What is your experience with ebay's Best Offer feature?

Wondo

I've started an ebay store, I'm gonna run some straight auctions, and do side sales on the BST here.

I haven't yet used ebay's Best Offer feature - do you? Is there a sound methodology for sales? Seems like one would put up a extreme price and solicit offers - is there any more to it? All input would be appreciated.

Thanks.

John

mkg809

I found that you have to price it a little high and that way you have a little wiggle room. I have had nothing but good experiences with it.

Griffins

I found it to be worthless, or worse.
It tells potential buyers that you don't expect to get the price you've offered the card at, and I would continually get offers at 10% of my price (which typically are at or slightly below what the card had sold for recently).
On the other hand, when I stopped putting the best offer on there I still got the occasional counter offer, but it was always within reason. I don't always take it, but probably do more often than not.

jimq112

You can set a default to automatically reject low offers, if you do that then you never see them. I like it.

Ironmanfan

As a buyer, I was successfully able to pick up a couple items from sellers offering that option

viking7

As a buyer I like the best offer feature. I've used this mostly on t206s and the offers I've made were fair and pretty close to the asking price. Some offers were accepted, and a few were turned down but that is ok by me. Direct negotiating saves time and I like it better than bidding overall. With 7-10 day auctions it seems like you're always waiting, with best offer you can find out usually the same day if you have a deal at your offer price or not.

storm888

As a seller, I find it not a good thing.

I have not used it lately. I still get my share
of offers. Some are accepted, most are not.

When I get lowball offers, I seldom respond.
If the offer contains an insulting message like,
"That thing ain't worth $10.00, but I'll offer $2.00
delivered, OK?," I block the buyer.

Best Offer essentially states that the seller does not
expect the item to sell at the asking price, and wants
to chat with lowballers. I am really not interested in
anything but minimum contact with EBAY's current
crop of new-buyers. I just want them to pay and allow
me to swiftly and safely deliver their items in the condition
they were promised.

I do talk to and/or email all repeat customers.

The main auctions I have been running recently are 1-centers with
free S+H to drive visitors to the stores.

Another thing that has been working is using featured
auctions with both low and higher-priced items at a reasonable
starting price. For about $25.00 for 10-days, I get MANY hundreds
of visitors. Also, an overpiced featured BIN will often sell really
fast. MANY folks think the $19.95 is a waste of money, but it
is usually not. (In fact, I cannot even compete in some categories
unless I use featured listings.)

I suspect there will be lots of card bargains in January. Diversified
sellers with several lines - and maybe several stores - will do well
in 2007, I think.

EBAY is far from dead, but most auctions no longer work as well
as they did when there were constant bidding wars in numerous
categories. Many buyers want to use the BIN and get their stuff
NOW.

storm

mosaic

Let me first say that I love Buy It Now. I'm impatient. If a BIN price isn't too too much higher than the starting bid, I'll BIN. I search eBay Stores more often than the auction listings these days!

As for Best Offer, I'm sure it's hell for sellers... but I've used it as a buyer with success. I'm no low-baller, but I do know when something is priced way too high above book. For instance, I bought an Earnhardt diecast car last month. Beckett hi is $250, low is $150. Two sellers had the same car. One wanted $300, the other $160. That didn't include shipping. In both cases, the boxes had been opened a few times and showed signs of wear. Obviously, $160 was closer to a fair price, but still a bit high given the condition of the box. So I offered $130 and it was accepted.

I'm sure that as a seller, you're going to get a bunch of chumps submitting crazy low-ball offers when they see the best offer option. But, as people have said, you can setup eBay to filter those. On the other hand, you'll also get offers from people like me, who don't necessarily want to pay the BIN price, but are thinking of a number not too far below it.

Seems like a good thing to use on cards that aren't as easy to sell. I know you wouldn't need to resort to "best offer" on anything with Mantle, Aaron, Ryan, etc. *grin*

TNP777

I use the feature fairly often as a buyer. I don't lowball, but if a seller is asking what is plainly an exhorbitant price, I will offer something that is closer to what the market is bearing. Sometimes I get, sometimes I don't. I think overall it is a good feature for eBay to have.

Geordie

storm888

"On the other hand, you'll also get offers from people like me,
who don't necessarily want to pay the BIN price, but are thinking
of a number not too far below it."

