Items waiting in cart that have best offer enabled on them, why not buy or make offer?

[ifyouloveit]

Just curious what your thoughts are on a buyer having a make an offer item sitting in their cart but neither making an offer or completing the sale.

Would you lower the price on that item? 

It's in their cart, not sure why I have not received an offer on an already cheap item anyway?

Buyer behavior fascinates me, what do you think of this?

Thanks and Happy 4th to all!

[reallynicestamps]

It's retail therapy.

Put it in the cart.

Think about how cool it would be to own.

Go pick up the kids at day care and make dinner.

Never go back to cart.

If you have ever passed a few happy hours trying on jeans or looking online at houses for sale in neighbourhoods you can't afford, that's exactly what's happening here.

[7606dennis]

Placing an item in one's cart does absolutely nothing to keep that item from being sold to someone else while it is sitting in your cart.  Many people seem to think that, as in a store if you take the last item in stock off the self and place it in your cart, no one can buy it.  That is not the case on eBay.

[pjcdn2005]

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@7606dennis wrote:

Placing an item in one's cart does absolutely nothing to keep that item from being sold to someone else while it is sitting in your cart.  Many people seem to think that, as in a store if you take the last item in stock off the self and place it in your cart, no one can buy it.  That is not the case on eBay.

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I think that is the case in most or all online stores? I used to shop at a store that would allow you to hold an item in a cart for 30 minutes but after that, anyone could buy it. The stores I shop at now don’t guarantee I will be able to purchase an item in my cart until I pay for it.

[lamber9347]

Placing items in their cart means they are thinking about it, perhaps a tad more seriously but still only thinking about the purchase. It means nothing else. Just like having items on your watch list.

I recently submitted an offer on an item and the seller declined within 2 minutes then sent me a very curt and strongly worded message that they have two watchers and would rather wait to see if one of those will pay more than what I offered. I didn't bother to reply that I am one of those two watchers and having a watcher is not a guarantee for a sale.
BTW- my offer was $4 less than the amount the seller had it listed for, so apparently $4 means quite a bit to this seller....

[div_style]

I generally buy on a different ID.  Once in a while I see something while on this ID, put it in the cart, and then go to my buying ID and forget all about the cart for this ID.  Same thing happens with watch list.  Stuff just gets lost--outta sight, outta mind.

[slippinjimmy]

The overall cart abandonment rate for ecommerce is between 60 and 70%

Here are some stats:

https://baymard.com/lists/cart-abandonment-rate

I add stuff to my cart almost every day, some I am actually interested in and some I'm just temporarily stashing them for a variety of reasons none of which will ever result in an actual purchase. As a buyer I probably abandon about 90% of what I put in my cart, maybe a bit less on eBay.

I bought an HDMI cable a few weeks ago, I had about a dozen different ones in my cart but I only purchased one of them. I like to add to cart instead of using the watch List because I know that with an hour or a day all those extras in my cart are no longer of any interest to me, putting them all on my Watch List just generates a giant pile of marketing emails and I have to go in and "unwatch" which isn't as easy as removing from the cart (they will automatically go away from my cart after a few days anyway even if I do nothing at all).

[nc-daydreamer]

Just because an item is in the cart does not mean someone else can not come in and buy it.

As far as lowering the price - I have found that never works. It seems not to be the cost of the item, or they would not have put it in cart to start with... it's a matter of timing - as another poster said. 

They want it, put it in cart and have to make it wait for whatever reason - have to go somewhere or just waiting till the right payday.  If they want it, they will remember it (or get an automatic reminder) - then they will remove it or pay for it. If price were the issue, they'd make an offer.

[loveyourimagination49]

They get this at checkout and don’t feel like dealing with the glitch.

[coolections]

Some watch and some put in their carts. For those that put in their carts they are probably just used to doing it that way. Almost all retailers on the net have carts and not both carts and watch choices. Many items that have make offer are priced more than 2x the going rate so many will not even attempt to make an offer as it offends the seller. Also many people watch/place in carts just to see if someone will actually pay the high price the seller is asking.

[loveyourimagination49]

The going price is .99 free shipping counterfeit. The real price should be trending at the price of a real item.

[luckythewinner]

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what your thoughts are on a buyer having a make an offer item sitting in their cart but neither making an offer or completing the sale. 

{snip}

Buyer behavior fascinates me, what do you think of this?

As a buyer, I have often put an item in cart and later decided not to buy it. But when I made that decision, I did not think to myself  "Oooh, I really feel the need to drop what I am doing right now, boot up my computer, log into eBay, and remove that item from my cart!"

[membersinceaug2001]

I generally load up the cart and wait for Bonus Bucks or some other discount to come along.

[turquoisetulips]

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@ifyouloveit wrote:

Just curious what your thoughts are on a buyer having a make an offer item sitting in their cart but neither making an offer or completing the sale.

Would you lower the price on that item? 

It's in their cart, not sure why I have not received an offer on an already cheap item anyway?

Buyer behavior fascinates me, what do you think of this?

Thanks and Happy 4th to all!

Watchers and all that other jazz  use to possibly  mean  something positive  for e bay  sellers ,, but not anymore . I've have  17  sales packages to ship  out tomorrow morning  but only a few   are from here . It's sad . Tulips 

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[trukur_0]

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@ifyouloveit wrote:

Just curious what your thoughts are on a buyer having a make an offer item sitting in their cart but neither making an offer or completing the sale.

Would you lower the price on that item? 

It's in their cart, not sure why I have not received an offer on an already cheap item anyway?

Buyer behavior fascinates me, what do you think of this?

Thanks and Happy 4th to all!

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I think it's just another message powered through artificial intelligence that ebay likes to send out in an effort to increase sales, and while it certainly could help the seller lets not forget who the ultimate beneficiary is.

Maybe there truly are buyers who have added your item to their cart(s)...

And maybe it's just a bogus message to get sellers to lower that item's price.

Because that's all ebay cares about, and either way it works so it could be a semi-random message. 

It may have something to do with conversion rates (meaning if your item has gotten say 100+ views and not a single sale it fires off that message) but unless someone can glean the code that's in charge of deciding when and where to fire off that message it's all speculation at this point.