Selling after offer placed

[le904]

I have a listing in auction format or allow buyers to Make an Offer. A buyer made a low offer and I counter offered. Then second buyer placed a bid, so ebay did not allow the first buyer to accept my counteroffer. The first buyer called ebay customer support and was told to ask the seller to cancel the auction and relist so he can make an offer. Has anyone heard of such a thing?

[mam98031 · Accepted solution]

IMHO that is bad advice.  You will upset your buyer that is currently bidding and that would be understandable.  The buyer you have that wants to purchase it that submitted the best offer can now bid on the listing.  Buyer or most buyers are aware that on auctions with Make an Offer on them, the Make an Offer goes away if anyone bids.

In the future you may want to not use Make an Offer and just make sure you price your auction for the lowest amount you are willing to accept and let bidding take care of the rest.

[nobody*s_perfect]

I agree that your potential buyer got bad advice from customer support. Once an auction has received a bid, and the "Best offer" option is gone, is does NOT make sense for the seller to cancel that bid and end the auction just to please the member who chose to make an offer.  In fact, eBay may charge the seller a penalty fee for canceling an auction that has received a bid ("You may be charged a final value fee based on the amount of the highest bid"). The seller should let the auction run its full course. 

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/listings/creating-managing-listings/ending-listing?id=4146

[jg.mason]

Learned something new today. I don't run many auctions and I very seldom use best offer. So when I would run an auction it never made any sense to me why you could add best offer to it, I see how it works now.

[ebooksdiva]

I'm in agreement with the other responses cs reps are notorious for telling eBay members what they want to hear, however, the buyer could also be feeding you a line of baloney to see if you will bend to their will.

Personally, I would add that person to your blocked buyers list, you can do that from the message you received from that buyer by clicking the actions tab within the message. 

[nobody*s_perfect]

Blocking that member seems pretty drastic, given that he made a good-faith effort to contact customer support and then to follow through on their (admittedly bad) recommendation.  IMHO the OP should advise them to bid on the auction and politely wish them good luck.

[gurlcat]

I don't even believe the offer-maker's claim that a CSR told them that.  It's absurd.  

[chapeau-noir]

I would also invite them to go ahead and bid - if they made a "low offer" and you countered, then it's a pretty fair bet that they have wriggle room on there price-wise.

[luckythewinner]

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@le904 wrote:

I have a listing in auction format or allow buyers to Make an Offer. A buyer made a low offer and I counter offered. Then second buyer placed a bid, so ebay did not allow the first buyer to accept my counteroffer. The first buyer called ebay customer support and was told to ask the seller to cancel the auction and relist so he can make an offer. Has anyone heard of such a thing?

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If the buyer asked customer support how the seller (you) could accept the buyer's offer, he was told how to accomplish what the buyer wanted. But just because a buyer wants something does not mean it is a good idea for the seller to do it. 

But you only have your buyer's word that he actually talked to customer support and that customer support  actually told that. Your buyer may be lying to you and claiming customer support's "blessing" as an attempt to persuade you to give him what he wants.

If you cancel and relist, you will pay final value fees for the canceled auction because it has had bids on it. And you also run the risk that your buyer will never make an offer and will never complete the sale. This would essentially leave you owing final value fees on a sale that never even happened!

I would tell your buyer to bid and hope he wins.

[sextons-sweet-deals]

If this involves the quilt tops, you might want to do some more homework / research. 

A lot of time and labor have gone into making them. 

The potential buyer failed with the lowball offer. Now they are upset that someone else made a bid which will automatically close the offer process. You snooze, you lose! 

I really doubt the buyer called eBay. We all know that is almost impossible these days. The buyer wants the seller to cancel the bid which may cost the seller a fee and now is willing to pay the sellers counteroffer price because they know it will sell for more. 

[gurlcat]

I agree 100% on the second part, but I'm scratching my head about the first.  The OP's titles and descriptions indicate the quilt tops are homemade, and everyone knows homemade things involve lots of time and effort; that's part of their value.  

But are you saying you think these might be stolen?  Made by someone famous?  Did the OP not stress their homemade-ness enough?  Like why is more homework/research needed, what kind, and how?  

[reallynicestamps]

The first buyer called ebay customer support

The phone reps have a terrible reputation for getting you off the phone as soon as possible even if that means giving you the advice you want to hear instead of the advice you need to have.

The first one who pays wins.

If the item is sold and paid for before the offer is paid, the offer is void.

[anharish-0]

Thank you verry mutch.for your answer😊

[anharish-0]

I looked into what you are saying..Thanks for informing. This ebay company is a very good company..Highly recommended.👊