Simply-the-best-for-you Volunteer Community Mentor
@fern*wood wrote:I just read the info link on my offers page and found this:
"The amount must be at least 5% less than the Buy It Now price for items under $200, 3% for items between $200 and $1,000, and 2% for items over $1,000"
Thank you @fern*wood I was just about to post that it depends on the Start Price/BIN price.
Also, thank you for confirming that you did in fact see a check marked DEFAULT to Send Automatic Offers On. I now saw that a couple of others have mentioned it too. My best guess was that during one part of the roll out (I've had it for awhile & it was never "ON") Ebay decided to make the default ON. They ARE notorious for doing that. Then either it was in error or more likely, they got a lot of complaints & it was turned to OFF.
@wastingtime101 wrote:It's also not uncommon, Simply, for eBay to default stuff like that for "new/occasional" sellers while not defaulting for more established sellers. That's another reason why some may see it checked while others don't.
@wastingtime101 Absolutely. And Gurlcat's posting of the screen shots of an alternate navigation on sending offers was exactly a point I made in my recent post of why it's important to ascertain the user's knowledge base of the product/feature they are trying to use. Because even if we could see (which we can't) the exact screens they had been on, we can't see HOW they navigated to those screens without either watching in real time or seeing a video, neither of which are possible here. HOW one navigates to a feature is AS important as what they did on the screen once they got there. But, I don't have to tell you that. NONE of which intimates that we think OP is "lying". I'll be there isn't 1 person on this thread who thinks OP is "lying". But techies know that users don't always remember every keystroke, screen & navigation used to get somewhere. These diagnostics are WAY easier in real time, when you can watch the user's navigation.
There are probably OTHER ways to navigate there as well. I personally have never used the way Gurlcat posted, though I knew it existed. There may easily be 3 or 4 more ways to accomplish the same task, that we haven't even thought of/mentioned here.
@wastingtime101 wrote:
Hey @gurlcat - those 2 screenshots are from "My Ebay Selling Overview, where you have all those prompts to send offers for individual listings."
What happens when you try to send offers on those same 2 items through Seller Hub with the more advanced offer window? Do you get those same minimum discount errors?
EXCELLENT question, and trying it out made me remember something and I'm somewhat embarrassed now. -Most items in my store are currently on sale (temporary markdown), including those two items. So when I open an offer window for either of them in Hub, the same dollar amounts are shown as the highest offers I can send on them. - $17.73 for the pans, for example. So I believe that explains the screwy math discrepancy shown on the Overview version. The 3% vs. 5% discrepancy remains, but I do suspect that is intentional.
HOWEVER, two whole new cans of worms: Why DOES the Overview screen show my items at their original BIN prices instead of the current on-sale ones?
And check this out: If I try to send an offer that isn't as low as the required amount, of course I get the red-lettered rejection warning ..... but ..... look to the right. I also get a GREEN-numbered offer amount of $1.00. I'm sooooo tempted to see what happens if I hit 'send' LOL. Those pans are really taking up too much space and have been listed so dang long. I do have the shipping covered separately.
You want to become a watcher, see if you get an offer of $1.00 for the pans, accept it and then cancel? There's only 1 other watcher who'll receive it.
@dhbookds Thank you. I believe you & I now see that 3 or 4 other people confirmed it as well & I posted that.
That never happened to me, but I certainly believe that it happened to others & even offered a couple of scenarios as to how & why it happened.
According to the policy page, the minimum amounts for sending offers are tiered, and the stated minimum percentages shown in the gurlcat's screenshots are consistent with the policy.
https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/listings/selling-buy-now/adding-best-offer-listing?id=4144
@wastingtime101 wrote:...
This post from gurlcat and also this post from gurlcat both show screenshots that bring up some questions.
...
However, the eBay math that is shown in those screenshots is so bad that it makes my head hurt. All of those discounts met the minimum percentage requirements. The discounts that eBay was suggesting were minimum, were outrageous. In the first example, gurlcat had entered an offer price of $600 for an item priced at $674.95. Here's the math for this example:
| Original selling price: | $ 674.95 |
| Minimum discount %age: | 3% |
| Minimum discount: | $ 20.25 |
| Seller's offer price: | $ 600.00 |
| Discount: | $ 74.95 |
| Discount %age: | 11% |
| Suggested minimum offer: | $ 523.76 |
| Suggested discount: | $ 151.19 |
| Suggested discount %age: | 22% |
elizabeth@ebay, I'm sorry to have to say this, but eBay really needs to get some programmers who can do basic 5th grade mathematics.
So, here's the thing I keep wondering about, the only way I can think of that the OP could have accidentally sent an offer. Way back on page 1 he made this post to clarify the timeline of events. What I THOUGHT I understood was that the way he found out the item sold was from an email from the buyer, asking him for a meeting place so they could pick up the item (which had already sold) ..... then only later did the OP realize it had sold for so little money, and he had already met with the guy and handed over the generator.
But now I realize, there is no entry in this timeline about when he replied to the buyer and what he replied to them. And note, there is a 16-minute gap between the buyer's email and the subsequent emails from Ebay saying congrats your item sold. -Do yall get what I'm wondering? Is it possible that the buyer was not yet actually the buyer when they wrote their email. What if they were just considering buying, and part of their consideration was where they would have to go (maybe even arrange a truck) to pick up this big heavy object. So .... what if the OP clicked the most visible button to reply to them, not noticing that it said 'Make Offer' and the location involved numbers? I still don't see how that would be possible unless he typed while driving or something, like not looking at the screen and realizing there was a dollar sign in the box, never mind no way to enter alphabetical text .... but anyway it's the closest I can think of to how he could have accidentally sent an offer.
