80.79 offer came in and the buyer had 4 offers remaining, miraculously guessing the lowest price available on a $100 item.
All that being said: yes, I know we can change the settings. Yes, I know that offers are optional (sort of). Yes, I know pretty much all the self help options.
However, my complaint is that eBay can't/won't encode the page enough for people to find this information, that shouldn't be available in the first place. Why even have the offer option in place when someone will just attack your lowest price right out of the gate? IMO, offers are there to get the conversation started, not for someone to automatically know what the lowest price you'll take for something.
Playing the offer game has been interesting at best, very punishing to the bottom line most times, although seemingly a necessary evil for ebay to send you more traffic for sales. I'm all for playing games, but not if I'm getting kneecapped at every sale.
Anyone have any good insights? Dealt and conquered the issue? Am I just off base and need to stop being irritated?
Thanks in advance!
