sending offers to items on watch lists

[keziak]

I send offers to pretty much every listing in that section under Active. Exceptions are when ebay wants to require me to discount too much.  Some of the time I don't discount much but usually I try to be somewhat generous. A lot depends on whether the listing is stale. 

I was reading an (old) article about it I found using a Google search. That  person recommended attaching a short note to the offers. Can't say I ever do that. They claim it helps close the deal. Do any of you do this? I may try just thanking the people for putting my listing on their Watch list. OF course any number of those watchers may be the competition.

[12345jamesstamps]

Discounting your item to "watch sellers" or promoting it? I would go with promoting.

Watchers will watch forever...

[pls-consignments]

I do this religiously. I always add something like "Price Drop Alert!" or "Great Price! - Buy Now!" It's amounted to almost 20% of my sales.

But be careful of your margins, especially if you are also using PL. I suggest working within your cap discount.

[powell-memorabilia]

I don’t know why sellers use offers. Isn’t it better to just lower the price? That way, both watchers, those have shown interest, and everyone else that happens upon your listing will see the discount.

[hartungcards]

I usually include a note that reads, "Here's your chance to get this item at a slightly lower price that still allows me to make a nice profit."

[keziak]

I have yet to try promotions. Not sure what would inspire me to take the plunge but maybe I should educate myself about it, if nothing else. 

[12345jamesstamps]

I have 444 watchers...never gave an offer yet.

And had a lot asking for a discount.

I played around last week-end with promotions and got a one-day great day yesterday since February....and now don't care about selling until next week...I get paid on Saturday from my job.

But, I am still getting small sales which I rather be at the gym than shipping those items out.

[keziak]

I've told myself many times to raise my minimum prices and stick with it but I backslide a lot.

My more firm goal at this time is to really restrict listing and shipping heavy boxes of books. My knees don't need the stress. If I make this stick I really need to make time to remove a ton of large boxes from the basement. 

[chapeau-noir]

I send offers from time to time - usually just using the generic message, but sometimes I'll add something - haven't seen any difference one way or the other.

[gurlcat]

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@powell-memorabilia wrote:

I don’t know why sellers use offers. Isn’t it better to just lower the price? That way, both watchers, those have shown interest, and everyone else that happens upon your listing will see the discount.

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-Not to mention you could still have Immediate Payment Required, as opposed to having someone take the offer and then sit on it for 4 days, or not pay at all and not even have the guts to just tell you they changed their mind, so you're stuck 4 days unable to relist it.  

Also with a full price reduction and IPR, buyers can add it to their cart, maybe add more of your items for combinded shipping, and pay with whatever account/method they want .... as opposed to accepting a seller offer, for which they may have been enrolled into the pre-pay requirement with no combined shipping option and limited payment options.  -Oh and that's whether the seller wants this or not; eBay overrides seller settings with this kind of offer.  

Problem is, to this day I am unclear on whether watchers receive notice of a normal price revision.  I've seen 'yes' and 'no' when I've asked a couple times over the years.  And whatever the truth was even 6 months ago, it might be different now (because eBay).   

Therefore I do make offers even though I'd rather just revise prices and have that be a notice to watchers.  

Want to do an experiment with me?  

[gurlcat]

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@keziak wrote:

I send offers to pretty much every listing in that section under Active. Exceptions are when ebay wants to require me to discount too much.  Some of the time I don't discount much but usually I try to be somewhat generous. A lot depends on whether the listing is stale. 

I was reading an (old) article about it I found using a Google search. That  person recommended attaching a short note to the offers. Can't say I ever do that. They claim it helps close the deal. Do any of you do this? I may try just thanking the people for putting my listing on their Watch list. OF course any number of those watchers may be the competition.

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Don't think about your competition; the finish line is in front of you, not to your left or right.  Make your watchers realize that THEY have competition, for your item. 

"Offer sent to all watchers and shopping cart holders of this item, so get it before it's gone!"

This^ is the message I've used for years (after deleting eBay's generic one completely). I have to type it out for the first item, but then copy and paste it to all the subsequent ones.   It has served me pretty well.  Granted I don't get as many takers as I used to since the auto-pay thing started rolling out.  - I used to get a pretty solid success rate, a taker for about 1 out of every 4 items, if they had at least a few watchers and if my offer was at least 15% discounted (this was what @mr_lincoln told me to expect back in 2018 and he was right on the money!).    It's not nearly as good now, probably more like takers for 1/10 items.  

Also I don't know if you're aware, but in just the past few weeks eBay started sending seller offers to more than just watchers/shopping cart holders ..... also sending them to people who merely looked at your listing.  Not all of them -the pattern is unclear, but it doesn't seem to require them looking more than once, as there have been several complaint posts by people receiving offers for listings they did look at only once.  This makes my stand by my message even more, because by saying "watchers and shopping cart holders" hopefully mere lookers will see I didn't target them.  -That's the scary part; I've seen more than one buyer posting anger at SELLERS for it, as they didn't realize it wasn't the sellers' fault.  

By the way I also have Make Offer activated.  Why both?  LOL I dunno, masochistic tendencies I suppose.  

[hollysfinds]

I send offers to watchers regularly. 

I usually attach a note saying, " Thank you for your interest in my item". 

[keziak]

that is a lot of good information. Thank you. 

I have also experienced a decline in the success of sending offers compared to the not-distant past.  It still feels worth a try. I get a lot more sales from people sending offers to me. A small but not tiny number of sales from when I counter lowballed offers (if we are at least fairly close together). I really appreciate all these many features of ebay for making sales. Amazon doesn't have such features. If they ever instituted Best Offer that place would blow up. 

[chapeau-noir]

Amazon doesn't have such features. If they ever instituted Best Offer that place would blow up.

 

[jbbowers12012]

Hi,  Here in N.J. we always add something like "Thank You For Your Consideration" or "Thank You For Your Interest" & usually get maybe about 5% takers or less.  (J.B.)