//////////////////////////////////////////////

I must agree.

On the other hand, even absent the Best Offer feature, a buyer
can still make an offer.

One challenge for sellers is that EBAY and PayPal take a huge chunk.
An item priced fairly, often does not have much room for a discount,
unless the seller just wants to get rid of the item. Also, if a seller
wants to keep selling, he/she must take in enough money to rebuy
the items that are being sold.

I do "free shipping" on everything I sell, and that is another reason
that Best Offer is really not suitable for me.

storm

Wondo

Thanks for all of the inputs about Best Offer. Keep 'em coming. I also appreciate the in depth ebay advice on all fronts.

Storm,
What is you ebay handle (i'll check storm888 in a sec)?

Thanks again!

John

grote15

I agree that the "Best Offer" feature is virtually useless as most "offers" are ridiculously low and like griffins said, the price you've set for the item is basically like telling people, "Well I'm really hoping to get this much, but if not, what can you offer me...". The BIN, on the other hand, is a useful feature, IMO, as some buyers either like the price, don't want to wait or think it's lower than it should be. It just seems better than asking buyers to "set their own BIN price" which is basically what the "best offer" option is doing.

sagard

Wondo-

I used it for the application you are likely to use it for. Selling a broken PSA set. I used it because I set my prices VERY high. I was more than happy to discount on multiple card purchases, but single card sales I didn't discount much. Unless of course I found my price too outragious after the offer came in. It also allows you to complete one sale via Ebay and do others "off" ebay once you start communicating with the human on the other side of the ebay id.

If you don't have the time or the interest to be flexible and negotiate, don't use it.

Stone193

Asking for "Best Offer" may condemn your product.

My dad was an incredible salesman - and he said - NEVER lower your price if it's fair - provide an incentive instead.

Moreover, if you provide "Best Offers" - you may wind up with stalkers.

Merry Christmas
mike

fandango

As a buyer, i dont like the trend of BUY it NOW and best offer.....

1st when you have a best offer, you can bet the buy is now price is WAY out of hand....that makes me wonder if the seller is unreasonable and/or is lying about something else about the product... whats the big deal to wait a few days on an AUCTION when you really want the card, the auctions will usually provide a better purchase price for a buyer (more likely to bid on that )

when there is a outrageous Asking price, i dont bother sending in an offer because most of the time, the seller is looking for WAY more than the card is worth...

i think ebay should lower the AUCTION fees, then maybe they will get some more of these and increase sales (so many BIN and best offers stuff goes unsold it seems)..

with buy it now, many times the price is not realized becasue of lack of interest, but if the same item was put up for .99 , then it actually may reach that "BIN" price or go past it due to more bidding interest

with auctions, buyers can gauge the popularity of items, with BIN, you cant.....

and last thing i hate about bin BEST OFFER....you cant snipE!

viking7

The bottom line with both "best offer" and "buy it now" is that both options give buyers and sellers a chance to get a sale at a price they want. With an auction that starts at .99 you never know what will happen. If the item is a hot seller then things may work out great, but if the item is one where only limited buyers exist then why risk it as a seller? All the different ways of selling can be beneficial, the key is picking
the style that works for a given item.

cardbender

I've received quite a few offers in my ebay store but never on a ebay auction type listing. Some were low ball offers and some were reasonable and we made the deal. So it does occasionaly
work out.

I guess it all depends on the offer being within a ballpark amount
of what that item usually sells for.

MooseDog

I've had tremendous success selling PSA graded commons with the Best Offer feature. Since none of what I have been selling lately could be considered "hot" I would just list at SMR and depending on the issue, expect to sell if offers were 75-80% of SMR.

Despite what others have said, a good majority of the cards sell at SMR, and I would say the ratio of low ball offers to fair ones is relatively low and not that much trouble to deal with. Now that there are two new features to Best Offer - automatic decline and counter offer, I think that this is even a better tool for my kind of selling.

gregm13

I love the "Best Offer" feature...even more now that you're able to make a counter-offer. Kudos for E-Bay.

Greg M.

themetalsign

Most of the time 10-20% off of BIN price gets me my cards if I make a best offer. Only if the seller's prices are reasonable to begin with though. Some of these guys are so overpriced it ridiculous.