Why do people out "Best Offer" on their sales?

[prowla]

There's a rack unit on ebay, priced at £42.99, with a "Make Offer" button.

So I clicked the button and offered £40.

The seller declined the offer.

Huh - why put an "Offer" option there if you're not going to budge on price?

[DoubleOhStephan]

EBay add it automatically now. You have the option to opt out of it when you first list the item, but if it doesn't sell and auto-relists, it gets added irrespective of you initial choice. Very annoying 

[floFC]

The way I understand it is that if it's a Buy It Now item you make a lower offer that the BIN price, if it's a normal auction, you make a higher offer than the starting price.

I guess it's eBay trying to stop people making offers outside of eBay on normal auctions.

[Newfoundfreedom]

I recently made a cheeky offer on eBay. The item was listed at £250 so I put in an offer of £200. To be fair I didn't think I'd get it at that, but you've got to start negotiations somewhere. The seller came back with a counter offer of £245 and made it clear that this would be his final and only offer. 

Very generous I thought. 

Edited September 8, 2019 by Newfoundfreedom

[prowla]

1 hour ago, DoubleOhStephan said:

EBay add it automatically now. You have the option to opt out of it when you first list the item, but if it doesn't sell and auto-relists, it gets added irrespective of you initial choice. Very annoying 

Ah - that could be annoying...

[prowla]

37 minutes ago, floFC said:

The way I understand it is that if it's a Buy It Now item you make a lower offer that the BIN price, if it's a normal auction, you make a higher offer than the starting price.

I guess it's eBay trying to stop people making offers outside of eBay on normal auctions.

The price was BIN.

[Paul S]

Something that amused me recently when I was in the market for an old Trace Elliot combo.  I can't recall the figures now but there was a low starting bid with a 'best offer' button, so I made what I felt was a fair offer above the starting bid.  It wasn't just declined, it was completely ignored.  I then found an old Peavey combo so all was good from this end.  The TE combo auction ran its course and sold for less than my offer  

[floFC]

1 hour ago, prowla said:

The price was BIN.

Ok, then yeah, that makes no sense and is very annoying! At least they should come back with a counter offer or explain that the Offers button was added by eBay and they don’t actually want any offers.

[hooky_lowdown]

There are good eBayers and bad ones. Some peeps list things not reading the instructions, just press submit and don't check/look until after the auction ends to see if they've been paid.

eBay is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get! 😉

[ahpook]

I think it's there to get people engaged in the auction.

You make an offer and then you're partway into making a deal...which is more likely to lead to a sale than just walking on by.

 

[Woodinblack]

I have had a few like that. No, you don't automatically get a make offer button, you have to select that. If I do it, I add an auto accept and auto decline price. If there is a best offer price it seems wrong to pay the full price. 

If I put something up for £250, I would probably put an auto accept at £240 and an auto-decline at £200, the rest will depend on the person making the offer.

[DoubleOhStephan]

1 minute ago, Woodinblack said:

No, you don't automatically get a make offer button, you have to select that.

I had an item automatically relist the other week and ebay added make an offer, even though I had chosen not to have it when I originally listed the item. 

[Dan Dare]

I sell quite a lot of stuff on eBay (camera kit, fishing tackle, etc, but little musical gear as you get too many scammers after it). You can remove the 'Make offer' and auto relist options, but eBay charges you more if you do, so most leave it, decline offers and let the auction run to its conclusion and cancel the auto-relist if something doesn't sell.

[prowla]

Ah well, I bought one from another seller at the original’s BIN price. 

[prowla]

I sent them a message saying that they had the offer option there, so I made an offer...

They got back to me and said it was so they can do a discount on a multi-buy.

I guess that's simpler than just putting up multi-buy prices, like some other sellers do.

(And the one I bid on was their last anyway.)

[paddy109]

EBay have made it difficult to put an advert on without ‘best offer’ automatically being included!

I got a motorcycle part at a great price last week - my first cheeky offer was accepted 😎

[songofthewind]

I’ve had some idiotically low offers on eBay, from total chancers. Really naffs me off.

[Beedster]

On 08/09/2019 at 12:32, ahpook said:

I think it's there to get people engaged in the auction.

