Why oh why did ebay bring back variable time limit offers? I thought we banished this 5 years ago

[netherworldgames]

This is a continuation of an unresolved issue which a mod bafflingly closed. The original is located here:
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Why-oh-why-did-ebay-bring-back-variable-time-limit-offers-I/td...

In that discussion, it was pointed out that if a buyer wants a shorter period for an offer, they're allowed to retract their bid/offer for any reason at any time.

The counter argument to that is that retracting bids/offers is against ebay policy, and that buyers are punished for doing so.

The counter to that argument is reality. There are tons of BUYERS out there with literally hundreds and thousands of bid retractions, who are still allowed to roam free on the site. 

[netherworldgames]

Man, I'm getting 4 hour offers now too! What a scam.

In order to answer these offers, I basically have to check ebay once every 2 hours in order to never miss any.

It is baffling that after implementing this change and abandoning it year after year, ebay keeps bringing it back.

What an awful experience for the buyer. 

[daw365]

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@netherworldgames wrote:

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@tienhu-66 wrote:

Account violating ebay's policy ???

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whose account is violating which policies?

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Those are new members registered from Vietnam

1. posting nonsense replies to raise their post count

2. and then giving kudos to each other on those replies.

[netherworldgames]

ebay rep: Right now buyers are only allowed to make 48 hour offers
me: you sure about that?
ebay rep: totally. the system and the documentation says 48 hour offers only
me: so they can't make 12 or 24 hour offers?
ebay rep: let me check. <10 minute wait> another rep says that buyers can make 12 and 24 hour offers, but that they shouldn't be able to, and we're looking into it.
me: so just 12, 24, and 48 hour offers, no other offers?
ebay rep: just those three, yes.
me: So they can't make 9, 6 or 4 hour offers?
ebay rep: 4 hour offers? that would be ridiculous, how could a seller reasonably reply to those in that amount of time, and how could a buyer reasonably expect the seller to do so?
me: where would you like me to send the screen shots?

[daw365]

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@netherworldgames wrote:

ebay rep: Right now buyers are only allowed to make 48 hour offers
me: you sure about that?
ebay rep: totally. the system and the documentation says 48 hour offers only
me: so just 12, 24, and 48 hour offers, no other offers?
ebay rep: just those three, yes.
me: So they can't make 9, 6 or 4 hour offers?

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1. The offer is valid until the LISTING ENDS SOON ... in 9, 6 hours.

2. Those are limited-time offers from the SELLER, not a buyer.

[buyselljack2016]

I want to know if the seller is willing to accept my offer, or if I should move on to another seller.

I would not choose 4 hrs, but 48 hours is too long to wait. (be locked in) If I have that much of an emergency in obtaining an item, I am on the wrong venue.

Seller is never locked in on a counter offer unless accepted. We all know that the seller can accept another offer (higher or lower) during the 48 hrs, or it could sell with a BIN.

If the shorter offer duration offer is missed by the seller, so be it, even it it would have been accepted. My choice to want to know right away.(sooner than 48 hr) My loss.

[7606dennis]

The problem with people making offers and setting short acceptance windows is that they are asking the seller to do them the favor of allowing them to buy their goods for below the seller's asking price and then using high pressure selling tactics to try to get the seller to grant them the favor.  Frankly, the high pressure selling techniques used by many sales people only works if the buyer is afraid that if they don't buy now they will somehow lose out.  The same would apply to a seller receiving an offer with a short active period.  Unless the seller is worried about the item not selling there is no reason for the seller to sell too quickly for a lower price.

Of course, being that nanny eBay sellers are not large 24/7 operations it is very possible that an offer to buy with a short acceptance deadline my not even be seen by a seller in time to accept or deny before the time runs out.  Frankly, if I came into my office on a Monday and discovered I received an offer on Sunday morning that expired Sunday evening, I probably would file it file 13 and forget it.  That serves no useful purpose to the one making the offer unless they merely like to make offers and aren't interested in actually buying.  

[netherworldgames]

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@daw365 wrote:

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@netherworldgames wrote:

ebay rep: Right now buyers are only allowed to make 48 hour offers
me: you sure about that?
ebay rep: totally. the system and the documentation says 48 hour offers only
me: so just 12, 24, and 48 hour offers, no other offers?
ebay rep: just those three, yes.
me: So they can't make 9, 6 or 4 hour offers?

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1. The offer is valid until the LISTING ENDS SOON ... in 9, 6 hours.

2. Those are limited-time offers from the SELLER, not a buyer.

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@daw365 

1) no. these are on listings that are still up for far longer than that, and the buyers are given that option
2) no again. these are offers the BUYER is making to the SELLER

[netherworldgames]

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@buyselljack2016 wrote:

1) I want to know if the seller is willing to accept my offer, or if I should move on to another seller.

2) I would not choose 4 hrs, but 48 hours is too long to wait. (be locked in) If I have that much of an emergency in obtaining an item, I am on the wrong venue.

3) Seller is never locked in on a counter offer unless accepted. We all know that the seller can accept another offer (higher or lower) during the 48 hrs, or it could sell with a BIN.

4) If the shorter offer duration offer is missed by the seller, so be it, even it it would have been accepted. My choice to want to know right away.(sooner than 48 hr) My loss.

