Ebay "best offers" (as a seller)

aliby21

I've had a big clear out and have listed stuff on Ebay as 'buy it now'. I really don't know how to handle the 'or best offer' option. I tend to list at the lowest price I want to sell at, and am happy to wait a while, and lower myself it if doesnt sell, But clearly Ebay wants me to put the 'or best offer' option on, I keep getting it asked if I am sure I don't want to, then getting it added automatically after a period of time. Is there a way to turn it off? Will this be frowned upon by the great Ebay god? Can I just keep refusing offers, or submitting high counter offers? Or am I going to get penalised for this? Or should I just list at a higher price to start with? What do other people do? A lot of my stuff is under a tenner and I am getting fed up of the haggling.

cattie

I just leave the best offer box unticked, but I'm a private seller, it could well be different if you're a business seller. Like you I list at the lowest price I want to achieve for my items.

aliby21

Thanks Cattie. I am a private seller. I always have to uncheck the box that says 'allow best offers'. But even when I do this, a week or so later Ebay puts them on for me anyway - I woke up today to a cheery email saying 'your listings can now accept offers' - aaargh!

ballisticbrian

As a buyer it can be pretty annoying to submit what you think are "decent" offers only to get them all rejected until either a. You are not allowed to make more offers so have to buy from someone else, or b. you are within pennies of the original amount and have wasted time.

deethebee

Hi aliby, as a seller I feel your pain. I have had the same issue on a number of occasions where I untick the box and then I get offers out of nowhere. It's so frustrating. There must be a glitch in the software or something, because I've noticed that when you relist or edit a listing it defaults back to the "best offer" option and then when you try to go back and remove it it's greyed out and won't let you! It's a shame that buyers don't understand that and so they make offers that all get rejected and feel frustrated when the seller has no desire to accept any offers at all, but ebay have not allowed it to be changed or have put it there automatically.

To be honest, I think the only way of dealing with this is to end the listing (if you can't remove the best offer option) or to change the best offer settings to only accept offers of a couple of pennies below your asking offer. Then any offers below that will automatically be rejected and if the person making the offer isn't happy they can always message you and ask for an explanation. Alternatively, you just have to be extra vigilant to make sure the box is unchecked on each listing or renewal. There doesn't seem to be a way to turn it off indefinitely, so ebay do tend to make it a bit awkward for sellers.

mgdavid

I switched from auctions to BIN listings a couple of years ago - and have *never* had the Best Offer box pre-ticked, or had listings changed by ebay while active.
However, I do use my stored templates (which were created with the Advanced listing option), and I also make use of the Sell Similar option.

soolin

mgdavid wrote: »

I switched from auctions to BIN listings a couple of years ago - and have *never* had the Best Offer box pre-ticked, or had listings changed by ebay while active.
However, I do use my stored templates (which were created with the Advanced listing option), and I also make use of the Sell Similar option.

I've not had Best offer implemented on my main private account, but on a secondary account I use very rarely it was pre ticked but I unticked it and it never came back.

Every single one of my aco!!!!s though has a different view and each do different things- for a couple of years now there doesn't appear to have been a standard ebay view- they appear to be trialling lots of different ones on us.

Obviously all of the views now have GTC as the only BIN option, so I probably won't use BIN on any private account in future and stick to auctions.

lindens

Dont sweat it! Just decline all offers if they get turned back on. Are you getting dozens of low ball offers a day or something?

taramasalater

Let your lowest price be the lowest price acceptable in 'best offer' and list the item at a higher price.

You never know someone might buy at the higher price, if not they can offer a lower price down to your least acceptable 'automatically accept offers of at least £.....' price.

aliby21

Thanks everyone, this has been really useful. It seems neither buyers nor sellers appreciate the 'best offer' option. Find it quite surprising that ebay will come up with different options (or compulsions) for different sellers, I guess I am stuck with what I have got. I am not overrun with best offers, I just dont know the best strategy to handle them. They are only valid for 23 hours so I may just ignore them, unless they are really close to the asking price, and let them time out by themselves.

deethebee

Personally aliby, if you can't do anything about current offers, what I would do is reject them but you get the option to send the person making the offer a message. I would say something like, "I'm really sorry, I don't actually want to accept any offers but I cannot turn off this option".