Sellers Confused after eBay Changed Best Offer Flow

by: eXtinctBay

Another reason not to use Best Offer. Maybe eBay is planning to scrap it.

And why not? The less that a seller gets for an item, it affects everyone's bottom line. Except, of course, the ''cheapos'' who refuse to pay a fair market price.

Buyers should save the haggling for garage sales. Not on a site which charges (and continually increases) the high fees a seller has to pay to do business there.

by: Lightning

Wasn't this subject brought up about a month ago??  At that time, things got "changed" and the link disappeared, but I think it has been fixed.  I don't know for sure, no way of checking.  I usually don't elect to add Best Offer to listings.

by: thebobman

>Another reason not to use Best Offer. Maybe eBay is planning to scrap it.

I've got some 32GB DDR3 computer memory. Recent prices have been anywhere from $135 to $350 a stick. I have no idea what to even charge for it. I also had some CPUs where the average price dropped 30% in 2 weeks. Only reason I found out is someone made a pathetic offer. When I listed them, $95 was an average price, 2 weeks later, they were all selling for $66-$74

by: manny

Since, in its desperate panic and unlimited greed, eBay has developed its  piece of code to interfere in communication between buyers and sellers if they sniff out and mathematical figures in the messages, we all must feel sorry for eBay, they don’t make hardly enough out of their huge army of slave workers, anyway, this piece of code never worked for me; whenever a buyers decides to haggle, and I “Reply with an offer” buyers never seem to receive the offer, and I usually have to adjust the price on the item and invite buyer to make his / her offer, and as usual, C/S have no clue what you’re talking about! God help us all!

by: Chicago48

It could be a glitch.  Go to downdetector.com and see if it's reported there.

by: Windkissed

You would think if they were going to change something they would first let the sellers know so they could help the customer figure it out?????????This happened to me.  I got an email that looked like an offer and I could not respond to it.  I eould not figure out how to respond to it?  I finally had to call customer service.  That makes us sellers look ignorant and stupid.  Maybe that is what ebay is trying to do????????????

by: funkygrrl

Naw, they are just following Chad Dickerson's model from Etsy of allowing developers to experiment on the live site without informing sellers.

by: songe-d-automne

This happened to me, and since it was a percolator, which they are always in such a hurry to pull on me  - not other people - just me apparently, I had to respond quick before they pulled it.

A day later they informed me that they had "removed" my listing, lol. No, jackovs I removed it myself thank you. The lady in Texas who bought it was quite pleased with it.

by: Carlswain

i use best offer all of the time.   I have it set to automatically accept an offer of at least 75% of the asking price and to reject any of 40% or less.   This allows me to decide on offers of 41 to 74% on a case by case basis.

I just noticed that eBay counter offers on my behalf bids less than 40% at the 75% price.  

I don't object to this but didn't know that they did that.    

by: Snapped

''The less that a seller gets for an item, it affects everyone's bottom line.''

There may be a slight ripple effect....for commodities.  But it's typically localized in time, and not as 'infecting' as feared.  That's because the 'cost' of something is related to supply and demand, not individual seller tolerance for minimal profits.  Unless of course it's manipulated by something, say, such as that applied via MSRP branding control.  No 'haggling' there either.

And even if none of that applied, it's still boils down to 'competition', which can indeed be a challenging obstacle to realizing one's 'expectations'.

Incidentally, 'haggling' has been, and still remains, the primary means of trading for the whole world.  It's only a capatilist concept so (relatively recently) prevalent in the 'west' that makes it seem foreign and uncomfortable to those accoustomed to only paying price tag cost at retail.  Furthermore, most other elements in the 'supply chain' are regularly 'negotiated' too.  

What it is not though, is just a ''garage sale'' element.  And in many cases (some exampled here) it IS the best way to realize full price potential of a particular offering, particularly AT that time.  

Since supply v demand is dynamic and all that.  

Wouldn't be surprizing to see it (BO) swiss-cheesed, minimized, or obliterated eventually though, as being deemed unworthy of inclusion in eBay's ''world-view'' so heavilly marketed recently.  

Myopia rules there.  Bottom line.

by: Ina

Has anyone else noticed what Carlswain reported above about eBay making counter offers instead of rejecting offers that come in too low?

by: pebbles

Just use your mobile app to reply to offers. This has worked 100% of the time for me since this glitch started.

by: Volvo351

I don't use Best Offer; it's just another invitation to disaster. Price your item at what you can and will accept. If buyers don't like it, they can TRY to find it cheaper. My items are generally price leaders; there's no sense in asking more than what competitors ask. If I can't sell it at that price I don't list it. Put it on Craig's instead.

by: eXtinctBay

@Volvo351

Well, at least YOU agree with me! If you have the lowest price on the market, and your listing has a fair level of page views and watchers, the sale will eventually come.

Another thing about BO (which stinks like body odor)- check the feedback these lowballers leave for others. Most always, they do not hesitate to leave negative / neutral feedbacks.

The likely reason most of the time is that they attempt to negotiate another discount upon the receipt of the item, and are refused. Since the seller bent over backward to make the sale, the buyer assumes that they will also bend forward as well.

by: CNYC

So, changing something to make it more difficult for both the buyer and seller was considered productive?

Good grief.