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I've numbered your points above to make it easier to respond.
1) That's totally reasonable. However you already have that functionality. you are allowed to retract your bid/offer at any time with no penalty to you
2) thank you for your understanding as a buyer
3) this is true but irrelevant to the issue at hand
4) the problem here is buyer expectation. if ebay FORCES sellers to enable 4, 6, 9, 12 hour offers, and a seller misses them, the buyer frequently feels snubbed or ignored. it makes sense to enable sellers to offer quicker offers, however right now ebay is FORCING sellers to do this. when the buyer gets **bleep** off because they're being ignored, they blame the seller, (which is bad for the seller and ebay,) or the blame the platform (which is also bad for the seller and ebay). And finally, one of the worst things about this is that ebay just foisted this on sellers without even notifying the sellers. ebay's own documentation still says that "sellers have 48 hours to reply to offers", so the first we hear about this is when angry BUYERS message us wondering why we're ignoring them.

[netherworldgames]

ebay called me back to tell me that:
a) 4 and 6 hour offers don't exist and that i was mistaken
b) they are considering changing their online documentation to reflect reality

[mangorunner]

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@netherworldgames wrote:

ebay rep: Right now buyers are only allowed to make 48 hour offers
me: you sure about that?
ebay rep: totally. the system and the documentation says 48 hour offers only
me: so they can't make 12 or 24 hour offers?
ebay rep: let me check. <10 minute wait> another rep says that buyers can make 12 and 24 hour offers, but that they shouldn't be able to, and we're looking into it.
me: so just 12, 24, and 48 hour offers, no other offers?
ebay rep: just those three, yes.
me: So they can't make 9, 6 or 4 hour offers?
ebay rep: 4 hour offers? that would be ridiculous, how could a seller reasonably reply to those in that amount of time, and how could a buyer reasonably expect the seller to do so?
me: where would you like me to send the screen shots?

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Interesting to read your transcription of that conversation.  I'm curious as to your reason for calling eBay Customer Service.  Did you call with a question, or just to voice your complaint about their new practice?  If you had a question, what did you ask them (before all of the above conversation started)?

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

@mangorunner 

An explanation I was given regarding 48 hours was that if the listing ended before the 48 hours it continued over with the roll over. Because there is no way of tracking offers(offers to watchers feature) sent it is impossible to know when offers really do end or if they are rolling over. You can't even track the the amount of offers. As others have stated really all depends on who you talk to and the answer you get that day. As far as I can tell most of this crucial info is nowhere to be found in help.

-Lotz

PS. I've had 6 offers shown as sent one minute and check the next day they had vanished. History should have been a given from the get go.

[netherworldgames]

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@mangorunner wrote:

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Interesting to read your transcription of that conversation.  I'm curious as to your reason for calling eBay Customer Service.  Did you call with a question, or just to voice your complaint about their new practice?  If you had a question, what did you ask them (before all of the above conversation started)?

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an interesting question.

This was very long ago, but knowing myself, I called in the point out that their system isn't "working" as documented, as in, their site says sellers have 48 hours to reply to buyers, but the system is giving the sellers only 12 hours to respond.

[netherworldgames]

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@lotzofuniquegoodies wrote:

@mangorunner 

An explanation I was given regarding 48 hours was that if the listing ended before the 48 hours it continued over with the roll over. Because there is no way of tracking offers(offers to watchers feature) sent it is impossible to know when offers really do end or if they are rolling over. You can't even track the the amount of offers. As others have stated really all depends on who you talk to and the answer you get that day. As far as I can tell most of this crucial info is nowhere to be found in help.

-Lotz

PS. I've had 6 offers shown as sent one minute and check the next day they had vanished. History should have been a given from the get go.

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" it is impossible to know when offers really do end"
What the **bleep** is this nonsense even.

So to clarify, eBay is saying that their system has no way of knowing what's going on?
I didn't code ebay. ebay coded ebay.

how do they not know what's going on?

[escarchac]

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@tdumonde2014 wrote:

This is a buyer-centric platform and many buyers have expressed frustration with being on the hook for 48 hours while the seller is free to sell to others with no restrictions. This is ebay's response to their frustrations.

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A seller can retract an offer to a buy at any time, for any reason.  I do it.  If someone sends me a lowball offer on something, and send them on offer, and don't hear back, I retract the bid.  The amount of time they have to respond is directly related to how irritated I became over their lowball offer, also I have noticed that some of my counter offers only last 24 hours, even though there is still several days left on the listing.

[netherworldgames]

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@escarchac wrote:

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@tdumonde2014 wrote:

This is a buyer-centric platform and many buyers have expressed frustration with being on the hook for 48 hours while the seller is free to sell to others with no restrictions. This is ebay's response to their frustrations.

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A seller can retract an offer to a buy at any time, for any reason.  I do it.  If someone sends me a lowball offer on something, and send them on offer, and don't hear back, I retract the bid.  The amount of time they have to respond is directly related to how irritated I became over their lowball offer, also I have noticed that some of my counter offers only last 24 hours, even though there is still several days left on the listing.

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Can you post a screen shot of a seller offer lasting only 24 hours and expiring?