Ebay 'Best Offer' - do buyers find it difficult to use?

paddyrg

Look at it from the other side - why have 'best offer' when it's simply a public declaration that your headline price is too high and you know it? Why not simply price at what you'll take for the item instead of saying 'I'm chancing you needing this enough to pay the extra above what I'm prepared to accept'?

I've done a few deals through 'best offer' though - when the list price is higher than other vendors, or I've wanted multiples, or frankly just because the seller has already told me they think they've priced too high! Some work out, others don't. I guess it's better for car boot-style items than brand new/could come from 100 vendors items.

RMS2

Sellers don't use best offer properly, they don't engage with the buyer.


They don't respond to best offers, even if it is to reject them. They basically want the BIN price and keep rejecting the offers. They leave no message indicating what they would find acceptable and why hasn't the OP used counter offer?


If I see a BIN of £100 and a best offer, I'm thinking that £90 should secure it, if you want £98 or £99, then don't bother with it, and save everyone's time. If you want £95, then set up your counter offer.

bxboards

RMS2 wrote: »

Sellers don't use best offer properly, they don't engage with the buyer.


They don't respond to best offers, even if it is to reject them. They basically want the BIN price and keep rejecting the offers. They leave no message indicating what they would find acceptable and why hasn't the OP used counter offer?


If I see a BIN of £100 and a best offer, I'm thinking that £90 should secure it, if you want £98 or £99, then don't bother with it, and save everyone's time. If you want £95, then set up your counter offer.

I think you have missed the point - which is that buyers are not using Best Offer at all. They seem to want to e-mail in an offer, or fish for what I will accept, and do not use the 'Best Offer' button which appears at the top of the listing near the BIN.


You have answered a question I am not asking

Campden

RFW wrote: »

I agree, buyers just don't like it.
Several years ago, before best offer, I was at some Ebay event and asked a representative if there was ever going to be a way to reduce prices on multiple purchases. My reply was that best offer was on its way. That was essentially what I tried to use it for, so for some items I would have on the listing that if they purchase two or more lots they would get a discount, if they used it. It rarely happened, even though there were multiple purchases.

Now, for shop sellers, Ebay has a system to reduce for multiple purchases, so best offer is no longer necessary for that.

I'd argue that it was now something Ebay could live without, it makes them look cheap and devalues some auctions.

I didn't know there was a system to reduce for multiple purchases. Can you tell me how to find it?

RMS2

bxboards wrote: »

You have answered a question I am not asking

No, I quite clearly replied to your question of why they're not using it, it isn't that they find it difficult, it is because it's a waste of time, which is mainly down to seller ineptitude.


Simple enough for you or do I need to write more slowly for you?

RFW

Campden wrote: »

I didn't know there was a system to reduce for multiple purchases. Can you tell me how to find it?

It's in shop settings, "promotions manager".
http://sellercentre.ebay.co.uk/promotions-manager

samdawson012

I buy a lot of stuff from my trusted sellers. However, I really don't make use of the 'best offer' feature. Like one of the comments above, to me, this feature is rather pointless.

Rev

bxboards wrote: »

Yes, this is auto-decline.

It's much quicker for a buyer to, for example offer 80 on 100 pound item, and have it instantly declined, rather than send an e-mail and wait for a response.

For example at 2:35am I got a 'will you accept xxx?' question - by the time I'd got up this morning, had my coffee, someone else had used BIN. If the person at 2:35am had just made the offer, theyd've got the item. But they never did, and choose to write an e-mail at 2:35am when only owls are wide awake, and in the meantime someone had used BIN.

Very odd - I can see from this thread buyers hate it, but I just don't understand why, when it's much quicker to use the process than compose an e-mail!!!:mad:

It's better for me as a seller if I'm selling at full price, but buyers seem to be happy to go outside the process, and miss out.

My examples are entirely different.


I suffer from insomnia so am often awake at 5-6-7am. 2am is early for me.


I last offered £12 on a £13.50 item. The seller neither accepted or declined. I was left hanging for 48 hours. As a result I didn't use the BIN and went with the next seller and paid £16 for the item. Making an offer meant I wasted 48 hours because the seller couldn't be bothered to reply.


Time before that I offered £90 on a £98 item. Again. Seller didn't bother to respond. Again I wasted 48 hours.


Had I emailed those sellers and not made an offer I wouldn't have wasted 4 days of my life waiting for seller to bother to accept or decline. I would have waited say 12/24 hours for a reply. If they hadn't have replied I would have bought elsewhere. As it stands I had no option but to wait 48 hours each time.


So no, for a buyer making a best offer isn't quicker.


In my experience it's sellers who don't use it correctly. Not buyers. It's a waste of time making an offer when as a buyer you know 90% of the time all you've done is given yourself a 48 hour wait before you can buy elsewhere.