Received Offer on item I had Viewed 8 October 2021 at 10:38AM edited 8 October 2021 at 10:38AM in Ebay, auctions, car boot sales, post & parcels 6 replies 381 views

GabbaGabbaHey

In the past, I have sometimes received Offers (e.g., 10% off) from sellers for items which were in my Watch list. Fair enough.

Today, I received an Offer on an item which I had Viewed yesterday (but did NOT put in my Watch list - it was a car part, and I realised that it would not fit my car).

Is this a new facility which eBay is offering to sellers? If so, is there any way for a buyer to opt out? (I don't mind receiving offers on items in my Watch list - the reduction in price might make me decide to buy the item. But items which I have Viewed but not put in my Watch list are, by definition, items that I have no intention of buying, regardless of price).

RFW

GabbaGabbaHey said:

In the past, I have sometimes received Offers (e.g., 10% off) from sellers for items which were in my Watch list. Fair enough.

Today, I received an Offer on an item which I had Viewed yesterday (but did NOT put in my Watch list - it was a car part, and I realised that it would not fit my car).

Is this a new facility which eBay is offering to sellers? If so, is there any way for a buyer to opt out? (I don't mind receiving offers on items in my Watch list - the reduction in price might make me decide to buy the item. But items which I have Viewed but not put in my Watch list are, by definition, items that I have no intention of buying, regardless of price).

I think there's an auto situation that a seller can add a lower price to for that type of marketing.
The watch list item offers have to be manually sent.
There will be an opt in/out of notifications on Ebay. I don't know if there would be a distinction between those two types of notifications.

JetpackVelociraptor

It's changed since they first implemented the "send offers" feature.  It used to only send offers to watchers who hadn't recently received an offer, but now it sends offers to what eBay terms "interested buyers", which includes people who are actively searching the site for a particular product and have viewed the item but haven't watched the item in question. It's not possible for the seller to chose whether the offer goes just to watchers or not.

As a seller, this has meant I sometimes get some very weird/"off" responses to offers I send out. I think people find it intrusive to be reminded that eBay has a record of everything you've even looked at! As a buyer, I do find it irritating myself, but still use the feature on my selling account because the positive responses I get from people who are watching the product outweigh the negative responses from people who aren't.

I'm not aware of any way to opt out of the notifications for just the offers sent on items you're not watching, which is a shame.

fenwick458

welcome to the modern world, unless you go off grid and live in a log cabin, everything you do is being monitored to a degree and the data is being stored somewhere, and companies will be sold that data and use it to target potential customers.
at least we don't have "sharp eyes" in the UK just yet, it could be worse...

love_me_love_my_tat

@GabbaGabbaHey you can opt out of receiving these offers via your account settings > communication preferences > buying > deselect 'offers to buyers'.

But, that opts you out of ALL seller offers, not just for the ones where you have just 'viewed' the item. 

When a seller sends out offers, they are sent to any "interested" buyers, as mentioned above. That means they may have 5 watchers, but the offer can be sent out to 10 buyers. 

If there are 2 watchers on an item a seller wants to send an offer out for, they may see that they can only send it to 1 buyer as the other buyer has opted out of receiving offers.

Buster_Danog

This is an annoying feature. The watch button is more than enough to let ebay know you are interested in an item. The idea of being spammed as well is a waste of time and ruins my experience of browsing the site for things I am actually interested in.

I don't think ebay have any feedback address. If they did I'd have a lot to rant about.

Spoonie_Turtle

Buster_Danog said:

This is an annoying feature. The watch button is more than enough to let ebay know you are interested in an item. The idea of being spammed as well is a waste of time and ruins my experience of browsing the site for things I am actually interested in.

I don't think ebay have any feedback address. If they did I'd have a lot to rant about.

I've not yet been sent offers for things I've browsed, but I do still get reminder e-mails when it's close to ending.  Really annoys me because I have a minor panic, wondering what I've forgotten about, until I go back to the top of the e-mail and realise it's for something I viewed rather than something I'm watching!