I have listed numerous items on feebay over the years. I quite often use a fixed Buy It Now price with a Make An Offer option added.
As a buyer I often take advantage of the Offer price with sellers but as a seller I have only had one experience with it. I wonder why people don't take advantage of the oprtion? It definitely saves money and everyone likes a "deal" so why not ask?
Just very curious,
Roger Huber
I, for one, have not seen many items that I was interested in with this type of offer, so am unfamiliar with it. I would think that if it were offered more, it might be used more.
I know I have seen it and your drawing attention to it, will make me look a little closer at those items.
Thank you,
I recently bought a bunch of NYC Historical Society Headlight Magazines from a seller offering the "make offer" option.
I make a reasonable offer of maybe 10 or 15% off their asking price. It is usually accepted, on some occasions a seller will make a counter offer.
All this takes time, I think the seller has 48 hours to reply?
How badly do I want to risk another buyer coming in and using the "Buy it now" and then you are left empty-handed?
In the case of the seller that I bought the NYC magazines from, he had several other model magazines listed at under $4.00. Rather than go through the back-and-forth of making an offer I just went ahead and clicked buy now.
I suppose it all boils down to A) how reasonable is the buy it now price and, B) do I want to wait and see if the offer is accepted and run the risk of someone else buying the item before me. (I had this happen several times).
In one particular case I recall, a seller had quite a few Life-Like Proto cars listed with all three options, Make Offer, Buy it now and regular auction.
While I was waiting for my offer to be reviewed, someone placed a bid on the item. That action immediately took away the B-I-N and offer options.
When the auction was over, many of the cars that were originally listed under $10 Buy it now sold for over thirty dollars.
Great for the seller but I can't fathom why the one who put the bid in just didn't pay the ten bucks or less up front?
That's my experience, anyway... FWIW.
Ed
They seem to have changed how Make An Offer works. Previously, every time I used it, I had to wait until the seller got back to me. Sometimes he accepted, sometimes not.
However, when I made an offer on something a week or so ago, the offer was instantly rejected. So I guess now the seller can set a reject price when he puts the item up for auction. With no chance for the seller to mull over the offer, I find the feature less attractive. That may be only a gut level response, but I find myself less inclined to a make an offer these days.
CG
I also have made an offer which was immediately rejected. I didn't see any dollar limits on offers when I listed my stuff so I don't know how that works. I know there's a time frame for how long the seller has to think about it too. I have had sellers counteroffer too.
I try to price my stuff realistically and I really am open to any REASONABLE offer but some of the ones I have seen are ridiculous. Offering $20 for a brass tender listed for $110 that normally brings $150-175 on feebay is just a wasted effort to me. I, like most folks, want to sell our items, not give them to a good home!
Just my 2¢,
oldline1I also have made an offer which was immediately rejected. I didn't see any dollar limits on offers when I listed my stuff so I don't know how that works. I know there's a time frame for how long the seller has to think about it too. I have had sellers counteroffer too.
I have also had offers that were immediately accepted so I am sure there is a "range" the seller can set. Seller has 48 hours to respond. If ignored, the offer is cancelled.
When I make an offer, as I noted above, I usually keep it in the 10 to 20% of the asking price. Crazy low offers just waste everyone's time.
http://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/best-offer.html
The make an offer options have not changed. The seller sets the levels. There can be a minimum value that he will consider. Anything below that value is immediately rejected. He does not have to impose a minimum. In that case he will consider any offer.
The second option is the level that will be automatically accepted. In this case, some value below the BIN level. Any offer above this level will automatically accepted. Again, he does not have to specify this value. If he does not then the BIN value is the only one that is automatically accepted.
Any offer between these two automatic options goes through to the seller for consideration. He can either accept the offer, make a counter offer or reject the offer. The time for consideration varies. Usually it is keyed to the end time for the listing. It never carries beyond the end time. It can be more than two days. This is a weakness of this type. Often people make an offer with 10 mins left. Usually not enough time to get the offer accepted.
I use this technique to sell most of the time. Depending on a few factors, eBay does not charge inserting fees for this type auction. They do for auction style. eBay charges an extra $1 per listing fee for auctions of 3 days or less. There is no extra fee for these listings. If you use an auction with a BIN price, the BIN must be 30% more than the initial price. For this kind of listing there is no restriction between the minimum you will accept and the BIN level.
I find this style listing will encourage bidders to act and not just watch, but not always.
The style is not familiar to most bidders. It does lead to confusion. Most bidders are not aware that there is a limit to the number of offers that can be made on a given listing. That limit is three. No matter what. If you use those three, your locked out for the rest of that listings cycle. If it gets relisted, then your offer count starts over. The new limit is once again three.
Clearly there are items that are better suited for this type listing. I rehab used items and in most cases the actual value is uncertain. One of the beauties of this type is you can change the automatic thresholds with out changing the BIN. Yes, your specifying the maximum the item will sell for. Not the minimum. However, the times when the item goes well over expectation on an auction is less than 5 percent. More often it will sell for the starting price. The buyer knows the maximum he will have to pay. He also knows that he won't be out bid in the last miniute. He also can explore a couple of bids below the BIN value. I see it as a good choice for both sides.
