What is the point in Best Offers

tiefighterboy

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Why bother using this option on Ebay if all you are willing to drop is $4.00 on a $200 item? This has happened twice to me. Offer $180....get counter of $196 :roll: Time waster for the seller and more so for me......****ing joke.
 
I know what you mean, a BIN item at €239 I put in a reasonable offer and received a counter offer for €230!! WTF €9 off, I might feel more respected if offer was just rejected!!
 
I don't know. I don't use them on my sales. They open the door to a plethora of idiots and piss takers. I know what ****ing price i want for something so that's what i list it for. The best offer system is a nonsense.
I don't think buyers like it either so i don't think it helps sales at all. There's a seller who sells the exact same item as me. He has his for the same price as me but with "best offer". I outsell him on said item every single month. I don't think buyers like a) the unsureness of it nor b) the extra time and effort involved in making an offer, waiting on a response etc.
 
Sometimes its good, I put a bit best offer on something before that was $800 although was alot more than it was worth and i offered $650 and was accepted but on the other side i offered some guy 50 dollars less for a high end item and countered it with just 10 dollars off so i countered it again and again he countered with the 10 dollars so then it was pointless.

i sold something a few days ago with £300 or best offer and was offered 250 so i countered 275 and he offered 260 which i almost accepted but then got an offer for 290 so that was a done deal.
 
lee gray said:
Sometimes its good, I put a bit best offer on something before that was $800 although was alot more than it was worth and i offered $650 and was accepted but on the other side i offered some guy 50 dollars less for a high end item and countered it with just 10 dollars off so i countered it again and again he countered with the 10 dollars so then it was pointless.

But if they wanted 650 for it why didn't they just list it for that and save everyone a lot of time and effing about. It would no doubt have sold a hell of a lot quicker too. Just makes no sense to me whatsoever.

lee gray said:
i sold something a few days ago with £300 or best offer and was offered 250 so i countered 275 and he offered 260 which i almost accepted but then got an offer for 290 so that was a done deal.

I think without best offer you would have got 300. Still don't see the benefit.
 
For me....dropping some thing by 2% is ****ing pointless. It borders on insulting...like buyers are morons and If I throw them some change they will go for it.
 
The benefit of best offer as a seller is that you may want a minimum amount for an item, but obviously as a seller you would ideally like more. Put it up for a price it possibly could obtain, but with the best offer caveat, then if someone offers you more than your minimum price, then you can make more.

If you are selling something and you want £500 for it, it's great if you get it but even better if someone offered you £550 for it.

It's really better for big ticket items. Cars or houses for example never sell for the price you list them for. Haggling is an artform of great benefit to both a seller and buyer, and can see you save or make money on many deals.

However, a seller has to be realistic, and such stupid counter offers are in the long run going to cost business as all they serve to do is insult someone's intelligence and put them off buying the item altogether.

If you don't like this style of selling for gods sake never go to turkey on holiday. :wink:
 
I have sometimes sold things full price when its had the best offer option, I think people sometimes think that if they make an offer and sellers not about or someone could take it from under them or put in a better offer they decide that its a decent price and cant afford the risk so hit the BIN button if they want it bad enough.
 
I have had a few nice deals through buying on best offer, in fact I am sure Todd can confirm this :D but when a seller is not willing to accept at a bear minimum 10% there is simple no point at all & insulting like you say, but as we know ebay & sadly the world for that matter is full of fools :?
 
Frunkstar said:
I have had a few nice deals through buying on best offer, in fact I am sure Todd can confirm this :D but when a seller is not willing to accept at a bear minimum 10% there is simple no point at all & insulting like you say, but as we know ebay & sadly the world for that matter is full of fools :?

Yeah but we're not talking about making offers and haggling in general. Nothing wrong with that. We're talking about the ebay "Best offer" system specifically. Which for me doesn't work. It's completely unnecessary.
 
Frunkstar said:
I was talking about the ebay "or best offer system" Pete

Oh you threw me with the "I have had a few nice deals through buying on best offer, in fact I am sure Todd can confirm this" Made it sound like you were talking about forum trades.
 
sellers smartly use best offer function option a lot with little or NO intention of accepting any offer .the best offer is really only to get those who are interested in buying to get their skates on and use the buy now quiker as they can see others are making offers and it could go anytime and this technque works .many a time ive seen a decent buy now with offers allready in and i think **** that i will just buy it now rather than wait for a reply and loose out by sending in an offer that maybe beaten just to save a mere amount in most cases

and on the other hand its also used to encourage off ebay sales which also works as theres so many trying to save a few quid and the second a reputible looking seller says sorry i would accept that offer but sadly my ebay fees are too high so i cant, which leads to an off ebay sale , i do this and hear this regular as a buyer or me selling
i had a jacket on ebay 2 days ago with a buy now of £225.00 with best offer and i ignored 3 offers i recieved in the 1st 3hrs and it sold around th 5th hour , afterwards the bloke told me he bought it as he didnt want to loose out , so it works :P
 
tiefighterboy said:
Why bother using this option on Ebay if all you are willing to drop is $4.00 on a $200 item? This has happened twice to me. Offer $180....get counter of $196 :roll: Time waster for the seller and more so for me......****ing joke.


I totally agree with you about this Todd.

The other day I offered $40 on a $60 item. I know it was a bit low but there were other options for the same item and I wondered if he'd be interested. He came back straight away with a counter of $55! Not really much point so I said I would only go to $45 after looking at recent sales for the same item and it was accepted :D .

I do think my first offer was fairly good as these items turn up often but just reducing it by $5 really isn't worth it. Still, it all worked out in the end even if I still think I probably could have got the same item for $10 less. Sometimes I'm far to impatient! :lol:

Ian
 
i saw a moc for sale @ $35 it was on sale for 30 days still there a few weeks later i offered $17 and low behold it was accepted which i thought was odd the funny thing i meant too offer $27 i was really happy with the deal
 
Bet if you'd mis-typed the other way abd offered $37 you'd have got it too! :wink:
 
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