You make an offer and then you're partway into making a deal...which is more likely to lead to a sale than just walking on by.

 

Yep, it gets the brain of the buyer engaged, the dopamine flowing, and makes the sale more likely, which is exactly what eBay want; they certainly don't want items sitting around on their listings for months on end, even if they eventually sell for a few pounds more.

Funny thing is that adding the Best Offer option can sometimes encourage a buyer to hit BIN, due to the worry that it might now sell very quickly and the possibility that even by making an offer you might lose out. 

[prowla]

33 minutes ago, Beedster said:

Yep, it gets the brain of the buyer engaged, the dopamine flowing, and makes the sale more likely, which is exactly what eBay want; they certainly don't want items sitting around on their listings for months on end, even if they eventually sell for a few pounds more.

Funny thing is that adding the Best Offer option can sometimes encourage a buyer to hit BIN, due to the worry that it might now sell very quickly and the possibility that even by making an offer you might lose out. 

Hmm - I think if there's a best offer and it's refused then they're saying "no".

[Beedster]

1 hour ago, prowla said:

Hmm - I think if there's a best offer and it's refused then they're saying "no".

Or you're more likely to simply say 'sod it' and press BIN. The thing is, the moment you make the close offer, you start thinking that it's yours (well, not you specifically, but people generally). OK, it can have the opposite effect and make you so angry that you don't buy it. But you've still done the seller a massive favour, in that the fact that you've made a bid is there for all to see, and that increases the desirability of the item, and might encourage other people to think "Mmm, better buy this before the seller accepts that offer". 

People rarely buy with their logic, more often relying on their emotions, as eBay (and the BC marketplace) demonstrate daily

[prowla]

53 minutes ago, Beedster said:

Or you're more likely to simply say 'sod it' and press BIN. The thing is, the moment you make the close offer, you start thinking that it's yours (well, not you specifically, but people generally). OK, it can have the opposite effect and make you so angry that you don't buy it. But you've still done the seller a massive favour, in that the fact that you've made a bid is there for all to see, and that increases the desirability of the item, and might encourage other people to think "Mmm, better buy this before the seller accepts that offer". 

People rarely buy with their logic, more often relying on their emotions, as eBay (and the BC marketplace) demonstrate daily

I guess there are different types of folks. 

If I see an item with ono, make an offer, etc. Then it says to me the seller is prepared to accept less than the asking price; if they are just trying to manipulate me then I get offended. 

[Mudpup]

I was looking at a new car on eBay last week. This particular one was listed with an opening bid of £4000 but was worth about £9000 in my estimations. I contacted the seller to see what the reserve price was before I put a bid on - he came back with "£7200 but I won't let it go for less than £9000 and I'm not sure if I'll sell it anyway" Eejit..... If it hits reserve he'll be bailing out of the sale it seems.... 

[Beedster]

1 hour ago, prowla said:

I guess there are different types of folks. 

If I see an item with ono, make an offer, etc. Then it says to me the seller is prepared to accept less than the asking price; if they are just trying to manipulate me then I get offended. 

I don't disagree mate.

Something that you can see on the forums here is quite interesting in this context. Someone will advertise a bass, amp, cab, whatever, and it might sit there a while, even months. Then it sells, and within days, sometimes hours, one or more people have posted in 'Items Wanted' for that same item. Why? Possibly because they had got into discussion with the seller, started to anticipate just how good they were going to feel with the new Boogie head or Sadowsky bass, only to find that dream dashed by another pesky buyer. The point is, getting near to something starts a brain/mind process that many people find it hard to step out of*, and eBay know that! The best offer option is about way more than allowing people to sell something a little cheaper. 

* Regular readers may recognise an autobiographical flavour to this comment 

[BigRedX]

As a regular seller, adding a "Buy It Now" costs, whereas a "Best Offer" is free.

I've had offers in excess of the starting price from people who were keen to secure an item before bidding starts.

[Sharkfinger]

You have the option with BO's to automatically decline ones below a certain price.  I always use this and state it in my ad, as well has the fact I'll ignore lowball offers.  If someone does it anyway, they deserve to be ignored because they either didn't read the ad fully or thought they were too important to be ignored.  I would rather not deal with either of those, could get 'complicated' down the line.