So many trains, so little time,
Larry
www.llxlocomotives.com
Roger,
I've used the "Make an offer" option a few times now, with a mix of results:
I like the option but sometimes it's not really worth persuing. Case in point: Someone was selling a Bowser switcher that I was interested in a few months back. IIRC, there was only a day or two left and the asking price was $60 so I offered $50 - to see what would happen. After a few hours the seller counteroffered with a price $2 less. I figured "Okay, I'll just cut-to-the-chase and make a counteroffer for $55". Sometime later the seller counters with another price reduction...of less than a dollar. At that point I thought to myself "Why did you even bother with the 'Make an offer' option if you were only going to drop the price by $2-$3". At that point I rejected the seller's counteroffer and moved on.
While I do like the "Make an offer" feature/buying option on eBay, it's only worth it to me for items above a certain price range, or a certain % below the original asking price. Once it turns into a "nickle & dime" reduction then I lose interest fast.
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
I've only tried the Make an Offer option on one item. A locomotive that the seller had listed at a somewhat silly price, but still thought I would try. I made a reasonable offer that was instantly rejected. I tried a second slightly higher offer that was also instantly rejected. I hesistated, but put through a third offer that was nearing that which the item would have cost through a reputable online dealer. Not only was I instantly rejected a third time, but the message I received said I was barred from making any more offers on the item. Needless to say, I did not click his Buy it Now button, and have been hesitant to try it since.
Mike
As a buyer, there have been a few occasions where I have made a Best Offer.
Sometimes, as a buyer, I didn't even bother to make a Best Offer and just paid the Buy It Now price.
As a seller, on a rare occasion, I have used the Best Offer option but only when I just wasn't sure at what price the item would sell.
The advantage of the Best Offer feature is really to the seller. If the Buy It Now item is overpriced, the auction may not be a failure if potential buyers can still offer a lower price.
When a seller uses the Best Offer feature, he has 48 hours to consider and respond. If the seller does not respond, the Offer expires.
Two other options are available to the seller: (1) automatically accept offers of at least $x and/or automatically decline offers lower than $x.
Rich
Alton Junction
as I explained before, when your making offers, you have three offers no matter what on a given cycle. The other thing to realize is that if your offer or offers are below the minimum amount, eBay automatically declines the offer. They also are the ones that are telling you that you can make no more offers.
It is important to realize that the seller is not aware that declined offers have been made. They can look at their listings and digging deep they will see the declined offers. The normal process does not inform them directly about declined offers. They only hear about offers that are a over the minimum they specified. If the amount is above the acceptable amount that was specified it is communicated as a sale. If it is between the min and the acceptance he is sent a message about the offer. He has between that time and the end time of the listing to decide. The listing time is not extend by an offer. It is important to realize that unless your offer falls in that zone, the seller will not know your interested.
The solution is to ask the seller a question before you have used up your three offers. For instance, you make two offers and both are immediately rejected. If your still interested in the item, you would be ahead to send the seller a question. Tell him that you have made two unsuccessful offers and your still interested. You can ask what he will accept or tell him a figure that you would be willing to pay. In most cases, he will send a responce. From that you can judge if you can make a deal and respond accordingly.
I find that the selling environment has changed when selling model trains. Listings will go through several cycles before the item sells. The why of that is not critical here. The important aspect is how long the item has been up for sale. In the first cycle, the seller is more likely to want the higher figure. The longer it is up the softer his resolve may be. So success for you the buyer is dependent on the communication that you have with the seller. What else is new?
The fact that the bidder can only make three Best Offers before being sent home empty handed is not necessarily a bad thing. The 3-offer limit is there to keep a bidder from playing penny ante in an attempt to find the lowest acceptable bid.
As far as the seller not readily knowing about automatically rejected offers, let's remember that the seller himself sets the limits, so it's not as if eBay is holding back critical information from the seller.
Well, in posting my auctions I wasn't aware I could set low limits for my Best Offers. This discussion pointed that out to me so I will take advantage of that in future auctions.
The bidder using up his 3 bids is probably one of the people that seeks pennies on the dollar for an auction. I'm sorry, but I list my BIN prices as normally what I see things sell for on feebay and other places. Feebay tells you what the suggested prices should be and they aren't even close. I listed a somewhat scarce brass passenger car and they suggested $25-40 for it. Duh!
Anyway, most of the offers to buy tend to be someone offering a ridiculous price like $50-75 for a $450 passenger car. I can understand why he was rejected 3 times on his offers. That's just not a reasonable offer. I understand wanting a good price but people want to sell their excess items and not give them away to good homes.
You have hit the weakness for this type listing On the head. Why anyone would think a seller would take under 50 percent of his BIN price is beyond me. I guess they think they're playing the lottery.
Buyers should realize that the seller has a minimum he is willing to sell an item for. That value will very based on his bias about the item. The BIN amount is likely an indicator to that bias. Assuming he will take less than 75 percent of that number is unrealistic. Making three offers Below that level is likely a waste of the buyers time, and the seller does not know you interested at all.