Annoyed with "best offer" feature!

djhworld

Today I posted an item of mine online, through buy it now, with the "best offer" feature.

A few hours later someone posted an offer that I wasn't happy with, but was willing to negotiate. So, after reading the "best offer" literature, I was under the impression that when you declined an offer, you could comment as to why you had declined it (I was planning to write a small encouraging note to get them to bump their offer up a bit)

So I duly clicked "decline" and it voided the offer straight away! What makes it worse, is for some bizarre reason, half of the users ebayID is "***'d" out which makes them anonymous, so I can't get into contact with this buyer to explain!

This is so annoying, I was more than willing to negotiate!

Anyone know of anyway to get around the "anonymous" state so I can contact the buyer?

RFW

There aren't really any. There are a few ways of trying to work out the user id from the buyer.

Check the feedback and see if there are any left from someone identifiable, using their shop name/trade name in the feedback.

You can also try and guess the name by using "find items from seller" in "advanced search" it gives an opportunity for close names of user ids. It isn't always possible though, sometimes you just have to walk away. I was told some time ago that the system was going to be changed. Unfortunately its the actions of the few dishonest ones that means that changes to this can cause security problems and off Ebay sales.

djhworld

The bidder only has 5 feedback and it won't let me look at the products they've bought/sold (I guess that's part of the anonymous clause)

I'll try looking for them in the "find a member feature"

Tirian

When they used to just star out the last three/four letters I could often tell who was making an offer on my items, as I sell collectables and about 50% of the purchases come from people who have already bought something from me before. I guess they probably realised that many sellers could do this, so now they truncate the username - and it's virtually impossible now to tell who's making an offer.

On the US site I believe that you can make "counter-offers", so you can reject their offer but suggest a slightly higher one. Seems a much better system to me. You can also set it to automatically reject offers below a certain amount - which would definitely be a good thing. No idea why they haven't implemented these on the UK site.

stacey21_2

You used to be able to make counter offers im sure with ebay? Have they changed this?

GregtheHammer

If you let the offer expire, does that mean that mean they can then make a better offer or not?

StaffsSW

I use the Best Offer on most of my BIN and Shop Inventory items, and find it's pretty useful in generating interest and sales.

The anonymous bidders thing is far from infallible, and it is reasonably easy to find the full ID.

When the offer is made you can see the truncated feedback - comments and dates, but no ID's or Item numbers.

Look for a feedback that would be appear to be unique in it's form (with a typo or unusual wording) or unique from a seller (Thank you for your purchase from BarrysBurgers ebay Store) then enter it into google.

Google should then display any other indexed pages on the net that have this text - ebay is virtually 100% google indexed!

You should see either the original feedback page in it's unaltered state, or the details of the "Left for Others" feedback, so you can then trace original the comment from the date it was left and see the full User ID of who it was left for.

Negotiation is not possible officially, but after making contact with the above information, the buyer could still use a BIN, and the seller sends an amended invoice for the agreed amount. The transaction is still completed through ebay and paypal, and everyone should be happy.

An Offer can only be made once in virtually all categories, but I think in the Motors section, more offers can be made.

I'm sure there is some valid reason for the anonymous bidder details, but undoubtably eBay will claim it's part of "improving the buying experience"...

RoyaleMale

I never bother with Best Offer because 9 times out of 10 I would get a silly offer that is way too low. Better off just using a BIN price that I will be happy with and leave it at that.