E-Bay Making An Offer seems to be skyrocketing!
thedutymon11
Posts: 668 ✭✭✭✭
Afternoon,
Seems nowadays that I can't watch an item on E-bay without getting a "Seller is offering % off" pitch within a day or two. Usually a 10 %-20 % discount! Now I am not really complaining, when somebody offers me something below their Auction starting price, this is a good thing! And a lot of times I take them up or counteroffer with fairly good success. I think I've made 10-15 purchases in this manner in the last 2 months.
But I had to laugh at this Clown...MHO and entitled to it. He has numerous items in the $75 dollar range, yesterday he offers me first one auction going for $78.99 with no bids a 1 % Discount to like $77.99 and the second a 2 % Discount $59.99 to $58.99!
Gonna Run the the Bank with that kinda Cash!
YeeHah!
Neil
2
Comments
Yes, these kind of promotions have been fast and furious lately. As a seller EBay will make a call that my item isn’t going to sell and apply a best offer to the listing. I have to go in and remove it or at least up the min offer I will see...
Nic
Guides Authored - Graded Card Scanning Guide PDF | History of the PSA Label PDF
Ebay is always harassing me in one way or another. They've been stuffing surveys in my inbox lately. They also stuff messages in my inbox telling me when every item I view is ending. They also have a habit of putting "recommended for you" items on my Ebay homepage. It feels like they're spying on me. They're probably sitting outside my home right now with binoculars watching me. I might have to start circling around the block every morning to shake a Ebay tail.
Usually when I raise the price of an item, it seems to sell pretty quickly shortly there after.
Free lawnmower on the curb will sit forever, put a sign above it for $10 and people will fisticuffs over it.
I started adding more items to my "Watch List" in the hopes of getting an offer from the seller. If I like their offer price I might take it -- sometimes if they allow the counter-offer I will counter with my comfortable price.
I also find it funny when the seller sends me an offer that's 1% below their asking price. What's the point?
As a seller, I've also sent offers to those watching my items (and ended up making the deal).
Yea, you get a little more notifications either in email, phone notifications, or eBay homepage (based on your browsing habits). I can live with it as long as it's pertinent to what I like.
I've noticed this, also, and am under the assumption that at least some percentage of the increase in offers are coming directly from eBay themselves, rather than just the seller. Rather than send out 15 percent off your cart coupons or 10 percent eBucks that can be used indiscriminately, eBay uses their algorithms to determine which items to "help along". I know it's worded as if the seller is the one sending the offer, but I'd almost guarantee that at least some of the time, the seller doesn't even know an offer has been made on their behalf. I could be completely wrong, but eBay's promotions have certainly changed in the last year or so, and I would assume they've just adopted a different tactic to increase sales.
I should add, the seller gets the full asking price, eBay takes the hit.
Has anyone mentioned lately about how much eBay sucks??
Ive been getting a lot of the "would you take xxx, huh, please, I can pay right now" nonsense. Well, all of my BINS require immediate payment, so yeah, you are going to pay right now, but its gotten so bad that I get multiple messages a day where people are offering to pay 25% less than I am asking and am the lowest price listed on some of the stuff
I have a couple of things that are happening;
People are offering 75% less than I am asking when I am the lowest. I just hit the refuse offer button.
Others just have to offer less even on a $5.00 item. "Would you take $4.00?" come on buddy, pony up the nickel, it's a lousy dollar. The last one I just accepted the offer and sent him the card.
When I get a really ridiculous offer on a "Make Offer" listing I immediately add that person to my BLOCKED LIST. I just don't care to do business with that person...
On the subject of best offer, I've had a new trend happen I have not seen until recently. I had always assumed, apparently incorrectly, that when including the best offer option on an auction, you'd expect to get bid offers lower than the initial starting bid amount. And for a while, the best offers on auction listings I had received were following that idea, coming in lower. But lately I've had some where the best offer was above the minimum bid. Back before there was an option to put best offer on an auction style listing, it was relatively common for people to message asking about a price that would be agreeable to ending an auction early, so I guess using the best offer on auctions is just a way of legitimizing that practice. Since best offer was traditionally a way to get a lower price on a buy-it-now listing, it had not occurred to me that the best offer on an auction listing would work in an opposite way. I'm probably just late to understanding the expectation on this, but thought I'd throw this thought out there anyway.
On Auctions with a starting bid amount and the MAKE OFFER option, I think it depends on the general consensus whether the auction would end Above the starting bid amount. For example, take an item that should normally sell for $100
If my listing has a starting bid of $30 or Make Offer, then I might send an offer of $90 because I know it should sell for around $100.
If the starting bid is $100 or Make Offer -- then I'm sending an offer below the starting bid (say $90).
So I think it's relative to the average selling price of your item vs. the starting bid amount specified.
Yes, I block them as well. Forgot to mention that.
In this situation, I think it is far easier and less time consuming to just set an automatic-decline level on your offer threshold than it is to bother with ever receiving notice of a low ball offer or taking the time to add to block list. With auto decline, it is as if they never existed in the first place.
I hate eBay enabling these for me. If I wanted best offer, I would use it. Screw you eBay.
HOF SIGNED FOOTBALL RCS
I never have a best offer on my auctions, ebay seems to put them on there for me. I don't sell much lately, and the new way of doing things caught me off guard.