What is a "Fair" Best Offer?

LadyDee

If something is on BIN at £48.00 what would sellers generally consider as a fair Best Offer? They must be prepared to accept less than £48.00 but I don't want to insult the seller by offering a silly amount, although it would be nice to get something off!

steviebabes

I use best offer but would not accept less than 10% off so maybe try £43-£44. If it is your first offer you could go for say £40 and hope they counter it.

RFW

It varies what people will accept, I've seen 10% of list price and some who won't even knock 1% off.

It isn't against any rules to contact the seller and ask what is the lowest they will accept. They may not answer directly but it may give an idea.

It sounds as though you'd probably be ok with paying £48, so as above said an offer of £40 would be ok. The seller may have auto reject/accept on, so that may be declined or accepted immediately.

MsBlonde

Yeah i'd say 10%... I put an item up for sale with free delivery (which would of cost £3) for £13.00 ... someone offered £3.00 lol

bxboards

RFW wrote: »

It isn't against any rules to contact the seller and ask what is the lowest they will accept. They may not answer directly but it may give an idea.

Not against the 'rules' but Ebay do put up a notice to the effect that offers must be submitted directly.

I would not reply to a buyer and tell them what to type into the offer box,really defeats the point.

InquisitiveMind

Don't be put off by Ebay's choice of language. Ebay wants you to sell. It doesn't care whether you get the price you want. It wants you to sell. Ignore the 'fair offer'.

If you're bidding, be as harsh as you want. There are plenty more fish in the sea. The seller can set automated limits that will automatically reject bids below a certain amount, and auto accept above a limit.

It's common for buyers to make a stupidly low bid, then work their way up to their max to game you. It's also common to then use another account, or have a "relative" bid on the item.

Regarding the OP question, it depends on the item, and the usual selling price (do a search for past sold items to get the gist of the average price). If it's BIN, there's a huge mark up on it already. I'd start at around £28-£30 and go no higher than £42-£44.

If you're selling, be as harsh as you want. There are plenty more fish in the sea. You may not get the offer you want from one buyer, so you can hold out for another buyer. I've had offers of £1 on a £20 item, and I've had offers of £130 on a £140 item.

If you do ask the seller what's the lowest - honestly, do you think they'd tell you?

Do note postage is not included in the offer price. So if the item is free postage, the seller can charge you postage.

bxboards

InquisitiveMind wrote: »

If you do ask the seller what's the lowest - honestly, do you think they'd tell you?

Agreed, too be honest, I would rather not have customers looking to spend the minimum, when other customers may and will use BuyItNow.

Engaging with this sort of customer doesn't make a whole lot of sense - and they are probably sending the same message to other sellers too.

I use auto-reject which I suppose if anything gets past that is essentially my best price, but I find many customers e-mail instead, never make an offer and miss out. It's always quicker to type 2 or 3 figures into the offer box than compose a missive to the seller IMHO.

soolin

InquisitiveMind wrote: »

Don't be put off by Ebay's choice of language. Ebay wants you to sell. It doesn't care whether you get the price you want. It wants you to sell. Ignore the 'fair offer'.

If you're bidding, be as harsh as you want. There are plenty more fish in the sea. The seller can set automated limits that will automatically reject bids below a certain amount, and auto accept above a limit.

It's common for buyers to make a stupidly low bid, then work their way up to their max to game you. It's also common to then use another account, or have a "relative" bid on the item.

If you're selling, be as harsh as you want. There are plenty more fish in the sea. You may not get the offer you want from one buyer, so you can hold out for another buyer. I've had offers of £1 on a £20 item, and I've had offers of £130 on a £140 item.

If you do ask the seller what's the lowest - honestly, do you think they'd tell you?

Do note postage is not included in the offer price. So if the item is free postage, the seller can charge you postage.

I have told buyers what my lowest acceptable price is- that varies though on how long item has been listed and what buyers feedback left for others is like.

Also it is worth noting that there is a new 'offer' button on some messages, I've had people message me to ask about an item and ebay have put an offer box in my reply saying that I can offer the item to them immediately. I have only used it once, and buyer didn't take up the offer, so I can't comment on how well it works.

InquisitiveMind

soolin wrote: »

Also it is worth noting that there is a new 'offer' button on some messages, I've had people message me to ask about an item and ebay have put an offer box in my reply saying that I can offer the item to them immediately. I have only used it once, and buyer didn't take up the offer, so I can't comment on how well it works.

It's only to discourage people from making offers by messaging each other, another avenue for Ebay to try to plug up one more money leak!

soolin

InquisitiveMind wrote: »

It's only to discourage people from making offers by messaging each other, another avenue for Ebay to try to plug up one more money leak!

I can understand it might be a bit useless for a small seller, but for my shop items I think it could be useful.

I sell a lot of vintage/collectable/ antique type items and often have very little idea of the exact value, so I put stuff up at a higher price that I hope to achieve and see what offers I get. If I get a whole run of really really low offers I often drop my price as I suspect I made an error in valuation. If however I get a raft of offers near my BIN price I often hold out for very near the BIN price.

The message where I used offer was from someone telling me that the item I had listed was something slightly better than I listed it as, it was a vintage item and they supplied a lot more info for me- so I offered it to them at just below my BIN price (I had had it listed for about 3 months so wanted rid of it anyway). I like showing live offers on my listings as a new buyer will then often snap up the item at BIN thinking that they might lose it if one of the people offering is accepted. I often leave really low offers unanswered for a while as well, just to show on my listings that there is a live offer on the table.

LadyDee

Well, I've made an offer so I'll see what they say. Thanks for all the comments - it's interesting to get the perspective of sellers.