When you auto-decline almost anything short of a dollar or two of the selling price?
I use best offer all the time on my listings. In fact, I intentionally price them a bit high(not unreasonably so) with the expectation of getting offers. That's just a bit of a habit left over from physical sales at trade shows and the like-many buyers, at least in the fields where I deal, like the feeling of "winning over" the seller with their price and negotiating is part of the game.
In any case, I use the auto accept and auto decline options any time I out up a listing. It depends on the price of the item, but a general range for me is to set an auto-accept price at 5-10% below the BIN and auto-decline at 40-50%. I consider the middle range "negoting territory" where I will weigh things like quantity in a multiple listing, my trading history with the buyer, if they're interested in other listings at the same time, or whatever. Sometimes I take the offer and sometimes I counter, or if they look like a problem buyer it gives me a chance to decline and block 🙂
I know every seller has their own policies, but sometimes best offer listings just baffle me. A little while ago I was looking at BIN listing for a camera lens. It's a somewhat desireable and collectible lens, but there are plenty of them on Ebay at any given time. Just for reference, this isn't a new, mass market item-it's 40 years old and no longer sold new, so it's a situation of there being no standardized reference for prices. It had a BIN of $239(plus shipping)-a price that is a BIT high for the condition to me and not a price where I'd buy this example, but considering that it was a best offer listing I thought I'd be able to negotiate a price that made me happy.
I first shot off $215, which I thought was a BIT low but not out of line, and expected that I'd probably get a counter. Instead, I got an auto-decline. I then upped it to $225, and again got an auto-decline. Finally, I just tried my absolute top dollar price($230), and was again rewarded with an auto-decline.
That's fine-I'll look for either a better condition or less expensive example. And yes, it's only $10, but still that price was pushing it for where I was comfortable.
None the less, though, I don't think that for a best offer listing, $10 off a $250 item(with shipping), or 4% off, is an unreasonable offer to make. So, it makes me wonder-why even put up "best offer" if you're going to set to auto-decline offers that are a tiny bit smaller than your asking price? If they'd just put a BIN w/o best offer, I'd have probably just passed on the listing.
