SO WHY EVEN BOTHER HAVING A BEST OFFER OPTION?

[lichtpriester]

Hey, sellers! Why do some of you give a "best offer" option with your listings, when you seemingly have no intention of even WANTING a best offer to be made? If you're selling something for $100 for example, and the only best offer that you will take is $99, then what is the point? No potential buyer is going to make an offer on something that's 10 cents less (or whatever) than your asking price, so unless you're willing to knock a few dollars off (depending on the original price of course) why waste both your time and that of buyers? Best offers SHOULD be reasonable, but so should the best offer amount that you're willing to accept.

[stinky*felix]

Heh.

I just made a 'best offer' on an item, and the seller countered with an offer that was 1¢ less than the BIN price.  So, I countered with an offer that was 1¢ more than my original offer, and asked that I be put on his BBL so that I didn't make the mistake of giving him my business in the future.

You would think eBay would make a policy similar to the one they have on BINs - something that indicates if you use best offer you must be willing to accept an offer that is 90% (or whatever) of your BIN price so that buyers don't waste their time.

[dogofwar777]

I have no problem taking a reasonable best offier, but often times I get ridiculous ones. 

[redbud_farm]

Zombie thread, from 2013

[mharclerode]

You are using the system correctly. I never lowball people extremely on the best offers I make.

However, I have now encountered several cretins who I plan to report, who won't even take $15 less than their asking price on a $170 item!!

Seriously, Ebay needs to ban them from using best offer. And they don't COUNTER either, they just ignore the offer, or reject it.

[redbud_farm]

No one is required to accept any offer.

And $$ isn't the only thing most sellers consider.

[skaggs9830]

Yeah ,why bother to put a make offer ,if the seller is not even going to consider taking any offers.Is it just to get a buyer to look at there stuff.Which I think would be illegal in ebay rules.Also as a seller,if you put make offer,most people are going to try and get the lowest they can.Just saying.I have come across sellers that ,like this one had make offer their item was 3.99 so I offered 1.99 .Apparently I insulted them,because they made counteroffer of 3.79 and placed it in buy now mode.So to me they were not even planning on considering any offer.

[shirleys809304]

$1.99 was rather low offer even if seller was asking $3.99.  Perhaps an offer of $2.99 may have been better...seller would not have been offended and may have worked with you a bit better.  Just sayin'.

[redbud_farm]

Or your offer was not really a " best offer"

[onenone]

I have items listed as "Buy Now" or "Best Offer" and alot of the problem is with Ebay.  If the offer comes in early I cannot even respond with "I will except if the item does not sell" as Ebay stops the communication line.  I offered one item with no international selling andreceived a question about sending outside the US.  I tried to say if all additional costs were picked up I would consider and Ebay said it was as unacceptable response. I am willing to take the offers but they came in well before ending time and most sellers want to wait to see if their items will sell for the asking price before committing to the best offer.

[fforce]

most of my listed items have a best offer except mounts  but very few get offers ' just had a few offers 1 was 50.00 less then the 350.00 and the other was 175.00 less then the 500.00 price .i took both as i had less in them then the pices offered so you never know what a seller will take . had other offers that was 2% of the listed price were fairly priced .had offers of 333.00 for a lot listed at 1500.00 and a 1200.00 offer would have been ok what are these buyers thinking .on the other hand i made a offer of about 100.00 on a 600.00 item that was offer way ,way, way over the real price that they bring on e-bay .what is this seller thinking ??? yes he still has the item and will never sell. it. right now its as slow as i every seen it for DEC.sold 2 orders ..last year at this time sold about 30 .is e-bay hit the skids i think so and i seen this comming 3 years ago and have been selling out .since then..buying very little

[oddsandwearsstore]

Yeah, we're completely done with it.  Sometimes it was useful.  But after reading all of your comments and seeing it for ourselves, it's ridiculous what some people offer.  People litterally want 60-99% off.  As a seller, they don't care about the price you paid for the item, the gas you spent, the cost of supplies, the cost of doing business and the cost of shipping.  I mean.... $8.00 for something you have $24.99 on?  On top of that, it's already on sale for $18.99?  They came up to $12.00 and that was the final straw.  I'm done.  Getting closer everyday to shutting down our Ebay store.

[the-bedding-library]

I go back and forth on using Best Offer. I do get a bit "miffed" with ridiculously low-ball offers, because it's a waste of my time. I stopped using it for a time, but have put it back on some of my listings.

My response to people goes something like this: Thank you for your offer. Although I'm not willing to cut the price by <blank> percent [usually anything over 35%] I am willing to go down [usually somewhere between 10-20 percent].

I hope by putting it in terms of percent, the person making the offer can relate it to their experiences shopping almost anywhere else. I hope this makes it a little clearer, at least with regard to the many sellers who are willing to take a reasonable offer.

[bryantburnette]

In my case, I'm deselecting the Best Offer option every time I put something up for sale, but it always magically appears anyways, putting me in the position of having to decline what probably seem (to the prospective buyers) like totally reasonable offers.

In other words, this is -- at least in my case -- a glitch eBay is creating.

[tacomonkey1390]

As a buyer, I haven't found much use for the Best Offer option. I usually subtract a couple bucks (because what's the point of the option even being there otherwise?) and get denied or get a counter offer that is so close to the normal price that I would have rather just used a BIN option for the normal price and saved time. Other than that I sometimes use it to extreme lowball obvious scalpers as a matter of principle.